I didn't try that hard.
And that's kind of the point.
For a long time, I thought my best work would come from trying harder.
Better lighting.
Better angles.
Sitting up straighter.
Fixing my hair, but only in that “purposely on accident” kind of way.
I figured if I tweaked enough of the little things, I’d eventually land on the version of myself that worked online. The one that looked right. Sounded right. Felt safe.
That version does not work.
The videos that do well for me, the ones people comment on, save, or quietly nod along to, are the ones where I let my instincts decide everything.
I sit where I’m comfortable (on my old sofa, usually with my dog).
I do my hair the way I actually like it (wild and without too much work).
I talk the way I talk when I’m not trying to impress anyone (I’m autistic, so I lean in).
No big, two-hour setup. No performance voice. No pretending this was carefully planned. Half the time I don’t even have a real script, just a loose outline and a handful of thoughts I want to connect out loud, in real time, right there in front of you.
I didn’t try that hard.
And that’s why it works.
There’s this idea that if something looks easy, it must be lazy. I don’t buy that. Easy usually just means familiar. It means you know yourself well enough to stop fighting every instinct you have.
I didn’t stop caring. I stopped forcing.
That difference matters more than people think.
You can feel it when someone is trying too hard on camera. Even if you can’t explain why, you can feel the tension. The slight hesitation. The way they’re watching themselves while they talk, checking every word before it lands.
It comes across as off. Not wrong, just… off.
And right now, people are tired of things that feel off.
We’re surrounded by filters, scripts, and AI-generated everything. Faces that don’t quite move right. Voices that sound fine but don’t feel human. Videos that are technically perfect and somehow empty.
So when someone shows up as themselves, relaxed, imperfect, clearly real, it hits different.
People notice.
I think part of it is timing. People are already wary. They know they’re being sold to. They know half of what they’re seeing is staged, filtered, scripted, or generated. So when someone shows up without all that armor on, it stands out immediately.
Not because it’s flashy.
Because it’s grounded.
When I let myself be comfortable, I stop trying to seem genuine and just actually show up. I’m not trying to sell a version of myself. I’m not trying to sound smarter, more polished, or more “online” than I really am.
I’m just there.
And that’s what people respond to.
Trying harder usually means controlling more. Watching your face. Editing your words in real time. Making sure you’re coming across the right way.
But all that control flattens things. It drains the life out of what you’re saying.
When I stop doing that, my thoughts come out the way they come out. A little sideways. A little layered. With pauses. With expressions that aren’t curated or rehearsed.
That’s the part that lands.
People don’t connect to perfect. They connect to someone who feels real. Someone whose inside and outside match. Someone who isn’t asking permission to take up space.
This especially matters if you’ve spent a lot of your life masking. If you learned early on that being comfortable was risky, or that you had to perform competence to be taken seriously.
You start thinking effort equals worth.
What I’ve learned, both personally and by watching what actually works, is that the moment I stop correcting myself mid-sentence is the moment people really hear me.
I’m not saying effort doesn’t matter. It does. I’ve just moved where I put it.
I put it into listening to myself instead of overriding myself.
Into choosing setups where my body can relax.
Into trusting that how I naturally show up is enough.
That’s not laziness. That’s knowing yourself.
The internet doesn’t need more people trying to look right. Especially now, when it’s getting harder to tell what’s real and what isn’t.
When something is human, you can feel it.
I didn’t try that hard.
I let myself be where I work best.
And that’s the point.
About the Creator
Danielle Katsouros
I’m building a trauma-informed emotional AI that actually gives a damn and writing up the receipts of a life built without instructions for my AuDHD. ❤️ Help me create it (without burning out): https://bit.ly/BettyFund
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