This is so real. Just today I wrote in a semi-public space about the pressures of a public professionalism. Being consumed is exhausting. Being consumed in the imagined effigies of other people's projections is just .weird. And I'm not even famous.
Dude that hookup story is my fucking nightmare!! I honestly got paranoid as hell over the last couple years and had to disappear from social media entirely.
Parasociality is extremely horrifying and also feels unavoidable to me, idk how to deal with it.
I would 100% read your influencer serial killer novel, a bunch of horror movies have come out in that niche recently and I’ve been following along. have you seen Sissy and Spree? They’re my faves in that subgenre, maybe you would like.
I will have to check that out as research! I still need to watch Ingrid Goes West, too, which seems tangentially relevant to a lot of things I'm interested in.
It feels validating to hear that you have also been extremely bugged out by the social exposure of...all of this. It really sucks that you've also felt those feelings. But it does make me feel like less of an insane crybaby about it. I worry I'm just complaining about success in the most oblivious, entitled way, sometimes. And yeah, thanks for saying that hookup story was scary. It's really rattled me on multiple levels, in multiple areas of life.... yeesh.
“ Human beings are so disposable that we long only to become a valuable product.”
This line struck me. I have long thought that community is more important than friendship, even though we need both. I love the idea of small groups of us looking after each other even those we don’t like. Rather than desperately trying to be likeable in order to survive.
Stephanie Land, who has written two
Memoirs, one of which was adapted into the netflix tv show MAID, has written about the problem of small scale celebrity on her substack also, from the perspective of being a survivor of domestic abuse.
I think we as a public need to grapple with this problem. I find it shocking the aggressive lack of compassion most non-famous people have for the way famous people are treated. Another example is Prince Harry who details it in his memoir. He was literally born into it, famous as soon as he was conceived, so there is no argument that he brought it on himself. Which is not an argument that holds any weight anyway.
I take your comments on community further. Community is a survival need, along with food, water, shelter, etc. Modern civilization has moved us away from functional communities. I’m working on rebuilding them in my little corner of the world. My mental health is rebuilding along with these efforts. I’m not sure how far my spicy brain can go with this. But I’m trying.
I agree—you’re destroying your brand. The author of this blog sounds like a completely different person than the author of Unmasking Autism, with a starkly different psyche. If you want to get away from the published “Dr. Devon Price”, you’re definitely succeeding. It’s honestly hard to see how the term “autism” is even relevant here. But maybe you’ll be happier writing fiction.
Ooooh this piece was so good but I'm sorry for the horrific date experience--I fully out loud went "oh NOOOOO."
I so completely agree with you about the celebrity stuff tho. Like, have I been obsessive about celebrities when I've been lonely? Yeah, but in my opinion, if you really respect or admire a person, you respect their boundaries--you respect their humanity.
I wish that'd been more of the conversation when Doja, I think, was CLEARLY trying to communicate that when she was hostile to fan accounts. But no, everyone just said she was just a crazy lady. Blech.
Not to mention--I think everyone is entitled to leave their Worksona AT WORK. It feels like capitalism's never-ending creep into every corner of life. I'm a teacher, and I don't teach in the same town where I live, because I dread like no other the thought of running into a student when I'm wearing my thotty adult clothes or being high or something. I've also had to be so careful about what is allowed to be public online--and even then I've STILL had students find me. It fucking sucks and makes you feel so vulnerable and powerless.
Which like, is fucked, because I do not get paid to be a 24/7 Paragon of Propriety/Role Model for The Youth. If you ask me, you get Professional, Appropriate Mx. Themma during school hours, and they don't exist outside of it. I like to imagine one of those like huge cylinders with liquid that would like preserve an alien at night.
My work is the only path I’ve found where I feel somewhat seen and understood. But the narratives about my life that other’s minds project onto me are never an accurate reflection of me. So I’m left never feeling truly connected with anyone.
Have been reading Unlearning Shame, popped over here, and saw this pinned.
Damn it was really dark.
Cosmic horror is right. Sorry you're dealing with this startling, dehumanizing lack of empathy.
Reading some of the comments, I wonder if a follow-up piece is in order where you give a how-to on not being recognized as an author. As an aspiring writer myself, a little influence sounds nice, but it would be a nightmare to be approached in public.
So I wonder what steps you might have taken differently while you were growing your audience had you known that this might be the end result.
Am I doing enough by not using my photo as an avatar or doing anything with Instagram or publishing my podcast on YouTube? Spooky to think about.
I think if you don't have a large social media presence involving photos or videos of you, you are probably (probably!) going to be okay. You might achieve some notoriety in local literary scenes depending on how you interact with them, and if you blow up to meteoric fame some people will know you by your photo, but that's pretty rare.
Thank you for sharing your experience so openly and honestly, I know it sucks, and it also makes me feel less alone. I've been reflecting on the last 10 years of having thousands think they know me, the repeated projections and digital/interpersonal violence that have occurred, and the dehumanization I have experienced over and over. It's really draining and isolating, terrible for the traumatized brain, and it's made me not want to do my "work" even though I used to love it. Trying to recalibrate. I'm sorry this has happened to you, and everyone else. It's not ok.
Thank you so much for writing this. I got my Master’s in Creative Writing 5 years ago now, and have done literally nothing with it. There are a number of reasons for this, but a big one is what you are talking about here. Yes, i am afraid of the negative side of being in the spotlight -- another autistic author i follow recently shared a post about a terrible experience they had with aggressive blowback they had from a post they shared (think: being targeted and harassed by someone with more power than they have). This scares the shit out of me. But so does what you are talking about here. I don’t want people I don’t know to recognize me, have thoughts/feelings about me, whatever, even if they are all “positive” and admiring. It feels intrinsically unsafe. As another reader mentioned earlier, it would be fundamentally hostile to my nervous system. So it feels very validating to read your (and readers’) experiences with this, to know that my autistic prediction brain isn’t catastrophizing, it’s dead on.
I’m not sure what exactly to do with this information, because like you I need to write for my brain to be okay. And like another reader posted, I also feel the yearning to contribute to my community and be recognized for what I have to offer -- not as some kind of special rock star but one thread among many who all have something beautiful to share in a space of belonging. This feels like a pretty primal human need -- along with the need you describe to be animal, to be pre-verbal, pre-human. Anyways yeah, i don’t know exactly what to do about to try to get all these different needs met but it’s always helpful to start with a more accurate picture of the situation, in this case by having my theories confirmed by someone with direct experience... thank you again!
ugh. this pops into my feed just as i’m typing to multiple friends about how becoming a local-level micro-celeb in the LA Trans community has destroyed my sanity. i’ve never felt so cured of the desire for fame and attention. pair it with transmisogyny and i just wanna fuckin go into hiding.
so i relate with what you’re feeling and i hope you can find the peace and safety you deserve.
Relatable and I only ever had 7k or so followers on a meme account. When people started recognising me in the street including random strangers saying stuff like "I paid for your top surgery!" (I had a crowdfunding) I knew it was time to stop. Also had a few people obsess over me and not tell me they already had a parasocial relationship with me before forming an irl one... anyway do whatever works best for you x
My following is much smaller than yours and I’ve only ever been “recognized” by a stranger in my neighborhood once, and then only after I introduced myself by name. But honestly this is one of the biggest impediments to my wanting to write a book—I’m just pretty sure my nervous system can’t endure doing publicity and interviews and all the shit—I am such a hermit and most of the time never leave my house. What I wish is that 1) I could share ideas that seem to be helpful to other people and 2) actually begin to even come close to supporting myself financially—but if I could do those things without ever showing my face and never being perceived, I would be so happy.
I’m sorry about that hook up experience, that sounds incredibly violating.
I sometimes think about the way people try to control others online, and I suspect it might be because, when we read things on the internet written by others, we do so using our own voice. The voices of others are our own voice. So, when we see someone saying or doing something we don't like, it sets off this visceral reaction. Like, we can't tolerate this other person and their differences. We have to divert and control their voice back in line with our own inner voice, who we imagine they actually are (they are us). In real life, people aren't as streamlined and flattened as they are online, so our relationships with them are a lot more grounded in their individuality and differences from us. To form a relationship with someone in reality means having to navigate the inherent gap between us and them. The problem isn't that the internet makes us too alienated and detached from one another; it is that it brings us too close together.
This has been my journey for the past six of my fourteen years of online fame and a niche fame in urban planning. The level of grounding I have to do is similar. And I’m just grateful that the fan that I intend to marry repeatedly tells me that she would love me as Kristen and not my blog name or anything else.
But before we reconnected I felt terribly alone and I spent years trying to find people who would understand what I was doing. Then I went through the guilt of missing years from being so laser focused on my career and espousing such a narrow point of view.
It’s a process and I just want to say these last few newsletters of yours have been brilliant and I think they show that it’s possible to have a variety of life.
Oh and I’m learning how to use that block button hard. I do hope that your IRLs/3 ams as my partner and I call them continue to hold you down and your solitude in nature brings you all the peace you deserve.
This may sound awful but sensitivity / compassion / empathy are not words that I feel when reading you. I follow you because you make me deeply uncomfortable in complex ways with pretty much everything that you say. You are discomforting. This is intended as a compliment for what that’s worth.
I’m sorry about that encounter - that’s violating and very fucked up.
I was just trying to work out how to word this feeling, so thank you for posting this comment. Every post I've read here has been complex, and disturbing in a good way.
This is so real. Just today I wrote in a semi-public space about the pressures of a public professionalism. Being consumed is exhausting. Being consumed in the imagined effigies of other people's projections is just .weird. And I'm not even famous.
Dude that hookup story is my fucking nightmare!! I honestly got paranoid as hell over the last couple years and had to disappear from social media entirely.
Parasociality is extremely horrifying and also feels unavoidable to me, idk how to deal with it.
I would 100% read your influencer serial killer novel, a bunch of horror movies have come out in that niche recently and I’ve been following along. have you seen Sissy and Spree? They’re my faves in that subgenre, maybe you would like.
I will have to check that out as research! I still need to watch Ingrid Goes West, too, which seems tangentially relevant to a lot of things I'm interested in.
It feels validating to hear that you have also been extremely bugged out by the social exposure of...all of this. It really sucks that you've also felt those feelings. But it does make me feel like less of an insane crybaby about it. I worry I'm just complaining about success in the most oblivious, entitled way, sometimes. And yeah, thanks for saying that hookup story was scary. It's really rattled me on multiple levels, in multiple areas of life.... yeesh.
“ Human beings are so disposable that we long only to become a valuable product.”
This line struck me. I have long thought that community is more important than friendship, even though we need both. I love the idea of small groups of us looking after each other even those we don’t like. Rather than desperately trying to be likeable in order to survive.
Stephanie Land, who has written two
Memoirs, one of which was adapted into the netflix tv show MAID, has written about the problem of small scale celebrity on her substack also, from the perspective of being a survivor of domestic abuse.
I think we as a public need to grapple with this problem. I find it shocking the aggressive lack of compassion most non-famous people have for the way famous people are treated. Another example is Prince Harry who details it in his memoir. He was literally born into it, famous as soon as he was conceived, so there is no argument that he brought it on himself. Which is not an argument that holds any weight anyway.
I take your comments on community further. Community is a survival need, along with food, water, shelter, etc. Modern civilization has moved us away from functional communities. I’m working on rebuilding them in my little corner of the world. My mental health is rebuilding along with these efforts. I’m not sure how far my spicy brain can go with this. But I’m trying.
I agree—you’re destroying your brand. The author of this blog sounds like a completely different person than the author of Unmasking Autism, with a starkly different psyche. If you want to get away from the published “Dr. Devon Price”, you’re definitely succeeding. It’s honestly hard to see how the term “autism” is even relevant here. But maybe you’ll be happier writing fiction.
Extimacy is a bitch.
The new novel sounds amazing. People suck. Thanks for sharing. Makes one think twice about being a public figure.
Ooooh this piece was so good but I'm sorry for the horrific date experience--I fully out loud went "oh NOOOOO."
I so completely agree with you about the celebrity stuff tho. Like, have I been obsessive about celebrities when I've been lonely? Yeah, but in my opinion, if you really respect or admire a person, you respect their boundaries--you respect their humanity.
I wish that'd been more of the conversation when Doja, I think, was CLEARLY trying to communicate that when she was hostile to fan accounts. But no, everyone just said she was just a crazy lady. Blech.
Not to mention--I think everyone is entitled to leave their Worksona AT WORK. It feels like capitalism's never-ending creep into every corner of life. I'm a teacher, and I don't teach in the same town where I live, because I dread like no other the thought of running into a student when I'm wearing my thotty adult clothes or being high or something. I've also had to be so careful about what is allowed to be public online--and even then I've STILL had students find me. It fucking sucks and makes you feel so vulnerable and powerless.
Which like, is fucked, because I do not get paid to be a 24/7 Paragon of Propriety/Role Model for The Youth. If you ask me, you get Professional, Appropriate Mx. Themma during school hours, and they don't exist outside of it. I like to imagine one of those like huge cylinders with liquid that would like preserve an alien at night.
My work is the only path I’ve found where I feel somewhat seen and understood. But the narratives about my life that other’s minds project onto me are never an accurate reflection of me. So I’m left never feeling truly connected with anyone.
Have been reading Unlearning Shame, popped over here, and saw this pinned.
Damn it was really dark.
Cosmic horror is right. Sorry you're dealing with this startling, dehumanizing lack of empathy.
Reading some of the comments, I wonder if a follow-up piece is in order where you give a how-to on not being recognized as an author. As an aspiring writer myself, a little influence sounds nice, but it would be a nightmare to be approached in public.
So I wonder what steps you might have taken differently while you were growing your audience had you known that this might be the end result.
Am I doing enough by not using my photo as an avatar or doing anything with Instagram or publishing my podcast on YouTube? Spooky to think about.
I think if you don't have a large social media presence involving photos or videos of you, you are probably (probably!) going to be okay. You might achieve some notoriety in local literary scenes depending on how you interact with them, and if you blow up to meteoric fame some people will know you by your photo, but that's pretty rare.
Thank you for sharing your experience so openly and honestly, I know it sucks, and it also makes me feel less alone. I've been reflecting on the last 10 years of having thousands think they know me, the repeated projections and digital/interpersonal violence that have occurred, and the dehumanization I have experienced over and over. It's really draining and isolating, terrible for the traumatized brain, and it's made me not want to do my "work" even though I used to love it. Trying to recalibrate. I'm sorry this has happened to you, and everyone else. It's not ok.
Thank you so much for writing this. I got my Master’s in Creative Writing 5 years ago now, and have done literally nothing with it. There are a number of reasons for this, but a big one is what you are talking about here. Yes, i am afraid of the negative side of being in the spotlight -- another autistic author i follow recently shared a post about a terrible experience they had with aggressive blowback they had from a post they shared (think: being targeted and harassed by someone with more power than they have). This scares the shit out of me. But so does what you are talking about here. I don’t want people I don’t know to recognize me, have thoughts/feelings about me, whatever, even if they are all “positive” and admiring. It feels intrinsically unsafe. As another reader mentioned earlier, it would be fundamentally hostile to my nervous system. So it feels very validating to read your (and readers’) experiences with this, to know that my autistic prediction brain isn’t catastrophizing, it’s dead on.
I’m not sure what exactly to do with this information, because like you I need to write for my brain to be okay. And like another reader posted, I also feel the yearning to contribute to my community and be recognized for what I have to offer -- not as some kind of special rock star but one thread among many who all have something beautiful to share in a space of belonging. This feels like a pretty primal human need -- along with the need you describe to be animal, to be pre-verbal, pre-human. Anyways yeah, i don’t know exactly what to do about to try to get all these different needs met but it’s always helpful to start with a more accurate picture of the situation, in this case by having my theories confirmed by someone with direct experience... thank you again!
ugh. this pops into my feed just as i’m typing to multiple friends about how becoming a local-level micro-celeb in the LA Trans community has destroyed my sanity. i’ve never felt so cured of the desire for fame and attention. pair it with transmisogyny and i just wanna fuckin go into hiding.
so i relate with what you’re feeling and i hope you can find the peace and safety you deserve.
Relatable and I only ever had 7k or so followers on a meme account. When people started recognising me in the street including random strangers saying stuff like "I paid for your top surgery!" (I had a crowdfunding) I knew it was time to stop. Also had a few people obsess over me and not tell me they already had a parasocial relationship with me before forming an irl one... anyway do whatever works best for you x
My following is much smaller than yours and I’ve only ever been “recognized” by a stranger in my neighborhood once, and then only after I introduced myself by name. But honestly this is one of the biggest impediments to my wanting to write a book—I’m just pretty sure my nervous system can’t endure doing publicity and interviews and all the shit—I am such a hermit and most of the time never leave my house. What I wish is that 1) I could share ideas that seem to be helpful to other people and 2) actually begin to even come close to supporting myself financially—but if I could do those things without ever showing my face and never being perceived, I would be so happy.
I’m sorry about that hook up experience, that sounds incredibly violating.
I sometimes think about the way people try to control others online, and I suspect it might be because, when we read things on the internet written by others, we do so using our own voice. The voices of others are our own voice. So, when we see someone saying or doing something we don't like, it sets off this visceral reaction. Like, we can't tolerate this other person and their differences. We have to divert and control their voice back in line with our own inner voice, who we imagine they actually are (they are us). In real life, people aren't as streamlined and flattened as they are online, so our relationships with them are a lot more grounded in their individuality and differences from us. To form a relationship with someone in reality means having to navigate the inherent gap between us and them. The problem isn't that the internet makes us too alienated and detached from one another; it is that it brings us too close together.
This has been my journey for the past six of my fourteen years of online fame and a niche fame in urban planning. The level of grounding I have to do is similar. And I’m just grateful that the fan that I intend to marry repeatedly tells me that she would love me as Kristen and not my blog name or anything else.
But before we reconnected I felt terribly alone and I spent years trying to find people who would understand what I was doing. Then I went through the guilt of missing years from being so laser focused on my career and espousing such a narrow point of view.
It’s a process and I just want to say these last few newsletters of yours have been brilliant and I think they show that it’s possible to have a variety of life.
Oh and I’m learning how to use that block button hard. I do hope that your IRLs/3 ams as my partner and I call them continue to hold you down and your solitude in nature brings you all the peace you deserve.
This may sound awful but sensitivity / compassion / empathy are not words that I feel when reading you. I follow you because you make me deeply uncomfortable in complex ways with pretty much everything that you say. You are discomforting. This is intended as a compliment for what that’s worth.
I’m sorry about that encounter - that’s violating and very fucked up.
This is great to hear, honestly. It's more in line with how I see myself than what I regularly hear.
I was just trying to work out how to word this feeling, so thank you for posting this comment. Every post I've read here has been complex, and disturbing in a good way.