On Oversharing

There is an amazing article that is online now, and will be in the Sunday Times Magazine (is that all capital letters? I’m not certain) from a former Gawker editor/writer and oversharing. Emily Gould wrote for Gawker for over a year along with two other blogs. Now? She’s writing her first feature for the Sunday Times Magazine.

I’m giving away the ending here, but don’t worry, the ending isn’t the important part of the story – the journey is. I highly recommend reading the whole thing.

Well, I’m an oversharer — it’s not like I’m entirely reformed. But lately, online, I’ve found myself doing something unexpected: keeping the personal details of my current life to myself. This doesn’t make me feel stifled so much as it makes me feel protected, as if my thoughts might actually be worth honing rather than spewing. But I still have Emily Magazine as a place to spew when I need to. It will never again be the friendly place that it was in 2004 — there are plenty of negative comments now, and I don’t delete them. I still think about closing the door to my online life and locking them out, but then I think of everything else I’d be locking out, and I leave it open. (full article here)

What’s wrong with being an oversharer?

No one wants to know that much about you. Honestly. While Dooce seems to get away with sharing everything, if you listen to her (even on her most recent Today Show appearance) she has limits to what she will share. When she started she shared everything, and now she shares almost everything. There is a huge difference that lives in the world almost.

Sharing everything (sans almost) can hurt people, and most of all – it can hurt you, the writer. Most people are wonderful and nice, but those that aren’t (the bitches, the gossips, whatever you call them) know that what you write is ammunition. You haven’t been shot in the heart until you’ve been shot with your own gun. That hurts in a special way.

How does one stop being an oversharer?

Boundaries.

You need to have a conversation with yourself about once every quarter (that’s three months to those of you who don’t like math) and reexamine what you’ve been saying, what you’ve been doing, and who you’ve been saying it to and doing it with.

Are you being blogged about? Are people saying things about you online? What are they saying? You do have a Google Alert for your name, don’t you? Do that, even if you only get an email once a month or less from Google letting you know you’ve been spotted online, it’s a nice backup measure to take.

Don’t share traumatic stories as they’re happening. Wait at least 24-48 hours before you blog about any personal experience. We are all raw when tragedy or disappointment strikes, and while your readers may eat it up, you don’t want people reading your blog or listening to you talk to feel embarrassed on your behalf.

I’ve seen that happen a lot at networking events. Where someone is talking and another person makes eye contact with me and gives me that look. The look that says to me, “The poor dear, she (or he) just doesn’t realize what she’s doing” look. Because what she’s doing is destroying her business with her mouth.

People don’t want to work with the sick, infirm, traumatized, or generally f’ed up. People do not want to give money to psychos, oversharers, dark and twisty people or jerks. No one wants to know the check they write you for your services or products (or your paycheck) is going for therapy, medication, or anything else that signals you may be a bad horse to bet on.

Because once you’ve figured out your boundaries, you need to figure out what you think other people want to hear from you. Even if you’re okay talking about being mauled by a dog when you were 12 – is that really an appropriate conversation for the situation you’re in when you take that breath to begin telling the story? Is it?

Be sure, because people will forgive nervousness, but if you’re labeled crazy or a psycho or any other label which is generally applied to an oversharer – you’re sunk.