Grace Beverley

And that's like a loud, embarrassing t-shirt.

That's something visual.

That's not necessarily something you're just trying every day.

The researchers found that because we are so immersed in our own experience, we very much struggle to accurately imagine how little attention other people are actually paying to us.

But obviously nowadays, when your awkward moment can be screenshotted, stitched, reposted, or commented on by strangers, it doesn't just feel like you're risking embarrassment in a room.

It can feel very much like you are risking reputation at scale, and I do totally get that.

And so what happens is that we self-censor before we even begin.

We don't launch the project, we don't post the video, we don't say the opinion, we don't apply for the job.

And the tragedy of that, I think, is that the fear of cringe becomes more powerful

than the desire to create or the desire to build the life you love or the desire to represent yourself or turn up and show up in the way that you want to show up.

And obviously I'm speaking like I'm kind of disconnected from this, but I have felt this very personally.

Like when I first started posting on Instagram, I was 18 and it makes me laugh now because to give you a taste of how embarrassed I was, I didn't even post my face in any of the Instagrams.

Like I would post in the mirror without my face.

Literally my face was nowhere.

And it was because I was embarrassed.

Like I didn't even have my name attached to the accounts.

And all of this was obviously because the idea of my friends who were at sixth form with me seeing me post on Instagram was completely mortifying.

And that fear was confirmed, to be honest.

Like a lot of those people did judge me.

Even when I turned up at university as someone who was posting on Instagram, influencer wasn't really seen as a job.