Everyone is an expert – especially on social media.
They’re all telling me the same things in different quick cuts with gazes that look into my soul. And I can’t stop watching.
The books I need to read right now. How to change my life to be smarter, hotter, chic-er. Habits that will make me more productive than ever. The formula to becoming a millionaire and living my “dreams.” The random leg exercise that’ll fix my hip pain. The holy-grail skincare product above all else. It goes on.
As a creator, I considered myself a so-called “expert” in my own niches and in my own ways. I’m smart, right? I can do this. I read a lot of books; I drink a lot of matcha; I have an organized Notion, therefore I’m a productivity expert; I experienced burnout, therefore I know to give the advice that people should relax. I understand the need to create value for your audience. Social media has become too saturated that it’s simply not enough to go viral on looks and vibes and aesthetics alone.
This is (hypothetically) great for everyone. I’ve definitely learned a thing or two from these kinds of posts (wow! that is a really good hidden gem restaurant in NYC!). From a creators perspective, it forces us to take more creative risks – to learn how to connect with people and how to tell a story. We are promoting knowledge and education! Un-gatekeep your secrets! What a wonderful thing!
However.
The older I get, the more uncertain I become.
I created “how-to” posts when I was a teenager – confidently! – sharing my note-taking methods, productivity tips, and other things I deemed myself an expert in. But truth be told, those were things I tried for a few weeks (or months at most) before giving up. Or even things I aspired to do, but never tested or did. They were jackets worn and borrowed, before returned to the back of my closet.
I see my teenage self in many of these so-called experts that show up on my algorithm. But it’s no longer a question of time or “true” expertise. It doesn’t matter how long you tried this method, this habit, this thing. You could’ve watched a 10 minute YouTube video, skimmed a self-help book, and regurgitated those ideas in your own words back to me in this 30-second Reel that’s showing up on my phone. You could literally just read a Substack article you found, but not really add anything new to what the author was saying.
Or you could’ve really tried these things for years and honed in on it. Be what many would call an actual expert! You were paid to do this thing for decades. And now you talk about it online for free. That’s amazing! What is more expert than that?
But even then, I speculate. How can you be so certain that the answers of your ideas will fit in the questions of my life?
These days, I have more questions than ever. I lay in the debris of things I used to believe were unchangeable truths. The only certainty I have is the world’s unwavering fluidity and my infinite lack of knowledge.
Recently, I attended an event for Ken Liu, who wrote The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories, The Dandelion Dynasty, and most recently, The Passing of the Dragon and Other Stories.
I had the opportunity to interview him a few years ago and remember feeling such respect and admiration for the wisdom he holds. He reframed ideas in ways I never thought of before and simultaneously articulated feelings I didn’t know how to put to words. He was a technologist, engineer, lawyer, and high-tech litigation consultant, turned award-winning sci-fi fantasy author.
In short, I’m in awe.
“What do you want readers to take away from your work?” is a question that authors and artists often get asked (and wasn’t explicitly asked here, but became a topic of conversation). It would make sense for artists to reiterate the thesis of their work or say something straightforward. But Ken said he always answers, “I don’t know.”
He argued that if you had an overtly clear answer and thesis for your work, with no room for questions or interpretation or misunderstanding, then it becomes propaganda disguised as art. The piece of work is more interesting when it is one big question with different options for answers but is ultimately up for the reader to make sense of on their own. Everyone has a different interpretation of it.
Ultimately, he writes his books because he wants to explore a question.
Granted, these questions he proposes in his books are like, “What is the meaning of life?” which is often very different from the answers we get from social media (echm ”expensive things worth your money”).
But social media is a (supposed) vessel of knowledge that becomes tangible in our day to day. We shouldn’t discount it simply because content is considered low-brow. It often has more influence on our lives – admit it, you’ve gone to a restaurant because a TikToker mentioned it – and we probably spend more time online consuming content than reading physical books, researching, and learning in traditional ways.
If someone like Ken Liu is filled with more questions than answers, then who am I to say I’m an expert on… anything?
Even if I work tirelessly for decades and get all the knowledge and expertise of my niche, how can I be so sure it’s an answer that is fit for the person on the other side of the screen? All in 30 seconds? With a hook and call-to-action? At the ideal rate of one new consistent unique post a day? Remember it has to be valuable and interesting and personal every single time. Because clearly if not my credibility will come into question. Rather, it’ll be doubted regardless. It doesn’t matter if you are a dry sponge, the world will keep squeezing.
The knowledge I gained from my trial-and-error only worked for me and it doesn’t make sense to package that in a one-size-fits-all for everyone else. The circumstances and results are impossible to replicate.
Perhaps the real experts are those who are willing to admit their lack of all-knowing wisdom and simply share their personal experience, wonder, and uncertainty.
Every day, I see people from the range of “true”-expert to psuedo-expert don their little mics, their green screen image pop-ups, their ding sound effects and tell me what I should do with my life. Everyone wants an advice column but few put in the work to be worthy of giving advice.
I flip through a 10-step carousel on how to be a completely different person. It would be easier if I listened. It would be easier if I followed their footsteps and created a version of my own for content.
But I’m really sick of pretending to be an expert. I can only share my honest reflections and hope that is enough.
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