The age we inhabit is not defined by silence or anonymity but by a saturation of signals. One scroll through social feeds and we find curated lives displayed as if each person were a small corporation, complete with its own marketing department and brand identity. Travel photographs are not just memories; they are symbols of mobility. Fitness dashboards are not only about health; they are declarations of discipline. Reading lists are rarely private journeys; they are badges of intellect. The arena of daily life has become a theatre, and the actor is forced to play not only for the crowd but also for the mirror.
In this landscape, the self has become a product, constantly launched, refreshed, optimized, and presented. The exhaustion comes not from creation but from curation. It is no longer enough to be healthy, one must signal health. It is no longer sufficient to enjoy a book, one must showcase its cover. What once belonged to intimacy—the joy of learning, the tenderness of private travel, the discipline of self-care—has been externalized into metrics of recognition. As Jean Baudrillard observed, “The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth—it is the truth which conceals that there is none.” The curated self, endlessly signaled, begins to dissolve the boundary between authenticity and performance.
This phenomenon is not just sociological but also moral. When every act of living becomes subordinated to visibility, the unseen diminishes in value. Silence feels like failure, privacy feels like absence, and modesty appears as deficiency. We are trained to chase the applause of invisible audiences, haunted by the possibility that we might not exist if we are not seen. And yet, in this restless theatre, fatigue seeps in. The stage lights blind more than they illuminate, and many secretly yearn for a retreat into the unposted, the unshared, the unapplauded.
The invitation of this reflection is not to moralize but to resist the compulsion of constant signaling. It is to ask whether achievements, joys, and acts of discipline can still exist without audience. Can one run without posting a map of kilometers? Can one read without photographing the cover? Can one travel without producing a reel of highlights? The possibility of such secrecy may, paradoxically, return dignity to experience. Dear reader, if these reflections resonate, I encourage you to consider supporting this work by becoming a paid subscriber, and to join in a community of thought that values depth over display.
The dominance of signaling is rooted in a primal economy: the economy of recognition. We all desire to be seen, to be valued, to be acknowledged. But where recognition once came from immediate communities—family, neighbors, colleagues—it now comes from distant crowds, quantified in likes and follows. The hunger for recognition has not changed; only its theater has. Aristotle reminded us that humans are political animals, craving belonging and esteem. Yet when esteem is outsourced to strangers, its substance thins into mere currency.
A striking example of this lies in the gym. Once, exercise was about strength, health, or even the private pride of discipline. Today, the gym has become a site of broadcasting. The mirror selfie is less about form correction and more about proof of dedication. The weights lifted matter less than the weight of the impression left on others. The activity is real, but its meaning is hijacked by its signal. As Kierkegaard lamented in The Present Age, reflection and commentary often replace genuine action: “A revolutionary age is an age of action; ours is the age of advertisement and publicity. Nothing ever happens but there is immediate publicity everywhere.”
The same applies to intellectual life. Once, reading was a solitary dialogue between mind and text. Today, the value of a book often appears proportional to its Instagrammability. Reading lists, once private maps of inquiry, now function as curated portfolios of taste. A person is measured not by the depth of their understanding but by the covers displayed on their nightstand. The signal overshadows the substance.
Travel, too, suffers from this fate. Journeys once undertaken for discovery are now burdened by the demand for photographic evidence. A beach that is not shared online feels incomplete, as if the trip had not fully occurred. Thus, memory itself is outsourced: we remember not the texture of sand beneath our feet, but the photograph we posted of it. The experience becomes secondary to its recording. In this way, the private encounter with the world becomes collateral to the theater of recognition.
The exhaustion of signaling manifests in what might be called status fatigue. To constantly curate a portfolio of self is to live under perpetual audit. Every moment is a performance review. Every action becomes subject to its possible translation into content. The self, once a private interiority, becomes a CEO endlessly managing brand equity. This burden is unsustainable, and many collapse under the pressure of living as both person and product.
Yet within this fatigue lies the seed of revolt. Increasingly, we see gestures of secrecy, intentional refusals to post, or the cultivation of private projects. A garden that nobody sees, a poem never published, a journey undocumented—these acts reclaim value beyond signal. They remind us that life has dignity even without witnesses. The revolt is quiet, almost monastic, yet profoundly subversive.
The philosopher Michel de Montaigne, in his essays, delighted in the cultivation of private joys: “I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself I portray.” His honesty was not spectacle but intimacy, an offering without demand for applause. Perhaps the contemporary version of Montaigne’s wisdom is to cultivate experiences whose value resides in their secrecy.
Such secrecy is not about withdrawal but about proportion. The problem is not signaling per se, but the inflation of signaling into the only register of meaning. Sharing a travel photo, a book, or a workout can be harmless and even joyful, but when sharing becomes compulsion, life is drained of its inner sap. The alternative is not silence but freedom: the freedom to decide which moments belong to the stage and which belong to the private chamber.
Practices can help sustain this freedom. One might establish a rhythm of secrecy—one joy per day unposted, one project per year unseen. One might cultivate friendships where stories are told but never shared beyond the room. These practices reinstate the dignity of the invisible. They also rescue us from the tyranny of audience metrics, returning to us the private satisfaction of excellence unobserved.
The danger of signaling is not only individual but cultural. A society addicted to signals loses depth. Policies become announcements, education becomes certificates, relationships become status updates. Substance withers under the glare of performativity. If a culture is to survive, it must recover the dignity of the unseen.
In conclusion, the theatre of brand selves is unsustainable not because it is false, but because it is thin. Humans cannot live on signals alone. Just as food requires substance, so life requires interiority. The revolt against signaling is therefore not a rejection of visibility but a return to proportion: an insistence that the best joys, the deepest thoughts, the most dignified labors may remain unposted, and yet remain real. To live in this way is to choose substance over theatre, being over branding, and dignity over applause.