One night, as I was partaking in my doom-scroll routine for the night, I stumbled upon the Instagram account of a relatively new creator, Raegan Lynch. Within fourteen weeks, her follower count spiked up to 546,000 with just 33 posts on her feed. Her first reel, titled “Day 1 of starting my whole entire life,” was the one that lured me (and 4 million others) in. In the video, the now-viral creator talks about moving back home at 27 after ending a five-year-long relationship on a sour note.
She goes on about losing her apartment, the city she lived in, and the friends she had—now, back to square one. It sounds almost like the plot of a Hallmark movie, right? But it isn’t. After binge-watching about 10 of these episodes on her profile, I began to wonder about the increasingly blurred lines between entertainment and reality. The comments ranged from, “What in the Disney movie is happening?” to “summary: I cheated and lost everything,” opening up her personal life for public scrutiny.
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Lynch isn’t the only creator dabbling with this format; creator Sidra Siddiqui gained 8,000 followers on Instagram in two weeks after sharing her life and recent trauma through byte-sized episodes. In her narrative, an accident that caused a head injury led to the loss of her relationship, friends, and work—ultimately causing her to hit rock bottom. In her own words, this series is supposed to be a part of her healing journey. But, when creators go beyond just sharing snippets of their lives and start packaging deeply personal episodes into serialized, binge-worthy content that mirrors the structure of our favorite TV shows, it has me wondering: At what point does sharing become performing, and at what cost?
The appeal is undeniable. These real-life dramas offer audiences something seemingly authentic in a digital landscape often criticized for its artifice. Viewers become invested, following along as if tracking character development, leaving comments that range from supportive to oddly presumptuous—as though they’re critiquing fictional characters rather than real people experiencing real pain. But what happens when your lowest moments become your highest-performing content? When vulnerability becomes not just a bridge to connection but a business model?
I spoke with Devika Mankani, a psychologist at The Hundred Wellness Centre, who highlighted the complex psychological dynamics at play. “Serializing personal trauma for public consumption can create a disorienting psychological dynamic,” she explained. “On one hand, sharing can offer catharsis, validation, and even a sense of community. But when trauma becomes content, the healing process can be disrupted. Instead of processing experiences internally or in safe therapeutic settings, creators externalize them for likes, comments, and algorithmic approval.”
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The consequences, according to Mankani, can be serious: “This can lead to re-traumatization, emotional dysregulation, and identity confusion—especially when personal pain becomes a performance.”
What might be most concerning is the feedback loop this creates. “In this case, validation comes from external sources, making it harder for creators to access internal emotional regulation and resilience,” she explains. Over time, this can fuel anxiety, burnout, and even dissociation from one’s own lived reality.
When creators begin performing their lives rather than living them, a fundamental shift occurs in how they perceive themselves. When the line between “self” and “brand” becomes blurred, creators may start performing their identity rather than inhabiting it.
“This constant performance of authenticity paradoxically undermines genuine self-connection. They may begin to curate emotions based on what garners engagement rather than what they truly feel, creating a split between their private and public selves,” Mankani notes.
The result can be what psychologists call a “false-self” phenomenon, where one’s perceived worth is rooted in audience reaction rather than inner congruence. Over time, this erodes self-trust, increases vulnerability to depression and imposter syndrome, and makes it difficult to maintain boundaries—both with others and with oneself.
Then there’s the ethical quandary of monetizing vulnerability. As Mankani put it, “When trauma becomes a revenue stream, there’s an implicit incentive to prolong or amplify suffering for engagement. This can not only delay healing but also commodify mental health in a way that can feel exploitative—not just to the creator, but to audiences who may also be struggling and looking for authentic, grounded guidance.”
This creates a larger systemic issue, she adds, “platforms reward extreme emotion, drama, and disclosure, which distorts our cultural understanding of healing and resilience. Instead of emphasizing recovery and integration, we valorize disclosure and emotional spectacle.”
But there’s another perspective worth considering. Twinkle Stanly, a content creator based in the Middle East, sees value in this form of expression. “I personally don’t see anything dangerous with it,” she told me. “As a creator myself who often uses social media to reflect, speak, and process my own thoughts, I understand how therapeutic it can sometimes be to fictionalize your own life.”
Stanly draws parallels between content creation and other creative expressions of personal experience. “Some people jump straight into work after going through a stressful or vulnerable period in their lives, some take vacations, some vent to their friends. From a creative perspective, a lot of fictional books and movies are also inspired by people’s own struggles—some write books, some write articles, and some make short films. And although those arts forms are far more complicated and require a deeper skill, for a lot of young people, that medium has become storytelling through short-form content.”
She sees these digital narratives as fulfilling fundamental human needs. “In some ways, voice-over diary vlogs mimic journaling and reflecting, putting a video together and sharing it with an audience is equivalent to venting to your friends and connecting over our struggles, mimicking a feeling of community. People relate, share their own thoughts and advice, and for viewers it’s also a comforting way to feel less alone in this world.”
Stanly acknowledges the risk but emphasizes the potential benefits: “From my personal experiences, I’ve noticed that I’m able to understand my own thoughts better when I share them. And although it’s fairly easy to get sucked into the views, numbers, likes and shares, creators also need to have a boundary on what they share and their reasoning behind it.”
So what constitutes a healthy approach? Stanly’s answer is straightforward. “The right way would simply be to do it for the right reasons: to create and connect. The wrong way would be to dramatize and hyper-fixate on numbers. Many creators do get sucked into this, as it is a blurry line.”
I’m drawn to a conclusion that we need to strive for a balance because healing as a concept is complicated. While we may require moments of release and visibility, it is equally important to safeguard quiet privacy for deeper growth and sustained recovery. Maybe, that’s the core of it: finding that indefinable balance. In a world where algorithms reward emotional spectacle, can creators truly maintain enough distance to protect their own wellbeing? What happens when life’s most painful chapters become fodder for content? How does one differentiate between authentic sharing and performative vulnerability?
I don’t claim to have definitive answers, but I do know this: as our digital and physical lives continue to merge, we need more nuanced conversations about the ethics of sharing, the responsibility of platforms, and the often invisible toll of turning one’s life into a never-ending season of content. Both for those who create and those who consume, we might all benefit from occasionally asking: Is this my life, or just another episode for the algorithm?
