A Viral Content Creator Says Everything Worthwhile Starts With ‘Looking Stupid’

Ever stopped yourself from posting the video, wearing the outfit, or starting the thing because of what people might think? You’re in extremely good company. Fear of being “perceived” is one of the defining anxieties of 2026, fueled by an always-on feed where nearly a third of Gen Z scrolls constantly and comparison never stops. 

On Don’t Think, host Carla Bezanson makes a refreshingly honest case: people probably aren’t thinking about you as much as you fear, and even when they are, it matters way less than it feels like.

A Content Creator’s Advice: Stop Caring About What People Think

Yes, people are judging you

Bezanson doesn’t do the usual “nobody’s even thinking about you” pep talk, because she thinks it’s only half true. “People actually do judge you,” she says. “People think badly of you.” Her point isn’t that judgment doesn’t exist, it’s that it’s survivable. People gossip, they talk, they form opinions, and then they go back to their own lives. “They don’t go home and think about you all day. It’s probably a 10-minute conversation, but who cares?”

You don’t think your way into confidence

The thing that actually helped her care less wasn’t some breakthrough in self-love. “It’s actually exposure therapy,” she says. Every scary first—the first talking-to-camera TikTok, the first time discussing OCD openly, the first stand-up set—felt like an enormous hurdle until she’d done it enough times to realize it wasn’t fatal. “Literally every scary thing becomes easier after repetition.” Judgment works the same way. The more you do the thing you’re scared to be judged for, the more you learn that being judged just isn’t that big of a deal.

Looking cringe is part of the deal

Bezanson has a name for that awful phase where you’re trying something new and suddenly feel like everyone is watching: Cringe Mountain. And according to her, it’s the “cost of entry.” Whether you’re posting your first video, starting a business, dating after divorce or bombing your first stand-up set, the beginning almost always feels the most embarrassing.

The funny part is what happens if you don’t quit. Eventually, the thing people rolled their eyes at becomes the thing they know you for. “You start to become successful enough that suddenly those same people are going up to you at the bar being like, ‘Oh my God, I want to grab a coffee sometime so I can pick your brain.'” In her eyes, that’s why “everything worthwhile starts with looking stupid.” 

Not everyone likes fried chicken

By now you’ve made peace with the fact that people are going to have opinions. Bezanson’s final mindset shift is realizing those opinions aren’t actually a verdict on you. She compares it to fried chicken. If one person says it’s the best fried chicken they’ve ever had and the next says they hate it, you wouldn’t suddenly decide the chicken is terrible. You’d assume they have different tastes. “Nobody and nothing is for everyone,” Bezanson says.

People aren’t any different. You could post something as harmless as saying you like dogs and somebody will still show up to argue. “There’s nothing you can do where everybody is going to agree—there’s just nothing. So you may as well do whatever the f*ck you want and not even apologize for it.”

The only opinion Bezanson thinks deserves extra weight is your own. We’re impressionable enough to start believing whatever we hear on repeat, she says, so she recommends writing down 10 things you genuinely love about yourself and coming back to that list whenever someone else’s opinion starts getting a little too loud.

Want to hear the rest? Listen to the full episode on Don’t Think, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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