I Went Viral For Not Having My Shit Together
Turns out, not being normal is quite normal.
My friend Sagar Patel, affectionately known by his fans as “Sagar Kong” for how tall and jacked he is, has been experiencing a nice growth spurt lately. Not in terms of height—my dude is literally 6’5” and terrifying. But he’s been getting a surge of Instagram views and followers in recent weeks. The Tampa-based fitness influencer jumped from ~30K followers to ~70K followers in just a couple weeks’ time. His growth can be attributed to many things, but most notably his frequency of posting (10-12 times a day some days), and his vulnerability with his audience about his imperfect past. The latter of which is a pretty rare thing on “fitness social media” these days.
I find myself texting Sagar more lately. Because both growth and frequency are things I’ve struggled with on Instagram lately. I’ll take whatever wisdom I can get from this guy, who just quit his day job and is clearly crushing it.
Recently, Sagar pushed me to do both of these things: post more, and be more vulnerable. The week of May 26th, 2025, I decided to attempt to post on Instagram reels just a little more than usual, so about twice a day if time permits. With a little extra push from Sagar later in the week, I also decided to finally get a little more vulnerable. And it was that week that I somewhat accidentally gained over 4,000 new followers, hit a totally new audience, and started to feel my personal brand take a major turn for the better. In hindsight, that Wednesday specifically was the turning point when things began to align in a way that felt almost serendipitous.
Wednesday, May 28th Was a Good Day
Wednesday May 28th, 2025 was an interesting day. It was a cloudy, slightly rainy day in New York, but I was filled with joy. I had just received word about a final offer for a brand partnership with a major beer brand you have definitely heard of.
Not only have I been struggling to land work from any major brand, let alone a major CPG brand, but I have generally struggled to land consistent brand work period in my 10 months doing content creation full-time. This felt like a major milestone, and a very positive signal that my social media endeavors are headed in the right direction. I used that positive signal to my advantage; I spontaneously went on a walk in the drizzling rain and picked up a plant I’d really wanted for my desk, to be in the backdrop of my YouTube videos. The plant shop was also a coffee shop. Cappuccino at 3pm? Sure, why not?
I felt like I was on top of the world, and I felt an immense sense of gratitude as I walked home in the rain. And like a true influencer, I made sure to capture that moment for the ‘Gram.
The post does well. I knew it would. I’ve got this social media game figured out by now. Walk and talk + vulnerability + positivity + bragging + NYC backdrop = views and validation. Nice.
Normally, I would feel satisfied posting one Instagram reel for the day. But I was feeling good. Fuck it. Another one, shall we?
I post a more experimental concept I’d been dreaming up for awhile. A classic criticism of LinkedIn Tech Broetry, but with my own creative spin. I spent a little extra time on this one, cutting shots precisely to the drop on Playboi Carti’s absurdly aggressive song that I very much adore, EVIL J0RDAN. It crushes. It is still crushing. I knew it would. I’m feeling unstoppable now.
Fast forward to 11pm, and it is time to wind down for bed. And by wind down for bed, I mean cheekily treat myself to an inhale out of my favorite electronic device that puts me into an altered state of mind. I put on the new Djo album, a recent favorite of mine. I light a Japanese incense. I kick back in my semi-comfy Murphy bed. And, as is typical during this borderline nightly ritual, I start to overthink things. Specifically, my whole social media thing.
My videos from today are crushing. People are proud of me. But something still feels empty. I couldn’t quite pinpoint what. Wanting to focus on the positives of the situation, I texted Sagar Kong. I let him know that posting more often seems to be working for me. Sagar was proud! He said to keep it up and to post more carousels (Instagram photo slideshows, for those that don’t speak influencer). But then, he followed with a question that made me pause in my imaginative footsteps (I’m laying in bed stoned AF at this point).
“The people love you, but do they know you?”
I sat there and really thought about it. I knew I was sort of “trying” to be more vulnerable with my audience, so I can become more of a “lifestyle influencer”, which can lead to more growth, yada yada yada.
I replied “Trying to start showing them now. Hence the walk and talk [videos]”.
But I knew deep down I wasn’t really trying. I was just making more videos about non-corporate and non-tech topics. The strategy was sort of working, but it wasn’t showcasing who I really am behind camera. I think I’ve done a good job with that on YouTube and Substack, but my Instagram and TikTok audiences (my largest) haven’t really been seeing that.
He responds, “A lil mang lore carousel would go wild”.
Again, for those who aren’t plugged into my absurd cinematic universe and need a translation, he’s saying that some lore about Varun’s life would be well-received by the people.
So I thought about this for a second, in my cannabis-ridden stupor. I make videos satirizing the life of a tech guy in New York. At work, and outside of work. I’ve even done some YouTube videos talking about some of my least favorite work experiences ever. But there is not a trace of detail on the internet that answers a very important question:
WTF has this guy been doing for work all this time?
People Love Me, But They Don’t Know Me
I know when I see another “corporate creator”, that is always the first question that comes to mind. What did/does this guy or girl do for work? How is their humor so accurate? How much do they make? Do they still work at that job? And how much do they make? Did I forget to ask what their salary was?
I have failed to answer a very simple question that is likely top of mind for my viewers. And to be honest, I have avoided sharing my entire career journey from front to back because, well, I’ve been very insecure about it.
I intentionally removed the details of my job history from my LinkedIn. I felt like my career journey was kind of ugly. I worked a burnout big tech job, hated it and barely made it a couple years. I quit with no job lined up. I took a big pay cut for a job I was overqualified for just to make some cash.
Then I took up content creation. Then I joined a startup, which still had me at a pay cut to start. That job rocked and got me my first promotion, but it also sucked in a lot of ways. Mainly because it was an overvalued startup run by an elder millennial founded in the 2010s.
I got another job after that with better pay and hours. I made great money. Then I got back into content creation. Then that job started to suck, because it was also an overvalued startup run by an elder millennial founded in the 2010s. Then I poured more into content creation. I kept pouring until my employer noticed. More on that another time.
Then, all of a sudden, I was a full-time content creator come August of 2024. Six years into my bumpy journey through the tech industry.
And every step of the way, I felt extremely self-conscious. Friends, family, and colleagues would make the remarks you would expect.
“You may regret leaving Amazon one day.”
“The future opportunities at Amazon could be good.”
“You’re worth a lot more money than that.”
“You should stay at that startup longer. The HR lady at my company thinks job hopping looks bad.”
“Be careful what you post on TikTok; what will future employers think?”
“You can always come work for me if this content thing doesn’t work out!”
…How could I not be insecure about all the moves I made?
Pulling Back The Curtain
In a moment of THC-induced overzealousness, I decided to completely pull back the curtain. I whipped up a carousel post summarizing all the details of my entire career journey throughout my 20s. All of it. Every job and salary, and my reflections on each experience, between the ages of 20 to 29. Into the Photos app I began digging. Over to the Instagram app I began designing and curating. I throw on my current favorite Djo song, Delete Ya, that just played on my Bluetooth speaker mid-sesh.
40 minutes later (yes, I spent that long), I posted the carousel summing up my entire career.
The response was overwhelmingly positive. No, like genuinely overwhelming. The post went, like, super viral. Here I was expecting a few “Thank you for sharing!” and “Proud of you!” comments. Instead, I was met with an outpouring of gratitude for something I didn’t even realize I had done.
Between Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok, I received numerous messages saying different versions of the same thing: essentially thanking me for making people feel more at ease about not having a perfect journey.
…Huh?
Other people…have also been feeling insecure about a bumpy ride through corporate?
WHY DIDN’T THEY TELL ME SOONER?
Could’ve saved some coping mechanisms along the way if I’d known I wasn’t the crazy one!
Everybody is Lost
It felt very healing to know that I was not alone in feeling anxious and insecure at every juncture of my ever-winding, bumpy, messy career. I don’t blame my friends and family for openly questioning me along the way either, because this Instagram post helped solidify an uncomfortable truth I’d begun to grasp in the latter years of my twenties:
Nobody knows what they’re doing.
Nobody. Not one title, profession, age, company, university, LinkedIn post, or salary will give anyone stronger conviction that they know exactly what they’re doing. We are truly all winging it. It is everyone’s first time living.
So I don’t blame anyone for worrying about me when I quit jobs, took pay cuts, or posted on the internet like a maniac. They, too, were feeling a level of insecurity witnessing me do something unconventional.
But the viral nature of this post opened me up to an even more uncomfortable truth:
People feel incredibly lonely not knowing what they’re doing.
People Feel Alone in Feeling Lost
Why are people eating up this post? Is seriously nobody else on the internet talking openly about career struggles? The only other person I can think of is Chloe Shih, who kicked off a wildly successful influencing career after talking about being laid off from her job.
Go figure. People are deprived of transparency. I’m not talking about financial transparency. And I’m not talking about emotional transparency. I’m talking about an even bigger-picture transparency. People are deprived of transparency about the entire journey. People feel like their lives have to follow a very flawless trajectory. And it is eating them up inside.
I’ve always had a decent sense of my mission with content. I want to call out cringe, culty, groupthinky situations. And by doing that, I hope to empower people to not feel compelled to conform to things that don’t serve them.
Contrarianism. Nonconformity. “Fuck the system”. Whatever you want to call it.
But after sharing every little turn I’ve made in my career with over 2 million people, I’ve come to embrace a new, bigger mission:
To let people know that not being normal…is quite normal.
This is so excellent
Fuck the system 🙌