When you spend a lot of time online for work, you’re often encouraged to “learn about the trends”.

Follow the trends!
Incorporate the trends into your content!

From the day Instagram firmly suggested we do all our communicating by dancing like fools alone in our living rooms, I decided to remain in the camp of doing the unpopular thing. (Because I like the unpopular thing better, and I’m stubborn.)

Surprise! I’ve been this way most of my life.
I’ve straddled the line between cheerleader and wide leg jean-wearing theater geek since my formative years. A younger, less confident version of myself wanted what every teenage girl wanted: to be liked and to blend in. Tough to do when you’re a foot taller than most of your friends and busting out of a C-cup at 13.

I think the first time I fully stepped into the idea of bucking the “norm” was when the popular group I’d grown up with turned on me. They always do. Mine happened in a public shaming incident that I’ve brought into adult therapy with me. Yeah, it was painful.

But it set me up to realize that the cool thing *isn’t* to look, sound, and act like everyone else. The badass thing to do is pave your own path.

And so from 13 on, I did. 

In junior high that meant making friends with ALL “the groups” at my school. Switching lunch tables. Joining the audition-only singing group. Dating an *older boy* oooooOOO!! (Probably thanks to the C-cup.)

Leaving the shadow of the crowd is never comfortable, whether you’re 13 or 33. It is the biggest, most powerful act of authenticity and rebellion you can make— and it will serve you every time. 

I’ve thought a lot about what makes a person (or in work’s case— a brand) appealing. It never, ever is because the subject has decided to polish the same thing everyone else is doing for a palatably safe mass delivery.

It’s the innovators who stopped caring about fitting in who get remembered.

I’d like to think re-launching my 2012-era blog into a short-attention-span sea of Youtube channels, private podcasts, and snarky little Threads solidifies my position as a rebel. I’ll even take it one step further and suggest you read each of the first 3 posts while listening to something from the 1977 classic rock release list (some of my favorite music).

You won’t likely catch a Taylor Swift lyric here, but you’ll always get all of me— unpopular and unpolished, just the way I like it.