There Are No Haters, It’s Fictional Noise

I am proud to be one of those people that will never come online to be saying I have “haters”. In fact, I even judge people that sing about their enemies and haters all day. You know the ones I am talking about. The ones subbing someone through their Instagram stories. The ones shouting “I move in silence” every day to let us know they are discreet about a “big” reveal that is coming. Those ones.

I may laugh at them, but I am not that different. (The main difference is that you will never ever ever catch me shouting about imaginary haters online sha. That one is a special type of madness. Sorry if it applies to you. Change today.)

Ehen, what I mean by that statement is that I must admit that I tend to consider the thoughts of both real and imaginary outsiders when I make the decision to create. These days I find myself second guessing whether to post something or whether to share something. I find myself asking questions like:

• What if someone thinks it’s cringe?
• What if they don’t get the joke?
• What if they judge how my background looks?

When I first started creating content, I never for a second considered what others would think. My approval of my work was enough for me. If I thought it was amazing, that was it. I used to pride myself in this type of delusional and powerful self-confidence. (It is this type of delusion that used to have rocking some questionable outfits though.) And them somewhere down the line, I began to consume more social media.

Actually, what happened was that I started to think of myself as a content creator and not just Renny. When I first started writing, creating recipes, and creating comedic videos, I did not consider them a “career path”. I did not have one single goal. When I hit 10,000 followers on Instagram on my @bitesbyrenny page, it was completely accidental and funny. In fact, I only opened that food account because I was living alone for the first time and I wanted to show off my cooking skills to someone. Anyone. Just SOMEBODY. I posted one blurry picture of a spaghetti stir-fry. Someone comments on how delicious it looked, and next thing you know there were other food bloggers who were taking me seriously.

The first “husband material audition” video I created was filmed in 10 minutes after I finished packing up my apartment and moving my things to storage. In fact, it was a box that held my phone. After a long day of tedious packing and mourning the end of my fabulous apartment era, I remembered that I had a funny joke to tell. Next thing you know it becomes a 10-part series.

Why am I reminiscing? Partially to brag (I kid, I kid). But to drive my point home that my creative juices used to flow when I was creating in a vacuum devoid of outside noises. I didn’t used to consider how others would perceive me. I also didn’t used to worry about whether or not I would be “failing” because the point was just to get the work out there. It was just to get the recipe out there. It was just to get the joke out there. But now that there are more eyes on my accounts, I think I invented this worry that people are looking at me and thinking about my work with more scrutiny. I know this surely cannot be true because in this economy, I want to believe that people have other things to worry about.

I am now in a phase of life where I want to purse my creative endeavors with more discipline and more rigor and the thought of failing – even if it’s just a little bit SCARES ME a lot. Let me even share a story with you.

So as I keep shamelessly plugging, I created a YouTube fiction series right? Honestly, it was the first time I really wanted to create something for others to like and not just me. I spent weeks promoting this work. As the sole writer, editor, and producers (it’s giving Tyler Perry init), I wanted other people to be proud of me and give me the many praises I was so used to easily receiving on social media. Omo, I was quite humbled at the loud silence I got when I opened my mouth to ask for support. For the first time, in my content creation path, I set out to actually do something where I centered people’s approval of it and when I did not get the reception I thought I would receive, it did something inside me. I was casually telling a friend that I recently decided to focus on YouTube long-form content, and you know what she innocently responded with? “Whew, I feel like the YouTube era is dead, so I am focusing more on TikTok girl”.

What a wow! Can you imagine? Here I was stepping down from my high horse to beg for some views, and my own friends were gently saying they don’t even go to the venue I am inviting them to. It is well. LOL.

She meant no harm by that statement though. I am sure she will not remember she even made that comment.

Anyway, where am I going with this rambling? Let’s just say that it has been a humbling experience to actually now want your content to go farther than you initially planned and I am now having to relearn to just create art with me as the primary audience in mind. When I silence the imaginary voices of disapproval, I do like my work and I am having to accept that that might be enough. Maybe if I go back to just needed only myself to clap for myself then I would be more consistent and actually create more wonderful works.

If you made it this far into this post, then you deserve praise and cheering.

Thanks for reading!

Renny