This article was written by The Zillennial Zine’s fall editorial intern Alayna Thomas. Find her on Instagram at @ratatoolie. If you would like to share an article with The Zillennial, send us an email at thezillennialzine@gmail.com.
Sometimes my anxiety makes me feel like an outcast. My friends love having mini photoshoots when we get together, but I always get a rush of panic when they happen. I can’t and don’t post often because my brain treats curating the perfect Instagram carousel as a life or death matter. I have terrible anxiety when posting on social media.
A common joke that I have seen people make on social media is that they have a fear of being perceived. They get nervous when posting online because these posts influence someone’s perception of you. Or, they don’t want their content to go outside of their close circle because those people do not have any context about you. I understand this completely— this is why I am so wary of posting online. What if people misconstrue my words? What if I get negative attention?
The formal word for the fear of being perceived is scopophobia. Technically, it refers to the fear of being stared or looked at, feeling as if you are being scrutinized or observed very closely. Scopophobia itself is not a mental condition but is an anxiety disorder or a phobia. As someone with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, scopophobia has definitely fallen under that ‘general’ umbrella.
Now, when I tell people that I have Generalized Anxiety and struggle specifically with scopophobia, they are shocked. I was too when my doctor told me I scored high for anxiety. I’m not shy. I speak up for myself and will approach strangers. I enjoy going out to events and partying. This is also why I was in denial of having something like scopophobia, even though I can clearly see how I struggled with it and continue to do so until this day.
The thing with this fear is that it’s not always connected to a traumatic incident, even though it can be. I didn’t have a physical ailment or highly visible scars that contributed to my fear of being looked at. Nor was I bullied or treated completely differently for my looks. However, as I have gotten older and have gotten into therapy, I have gotten to the bottom of my fear. At the same time, I also realized that I was always looking for ways to combat my fear, even if I didn’t know it.
I developed fast for a child. I was tall for my age and I was more shapely than my peers. This is what brought on much negative attention. Even though I was not bullied or body shamed by my peers and family, I distinctly remember being catcalled as a child. I subconsciously would find ways to make myself smaller and take up less space because I did not want people to look at me. I would purposefully wear baggy shirts and minimizing bras to try to quell the attention as well.
This want to not have people look at me extended to online as well. It became a running joke amongst my friends about how I would archive posts or rarely post. Whenever I would be asked about it, I would just brush it off and say that social media wasn’t my thing. And I won’t lie, it still completely is not my thing; I am proud of how low my screen time on my apps are. But, my dislike for not posting wasn’t a mere dislike, it was an irrational fear.
At the same time, in real life I was taking steps with being more comfortable having positive attention on me. In eighth grade, I joined my school’s speech and debate team. Somehow, my dislike for drawing and painting classes overtook my scopophobia. Part of participating on the team was going to tournaments. So, I wouldn’t just be publicly speaking in front of my teammates, I would be competing against other students in and around New York City.
I slowly became more and more comfortable with competing and I eventually made it to the state and national level for different speech events! Participating on the speech and debate team allowed me to continue finding my voice and be comfortable with commanding attention when I walk in a room.
As an adult, I still take those lessons I learned with me. When I was a child, I struggled to make eye contact. Now, I maintain eye contact even when the other person breaks it. When I feel a pair of eyes on me, I look back. Usually the other person offers a slight smile. I return it.
Unfortunately, this hasn’t translated completely to my fear of being perceived online. When in person, things are more predictable. Communication is instantaneous and I can better control how others view me. Likewise, I am only presenting myself to a few people when in person. If I make a post online, millions of people can view me. And that is exactly what happened. Around 7 million, at the time of this article.
In September of this year, I made a TikTok video based on a Close Friends story post that I made. I said that I found it very odd that multiple people were found deceased in Williamsburg under similar circumstances. A few friends said that I should make a public post, and I thought ‘why not’. I didn’t even try to spruce up my appearance, I just sat up on my couch and hit record.
After that, I gained a few thousand followers and have uploaded other videos, another one has a few hundred thousand. I’m nowhere near being a bonafide content creator (I don’t post enough to be one), but the reception I have garnered on these videos taught me a few things.
First, I learned that negative comments are not the end of the world. We tend to over-focus on negative events rather than positive ones. It’s okay if a few people say something rude. For every bad comment I received, there were 20 positive comments drowning it out.
I’m also learning to let go and understanding that the only person that I am in control of is me. As long as I am comfortable with myself and feel like I represented myself accurately, screw what anyone else thinks. Again, there will be people who agree or will leave positive comments!
One recent creator that inspired me to try to combat my anxiety is Jools Lebron. If you don’t know, she is the reason why the word ‘demure’ infiltrated our speech and was picked as Dictionary.com’s word of the year. She recently described how before making the video, she was struggling at her job and was about to give up on creating makeup videos. Then, she randomly decided to record herself saying that she was very demure and very mindful, and the rest is history.
Lebron ended her video by sternly encouraging us viewers to stop doubting ourselves and to make our content. She’s right. Even writing for this publication was challenging at times because I would doubt myself. But, as I have gotten more comfortable writing, the doubt has become smaller and smaller.
If you struggle with the idea of being scrutinized and having people look at you, that’s okay. Just take day by day, and find small situations to get yourself out of your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to ask for extra condiments at a fast food counter. Try talking to that one coworker (you know which one). Post a short video on your thoughts about some reality tv show. You could be the next Jools Lebron! Even if you aren’t, it is more freeing to go through life without caring about who’s watching.
Do you have anxiety when posting on social media? Are you scared of being perceived? Are you working on overcoming this fear? Let us know in the comments below!
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