Main Character Energy is Exhausting

You can't escape the performance, but you can choose when the curtain opens.

At some point, we all became the heroes of our own stories. We started narrating our lives like movies, every cafe moment, every breakup, every small inconvenience turned into a cinematic scene.

“Main character energy”, they called it. It started as a joke, a fun way to romanticize life, but somewhere along the way, it became an expectation. We stopped just living and started performing living.

Now everything feels like content. Every moment needs a caption. Every experience needs an aesthetic. The pressure to always “be the main character” quietly turned joy into work.

Because attention became the new currency. Not skill, not integrity, not even creative value, but attention. In the world we live in, shaped by technology, speed, and endless visibility, attention now holds more weight than substance.

It’s not inherently bad. It’s just what it creates: a climate where being seen feels more important than being steady. Where the need to be visible can sometimes eclipse the need to just exist. When attention is currency, substance begins to lose its value, and even when there is substance, it can get exhausting, because the only way for it to reach people is through performance. You start shaping yourself to fit what will resonate, what will trend, what will travel. You start playing the main character because it feels like the only way to be seen.

I think about this often, especially in my position as a young editor and founder. Running a media platform, where I know that this attention currency is a factor in our bid to grow and to succeed. I’ve had to learn how to show up publicly in ways that don’t always feel natural to me. I’m not someone who craves fame or attention. I’ve always been more of an observer. But leading something like Unruly means sometimes you have to step into the light, not because you want to, but because it helps to carry the message home.

Even when it’s meaningful, it’s tiring. Because in a world where visibility equals validation, you start to wonder if you’re showing up because you want to, or because you have to. The constant performance of identity, curating, editing, showing up, and branding yourself has blurred the line between who we are and how we appear. We confuse visibility for value. Attention for affirmation.

Maybe the real power now is in the balance. In letting moments exist without proof. In being part of the scene, not always the scene itself. Because not every day needs to be cinematic. Not every story needs a main character. The best parts of life rarely happen when the camera’s on.

Still, if I’ve learned anything in these few years of doing this professionally, it’s that performance isn’t always the enemy. To win, at least by the world’s standards, some level of performance is unavoidable. To grow, to influence, to reach, to connect, you’ll have to step forward. You’ll have to be seen.

So this isn’t a rejection of being the main character. It’s an invitation to balance. To know when to perform and when to pause. To know when to document and when to simply live.

Sometimes you need the camera, sometimes you need the moment.