Audience

TL;DR: around 5min read. I perceived myself being perceived. Shit got philosophical lol.

For most of the trip, I had been surprisingly carefree about what I posted. I chose photos because I liked them. I wrote stupid captions because they made me laugh. I wasn’t completely unaware of being perceived, I don’t think I ever am, but the audience had become blurry enough to stay in the background. Then, at some point, one particular pair of eyes entered my consciousness.

Nothing really happened. There was no conversation, no dramatic encounter, nothing that should have changed the way I was experiencing my trip. But somehow, simply becoming aware that this person might be watching was enough. Almost immediately, I could feel my attention rearranging itself.

Somewhere in the back of my mind appeared a tiny new consideration: I know this person might see this.

That tiny shift got me thinking about audiences in general. I started this blog because I wanted somewhere to rant. That was pretty much it. I never sat down and imagined a target audience or wondered who exactly I was writing for (well, maybe it ain’t so true…). I just had a loud brain and needed somewhere for all the noise to go. And yet, every time I write something I know I might publish, there is an audience somewhere in the room.

Not an actual audience. Most people are far too busy living their own lives to spend much time thinking about mine. I know that because I’m exactly the same. I scroll past other people’s posts. I forget what they were wearing. I read something, think about it for a few minutes, and return to whatever little plotline I’m currently occupied with.

Still, the possibility of being seen changes something.

I notice it in the smallest decisions. A sentence gets rewritten because I imagine how it might sound to someone else. A photo suddenly looks different once I remember that other people will see it. A joke becomes slightly more deliberate. None of this feels particularly dishonest. Most of the time, I’m still posting whatever the hell I want. But somewhere in the background sits this potential audience, quietly participating in decisions they will probably never know they influenced. And that was the strange part: the audience didn’t even have to be watching.

I think that’s what I had misunderstood. I’m not really micromanaging other people’s perception of me. How could I? I have no idea what they’re thinking. What I’m actually micromanaging is my imagination of their perception.

Once I noticed that, the little changes became almost embarrassingly easy to catch. I would wonder whether I looked good in a photo I had liked perfectly well five minutes ago. I’d think a little harder about the caption. I’d become slightly more interested in appearing interesting. Nothing dramatic enough to turn me into another person—just these tiny shifts in attention, as if another version of myself had quietly stepped behind my shoulder and started making suggestions.

That used to make me wonder whether I was being fake. Now I’m not sure performance and authenticity are opposites at all.

Maybe there is no version of me completely untouched by an audience. Even this blog, the place I created specifically to dump the mess inside my head, is public. If I wanted absolutely no one to see these thoughts, I could keep a journal. I do that too. A journal asks nothing from the outside world. It takes whatever my brain needs to throw away and keeps it for me. A blog feels different. It’s almost like a section of my journal that I’ve decided can leave the house.

Maybe authenticity, then, isn’t the absence of performance. Maybe it’s retaining authorship while performing. I don’t need to stop noticing the audience. I don’t even think I want to. I just want to notice when their imagined gaze enters the room, when a photo I loved becomes a photo I start questioning, when something I wanted to say becomes something I think someone else might want to hear.

The performance itself may not be the problem. Maybe I just want to know when I’m no longer the one holding the pen.

But there’s something slightly dishonest about pretending I’d rather write without an audience. I wouldn’t.

A friend texted me after reading my last essay. She had actually read it, not skimmed the first paragraph, not clicked the link and disappeared, but read it. I could tell from what she said. I was embarrassingly happy. Surprised as hell, too. The essay was kind of long, and in today’s TikTok era, eight minutes somehow feels like a serious commitment.

I was proud of my eight-minute work. But somehow, I was even prouder of the girl who sat down, read the whole thing, and then came back to tell me about Ludwig Wittgenstein.

And that made me wonder: if I write only because my brain needs somewhere to go, why did being carefully read make me so happy?

Maybe because writing and being read satisfy two different needs. Writing gives my thoughts somewhere to go. Being read tells me they landed somewhere.

I think that’s what I’m looking for when I publish something: not necessarily attention, but resonance.

If all I needed was somewhere to dump the waste accumulating in my head, I already have a journal. Journaling is private disposal. It doesn’t need to be understood. Half the time, it barely needs to make sense. My blog overlaps with that, but it isn’t quite the same. It’s more like a section of my journal that I’ve decided can leave the house. Once it leaves, I want there to be at least the possibility that someone might find it.

Maybe nobody reads a particular essay today. Maybe five people do. Maybe someone reads it carefully enough to send me Wittgenstein afterwards. Maybe the person it eventually reaches is thirty-five-year-old me, stumbling across the thoughts of someone she vaguely remembers being.

I don’t need a crowd. But I think I need the possibility of resonance.

That’s the end for today’s content. I have to say though, Europe is a FINE place for writing. Highly recommend. Thank you for making it this far, you have no idea how grateful I am.

Love,

Lin ❤