I usually don’t post my thoughts, design explorations, or the details I obsess over on social media because it scares me.
Not the posting part. But the feedback loop. For example, I post something I genuinely feel, no one notices. I post something more polished or something the crowd already agrees with, better engagement. My brain registers… this is what works. Next time, I polish a little more. Optimize a little more. The genuine thing I was going to share? I may start to second-guess it.
Over time, I might stop posting what I think and start posting what works. I might start measuring my worth by likes.
The corruption isn’t that I become someone else. It’s that I lose touch with what I genuinely love.
That fear kept me quiet for a long time. My wife has been nudging me to post for years, saying… “People should see how you think.” At the start of this year, ChatGPT said the same thing. When your wife and an AI agree on the same thing, it’s hard to disagree. At that point, I’m clearly outnumbered.
There’s another reason I stayed quiet. I usually think in Tamil. I design in pixels. And I write in English. So, every sentence I wrote always carried a layer of doubt. Now, AI helps me bridge the gap between my thoughts and my words.
So a couple of weeks ago, I posted something. A design exploration of a temperature slider from the Ferrari Luce that got stuck in my head. Wrote about some of the design decisions. Details I couldn’t let go of.
It resonated… more than I expected.
Now I’m more scared. Not less. One taste of engagement and my brain is already negotiating with the algorithm. My precious.
Because now I know what traction feels like. It’s already whispering…
“Do that again.” “Post more like that.” “This is what works.”
And I haven’t yet mentioned the other side. The misreads. The harsh replies. These things can also quietly rewrite my next post before I even write it. One hot take and suddenly, I’m reconsidering my entire personality and career. Either way, the algorithm wins.
So, how do I keep posting without the algorithm becoming my creative director? How do I stay in the game without the game changing what I make?
I don’t have the answer.
But I know what already works for me when building my apps. Feedback from users and inspiration from people whose work I love. That’s been enough to drive me forward in the past. I’m hoping it’ll be good enough going forward, too.
And also… I’m starting to love writing. The act of finding the right word for a feeling I couldn’t name. Putting thoughts into words feels like its own kind of design. I get the same feeling I get from designing. Making something that feels right inside my head.
I’m starting to loosen my grip. The things I usually keep in my head… I’m going to let some of them out. More writing. More questionable design opinions.
So… here I am… posting this anyway.