TikTok exposure therapy

What I learned from a six-week “cringe experiment” in short-form video

Over the past six weeks, I’ve been making TikTok videos on a secret account, basically LARPing as an influencer. What began as a joke turned into a kind of exposure therapy for some of my deepest insecurities. And I’ve loved it.

In late August, I joined a creative program called Act Two, an offshoot of the writing program that helped birth this Substack.¹ I signed up to support its founders with no project in mind, so I invented one that made me laugh: making 50 TikTok videos.

Why in the hell would a middle-aged guy like me do this?

My official reason was that short-form video is devouring media attention. The average American spends an hour a day scrolling short-form video, and that number keeps rising. It seemed smart to understand this supposedly dumb language of video.

My private reason was more personal. I’d always been a massive snob about short-form video. I viewed it as shallow, low-IQ, and addictive in the worst way — the junk food of media. TikTok influencers, in my mind, were the kind of people who auditioned for The Real Housewives and did multilevel marketing — not exactly smart or thoughtful types. But like most snobbishness, those attitudes were convenient cover for my own insecurities about video.

I hate how I look and sound on video.
I’m too old for it.
I’m not photogenic.
People might make fun of me.
I freeze in front of the camera.

Once I saw all this psycho-baggage, I knew I had to do it. At that point, it stopped being about TikTok and became a personal challenge to test my own discomfort. I had no choice but to embrace the cringe. TikTok exposure therapy, here we go!

My first “hello world” video was filmed at my kitchen counter. Wearing a workout shirt and glasses, I started it with, “Hey guys, this is Jeff.” Watching it now feels like looking at one of my kindergarten drawings. It’s so beginner it’s endearing. Why is it so much easier to give ourselves grace in hindsight than when we’re just starting out?

The next dozen videos were experiments. I promoted one of my Substack essays with a screenshot and some music, green-screened a Wall Street Journal article, and made a response video to a comment on an earlier post. Gradually, I learned the basics of TikTok editing: adding text, captions, and filters; trimming clips; adding music and adjusting the sound; getting the pacing right.

I filmed everywhere — at my kitchen counter, on neighborhood walks, even in my car with a suction mount. When traveling, I made “run with me” videos jogging across the Ben Franklin Bridge and on the Ocean City Boardwalk. I commented on the reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death while walking through a park in Philadelphia.

It didn’t take long to realize how precious attention is in this format — how fast you have to grab it, hold it, and let people go. If writers think in paragraphs, TikTokers think in seconds.

My most-viewed video came midway through the project. It was a photo carousel with the hook, “Are elite colleges worth 300k? Five brutally honest ways I benefited from Stanford, 25 years later.” It played to a popular TikTok topic, and it worked. It got over sixteen-thousand views and four-hundred likes, about thirty times my average. The dopamine felt good.

I started gaining respect for short-form video. I realized there’s a lot more to it than pointing your phone and talking while looking cute. There’s real craft in editing, pacing, lighting, and sound. At numerous points, I thought: Man, this is hard.

Then came the slump. Just when I thought I was getting the hang of it, many of my videos flopped. The algorithm felt fickle and punishing. I started fantasizing about getting plastic surgery, voice therapy, and one of those fancy mini microphones. The more I learned, the more I saw how far I had to go.

But in that discouragement, I eventually hit a turning point: I stopped caring.

The creators I liked most weren’t the polished ones, I noticed. They were people whose videos felt authentic and casual, like FaceTime clips from a friend. I decided to try that. Just film and stop giving a f-ck, I told myself.

During one of our Act Two sessions, we were challenged to take an action on our projects, so I made a seven-second video on the spot. The hook was: “An evening Zoom with the video turned off [me slouching and eating ice cream] versus on [me smiling sitting up straight and smiling].” It was dumb, funny, and people liked it.²

In later videos, I tried talking the way I would to a busy friend. Many of those videos flopped too, but something shifted. I began to relax. I started showing up more authentically. If I didn’t like a video, I figured, I could always make it private.³

I was still critical of my weak jaw, slightly gay voice, and filler words (“um… like… kind of”). But I also began seeing things I liked: my eyes, low-key humor, and mature perspective. I remembered what I told myself when we moved to a wealthy new city and I felt intimidated: just be yourself and let the chips fall.

Looking back, three lessons may be useful to anyone doing something new that’s outside their comfort zone.

First, I kept my TikTok secret. I turned off “sync with contacts” and every setting that made my account discoverable. The only people I wanted to see me were strangers. Creating a space with no social risks made it easier to experiment.

Second, I turned off my business brain and turned on my play brain. Instead of chasing followers or forcing myself into a strategy, I set an activity-based goal: fifty videos of any kind. “Just do the reps,” I told myself. Focusing on process over outcome freed me to screw up and learn.

Finally, I embraced the cringe. Because I already believed I was bad at video, I felt okay with sucking. Since my ego, identity, and income weren’t on the line, I could take risks, be silly, and care less.

Now that I’m at the end of the project, I have a whopping 180 followers. I’m still a nobody on TikTok, and yet I’m proud of it. Something in me has shifted: I no longer run from video. I can feel myself shifting from obsessing over my faults to helping others.

It’s also given me empathy for my eight-year-old, who’s a beginner in everything: making his bed, throwing a football, writing thank-you notes (yes, we still do those). This project reminded me what that feels like.

That’s probably the biggest takeaway from my TikTok project. The freedom to be a beginner may be the most generative force in the world… if we can just let go of pride, ego, and fear of being cringe.

I don’t know if I’ll keep making TikToks, but I got what I wanted: some new skills, self-acceptance, and comfort with video. Yesterday, I live-streamed a meeting while walking with a selfie stick. That’s something I never would’ve done a month ago.

To be clear, I’m still not giving you my TikTok handle. But if you find it, I’ll try to shrug it off. Just promise you’ll chase your own secret project that makes you squirm a little. If I can embrace this much cringe, so can you.

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Hat tip to Michael Dean for feedback on an early draft of this essay. Check out his new essay coaching product.

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Theme Song

1. Learn more about Act Two here and follow Will Mannon. I’ll probably participate in the next cohort. Come join the fun.

2. Some of my best performing videos were the ones I spent the least amount of time on

3. Thank God for private mode. I had to “private” at least ten of my fifty videos, where only I can see them.