In a world obsessed with likes and followers, people are increasingly choosing mystery – keeping secrets and making you work to get them.
Humans love a bit of mystery – an air of inscrutability. But it’s hard to keep anything a secret in a world that documents everything.
We know things that we shouldn’t: celebrities’ inside jokes and Robert DeNiro’s martini order. Social media once encouraged this kind of intentional overexposure. We shared everything in exchange for attention. But a growing number of people are starting to move in the opposite direction.
In the Financial Times, journalist and editor Jo Ellison asked, “Have you switched to private yet?”. The New Yorker recently declared, “It’s Cool to Have No Followers Now,” in an essay by Kyle Chayka. That piece pointed to a recent Blackbird Spyplane essay titled “Now that’s how you post”, which praised Miu Miu stylist Lotta Volkova’s truly inspirational approach to the grid:
“Namely, she posts a barrage of grid pics throughout any given day. Rarely ‘dumps’ – she likes to stand on business and share 1 pic per post. Here’s the thing: Volkova has half a million IG followers, and a small-minded engagementcuck might note that while some of her posts get ~4,000 faves and others get ~3,000 faves, plenty get ~200 faves, and lots of them get ~100 faves. But does Volkova care? It doesn’t seem like it. The upshot is a highly chadded, gridflationary approach to posting. We could all take a page from her and go ‘G.P.S.’ Mode – just let the Grid Pics Spray.”
Elsewhere, the internet multi-hyphenate Anu Atluru posted to X in September, “Being a legible person has diminishing returns. You need a little mystery, a dose of unpredictability … to keep your story perpetually unfolding.” Atluru models this herself, posting cryptic-yet-thoughtful observations that seem to apply to everyone – and no one – at the same time.
Jackson Dahl is building something similarly illegible. A year ago, the investor launched a podcast, Dialectic, which he describes as “conversational portraits of original people”. The guests aren’t all from the same industry or clique, and the questions don’t follow a particular pattern. In one episode he says, “there will be a time for legibility, but right now, I’m in the oven.”
There’s something compelling about this kind of intrigue.
