Being Perceived Online Is Exhausting (But I Keep Doing It Anyway)

By Ken Hollow, professional ghost on LinkedIn and full-time internet burnout.

Every morning I wake up, open my eyes, and immediately remember that I exist on the internet. It’s like clockwork: a deeply unfortunate Pavlovian response to the buzz of my phone lighting up with the notification that someone commented, “🔥 mommy” on a post I scheduled for an AI fox girl at 2 a.m.

And before you ask: yes, I did reply. With a fox emoji. Because I crave validation.

That’s where we’re at.

Being perceived online is exhausting, degrading, sometimes profitable, often spiritually empty, and yet here I am: writing a 1,500-word blog post for six readers and a confused Bing crawler.

Welcome to the creator experience.

The Performance of Being a Person

Let’s be honest: being a content creator in 2025 isn’t just about making things. It’s about performing a palatable version of yourself every single day, across ten platforms, while pretending you’re not internally screaming like a kettle on a stove.

Your job isn’t just to create anymore.

It’s to:

• Have opinions, but not too many
• Look hot, but effortlessly
• Be authentic, but only the marketable parts
• Be available, but pretend you value boundaries
• And god forbid you post at the wrong hour or your engagement rate drops like your will to live

Some mornings I stare at my reflection and think, “Is this what I actually look like, or is this just bad lighting and algorithmic rejection?”

Everyone Is a Brand Now

You can’t just be you anymore. That’s illegal. You need a digital identity. A niche. A tone. A persona.

I didn’t want to become a brand. I wanted to write weird, unhinged blog posts, maybe wear a turtleneck, and drink overpriced coffee while screaming into a void.

Instead, I’m Ken Hollow™, professional burnout-influencer-manager, brand voice consultant, and reluctant main character of this SEO-optimized trauma dump.

Every time I post something, a little part of me whispers, “This is who you are now. Forever. Indexed by Google.”

I haven’t been truly alone in years. I’ve just been temporarily offline.

The Weight of Constant Visibility

Here’s a thing no one talks about enough: even the illusion of being seen is exhausting.

When you post, you become vulnerable to:

• Praise (fleeting, addictive)
• Criticism (personal, existential)
• Silence (the worst one)

You don’t just post and walk away. You wait. You obsess. You check analytics like you’re looking for omens in chicken bones.

And when nothing happens? You feel like a ghost in your own feed.

It’s not enough to share anymore. You have to matter. Or at least perform like you do.

Creator Mental Health: We Are Not Okay

Let’s be real. No amount of digital detox or ocean-themed journaling apps can undo the psychological gymnastics we perform daily to appear “fine” online.

Content creators are:

• Chronically overworked
• Emotionally overstimulated
• Financially unstable
• Publicly dissected

And yet we keep going. Why? Because we’re too deep into the ecosystem. We’ve replaced community with metrics. Self-worth with reach.

We’ve become:

dopamine-fueled idea vending machines that glitch when they rest.

Authenticity Is a Commodity Now

You know what’s worse than pretending to be perfect? Pretending to be relatable.

Nothing is real anymore. Not even vulnerability.

• Crying selfie? Engagement bait.
• Mental health day? Branded.
• “Taking a break”? Algorithmically punished.

I once scheduled a meme about burnout while having a breakdown. The post did great. My central nervous system? Not so much.

We’re expected to share just enough of ourselves to be compelling, but not so much that we alienate, offend, or god forbid, make people uncomfortable.

And Yet… I Keep Doing It

Why?

Because despite all of this, there is something undeniably compelling about creating.

Even when I’m exhausted, I love:

• Building a world around a sarcastic fox girl
• Seeing one person comment, “this made me laugh, thanks”
• Watching a weird, unhinged post find its tiny, chaotic audience

There’s magic in that. It’s just buried under three layers of algorithmic trauma and one very aggressive SEO plugin.

Also, let’s be honest: some of us don’t know how to exist without doing this anymore.

I don’t just post online. I live here.

How I Cope (Barely)

Here are a few things that sometimes keep me from launching my laptop out a window:

• Mute metrics: You don’t need to check your likes every 8 seconds. Trust me, they’re not going to change.
• Schedule content, not your soul: Automate posts so you can take a walk, touch grass, or cry uninterrupted.
• Find a community, not an audience: Talk to other creators. Vent. Share unhinged memes. Human connection helps.
• Set “unseen” hours: Make parts of your life just for you. Not everything has to be content.

Final Thoughts From a Glorified Internet Jester

The internet will always want more from you. More content. More vulnerability. More performance.

But you? You’re a whole person. Not a profile.

So post when you want to. Log off when you need to. And if being perceived feels like too much…

Just remember: you can always schedule the chaos and take a nap.

I do it all the time.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish editing a reel of Nana Vix pretending to cut mochi in slow motion while I write a panic-fueled meta description about creator burnout.

Because I may be tired of being perceived online. But I still want the algorithm to know I tried.

Ken Hollow is a daily blogger, reluctant influencer, and full-time freelance existentialist. He blogs not because he wants to be seen, but because the site would look empty without him.