Have you ever heard the saying, “Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your grandma to see”? As a generation that evolved alongside the iPhone, Gen Z (and Millennials) have become guinea pigs for social media. And while we might have gotten the “stranger danger” talk at one point, it seems to have lost its meaning when it comes to sharing our lives online.
In a recent TikTok trend, people upload pictures of Pepe the King Prawn, one of the Muppets, with a long embarrassing story told in text over his face. Some examples include harmless (albeit gross) embarrassing moments, such as a post about accidentally sitting on human feces on the subway, but other posts detail straight-up childhood trauma or intimate details about someone’s relationship.
This TikTok meme is far from the genesis of oversharing on the internet; it’s just a new format for an old tendency to disclose personal information online. Most of us are guilty of it to some degree–whether it’s a TMI finsta post or an embarrassing TikTok that randomly blew up, the current culture on the internet is made for oversharing.
Encouraged Oversharing
It’s not considered kosher to reveal your deepest secrets to the guy in line in front of you at the grocery store. So why is it more acceptable to overshare online?
Part of the reason could be the world of online influencers. To maintain followers, influencers must turn themselves into a brand, which means curating relatable content. There are storytime YouTubers, such as Tana Mongeau, who built their fame off of oversharing. Other types of content creators do this as well; family channels, for instance, have been criticized for exposing personal details of their children’s lives for clicks. Building a brand off of being unapologetically open works, and people who aren’t influencers go viral for the same reasons.
TMI or Just Taboo?
In some cases, oversharing on the Internet can be a tool to make people feel less alone. Posting something vulnerable about yourself is a bid for connection, and those who are going through something similar might find solace in those posts. For example, talking openly about mental health online can be a great way to destigmatize something a lot of people struggle with.
Even some cases of TMI can be harmless. If someone has an embarrassing story they want to share, posting about it may help them laugh at themselves and own their narrative. Trivial story times about minor cringeworthy moments can be a lighthearted way to engage with others.
The Problem With Oversharing
There is a line, though, of when it might be better to keep a story in the drafts. That line is oftentimes blurred as oversharing becomes more acceptable. When someone hits “post,” there’s no way to get consent from users who could potentially see it, and if the post contains highly sensitive and personal material, it could cause harm to those on the receiving end. Trauma dumping is much easier to do online because there’s no way to gauge someone’s reaction in real time to see if they’re uncomfortable with what is being shared.
Instead of finding connections, posting about your trauma becomes more of an act of coercion. Context is very important when it comes to sharing heavy things, and posting it willy-nilly on the internet opens up the possibility of passing on the trauma to someone else or causing discomfort.
Toeing the Line
Everybody needs a community. We all have baggage that we carry with us, and it’s a human need to get things out of our system by confiding in others. Posting about it is a quick way to let it out, especially if we don’t have people in real life to share with. It can be cathartic to be vulnerable.
However, oversharing is often used as a shortcut to intimacy. There’s this idea that if we bare our souls to the world, we’ll have stronger connections to those who resonate with our experiences. But it’s important to remember that the internet is full of strangers. We don’t know how they will respond–maybe they leave a comment saying that they relate to you, or maybe you get torn apart. And there’s no way to account for those who could be harmed by what you’re saying–especially if you’re trauma dumping.
Our verdict? It’s okay to be open online to a certain extent, but if what you’re sharing is something you wouldn’t say to a stranger in real life, maybe hold off on posting. There may be more appropriate contexts to share personal information with, even online–finding a specific forum on Reddit could be a good way to connect with people ready to talk about potentially triggering topics. There’s no way to short-circuit connection, but it’s possible to find the community you seek–and you might just find that you feel secure when you’re more mindful of what you put out there.
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