Social media isn't for your friends and family.

Unblur the lines. Free your voice. Save relationships.

Ok this is rough and raw let’s go!

I remember a day a couple of years ago at my kids tennis class.

I was speaking to some mums I’d never met, and after about 30 minutes of chatting, one said “Wait, are you Peta Kelly? I love your Substack.”

I winced a little inside. I do this every time someone in my home town tells me they follow my work. Still! It’s that strange ‘hometown phenomenon’.

Like the time I was in the grocery store, arms full because hey, I don’t need no basket, and a woman stopped me to tell me she loved my work (so lovely, and I was grateful).

As I was going through the checkout, she was behind me. After checking out my $450ish dollar shop— cos you can’t exit a boujee organic store for less than that these days— I realised they didn’t accept AMEX. I knew this, dammit! So I did what I usually do when a store doesn’t accept AMEX— I fish around for another card.

So, I’m standing there fishing around in my bag for another card, realising that, dam, my backup card is at home because some hacker frauded it. I had about $400 cash on me— not enough— and so I had to call my husband and have him send a photo of another card so I could input it manually into the EFTPOS machine.

Oh what a faff I was causing, holding up the whole line. It wasn’t just any line though— it was a line including SOMEONE WHO FOLLOWED MY WORK. Here I was holding up the line WITH HER IN IT! Some rogue part of me wondered if she was secretly wondering whether I’d suddenly gone bankrupt and couldn’t afford my groceries and was trying to do a runner, lol. How could I assure her that I was financially thriving ? I mean, should i pay for the entire line’s groceries? Would she make up a story about my AMEX debarcle and take it to the dirty forums?

It’s this weird hometown thing man.

I have many stories of beautiful followers stopping me in public. I typically will stop and have a chat if I can. I also get a lot of side eyes and depending on my mood, I’ll side eye back just to make it more awkward hehe.

But gosh— there is something about people in my hometown reading and watching the work which, on some level I never thought would reach them.

I have lived all over the world and I love living in far away places where nobody knows me— I feel so much more free in my voice and honestly? In myself. When I return to my home town in Australia for seasons, I feel like a square peg in a round hole— I feel a sense of history and familiarity, comfort and home, but also a little bit of a misfit.

I built my first big business in my home town over a decade ago— packing out rooms weekly. I did the first leg of my first book tour here in 2018— which was beautiful. People from my high school rocked up and it was such a nice surprise! Of course, my family has always supported my events all around the globe. My favourite legs of the book tour were the aussie ones— regardless of where I have lived, they will always be my people.

What is it with us and the hometown thing? Why do so many of us wince when someone we know, or who live in our area, says they follow our work?

I’ve thought a lot about social media dynamics a lot over the years— I’ve written about it a lot too.

Is social media really social? Or has it become more business/work?

It’s changed so much since the days when we would post innocent photos of our breakfast with an Xpro filter to our 450 followers (all of which we knew).

Now, people use their social media accounts less to reach people they know, and more to reach people they don’t.

Acknowledging this really matters.

Unless you have a private Instagram or Facebook account, used only to share photos and updates with friends and family— your social media is not for friends and family.

This could be the freedom you need internally before you can become more precise in your message, your expression and your reach— maybe your social media is not for your friends and family at all.

Maybe acknowledging this, and unblurring it for yourself will free your voice.

Maybe it will save some relationships too. I’m not being dramatic when I say that.

I can count on two hands, the amount of stories I have heard over the last month of friends of mine with decent sized audiences, saying that they’ve lost friends because ‘they thought my posts were all about them’ or ‘they thought I was thinking I’m better than them’.

There is also this message doing the rounds which I fundamentally disagree with (see this IG reel for what I said about it), that suggests that REAL friends like, comment and gas you up on your social media posts. Those who don’t? They’re fake and jealous.

I suggest you watch the reel I filmed for my thoughts on this but I’ll recap here.

I disagree.

I personally don’t host my friendships and closest relationships on social media.

My close relationships exist in real life. For my close long distance relationships, we use long whatsapp or telegram messages, and we will schedule facetime chats. We send each other photos of our kids, and lengthy updates personally. We don’t communicate via instagram.

Sure, we might say things like “i saw your posts and i love the direction you’re going in!’ or ‘hey I loved this post you did, so true’. We will support each other, check in with each others stuff, but it’s never a performance.

I don’t check whether my friends are in my comments or liking my stories.

They have a life. I don’t believe the world revolves around me.

Many of my closest friends and I don’t have a social media relationship at all. I can think of three of my closest friends off the top of my head that I have ZERO social media relationship with. We only exist to each other in the context of our real friendship. These people know my whole family, including my mum and I know their family too.

My closest people know my family. My closest people, I know would drop anything for me in times of trouble and you bet dam well I’d do it for them too. If a friend needs me? i am there. I’ll tell my husband and kids I have to go for a quick walk, X needs to talk, something has gone down.

My closest people know me— through my many lives, many evolutions, and vice versa. We text each other for our kids birthdays, send gifts, pop bread inside the house (we know the codes) after a trip away, get our kids together for hours on end, catch up last minute with no fanfare whatsoever, give each other the honest truth, are there for each other in hard and good times. We have long standing jokes. We’ve been there through real life shit.

Real relationships. I do not need them to be gassing me up in my posts.

But I know they’re not tearing me down behind the scenes either.

You know? Just cos friends aren’t liking and commenting, doesn’t mean they’re not cheering you on— real life supporters.

Social media has made everything a fake performance.

I’m sure you’ve seen that many ‘friendships’ on social media are performative— people want to see who they are close to for social power.

You so know what I’m talking about.

There is a difference between social media friendships— people who you know via socials but who you wouldn’t call on the phone when shit hits the fan. The self help world does this especially. People want power via proximity. They wanna be tagged with certain folk.

It’s NOT the same as the village.

You have to be able to get real here.

My mum, I think likes most posts I make. sisters and my brother only comment on my posts if its a bday or anniversary. Even then, not always. But guess where is the first place I run to when I need to vent? My husband first, but also my family whatsapp.

Or to my mum when she comes over. Or to a friend on a long audio.

Sometimes we will share each others stuff, or comment but again— not as a performance because we are in contact in real life. My two younger sisters are not my target audience. We live very different lives. We support each other but again, not as a public performance. My brother and I have long chats about deep topics but these don’t take place on social media.

They are not the people I am trying to reach. But that doesn’t mean they’re not supportive, and vice versa.

(We do send each other reels though. lol)

I do not care whether my closest people like or comment on my posts. I know that it does not mean they are jealous or fake.

I also know the difference between my real and actual village, and social media relationships. They’re not the same.

Sure, I have met true friends via Instagram.

But Instagram is NOT where I host my closest relationships.

It’s where I host my work, my expression, my message. It’s where I reach people I do not know in an intimate sense.

Many people have to unblur this for themselves.

My social media is for my expression, my work, and my creations.

I do not write or express on social media for the purpose of reaching or helping the people in my immediate circle. My relationships exist off this platform.

We need to draw boundaries around it for ourselves. It is very hard to be fully expressed when you’re worrying about the opinions of people you’re not even writing for.

Sometimes we just need to draw a line for ourselves and say, “My social media is not for my friends, is not for my family. It’s for my work, it’s for my expression, and it is not a place that I house or serve or nourish my most intimate relationships.”

There is another phenomenon that I have heard so, so many stories about lately (I have also experienced it myself)— is people thinking your posts are written about them.

I have read posts and felt triggered, or a resonance, or punched in the gut by them. I know though, that they were not written for me personally. I know i am not the sole inspiration for other people’s posts. I trust my friends to come to me directly if they have a message for me and not to passively write about me.

But this is the thing with social media— we can write posts which are direct (in my case they always are!), and when we have both a social media relationship AND a real life relationship with someone, it opens up the door for them to say ‘omg is that about me?’

For instance I have friends who are going through huge identity upgrades right now— earning great money, rising above victimhood, changing their bodies after years of excuses. They speak to their audience from this place— they speak to the person who wants to change like they did.

Friends of theirs think they’re talking to them personally.

They’re not.

They’re talking to the people they’re trying to help. It is their business.

We’ve seen it happen also with politics. You can have an incredibly solid relationship with someone in real life, but then you see their social media posts and decide you can’t be their friend?

It happens.

It’s sad.

I have actually had friends who I have specifically unfollowed because their social media posts were so…. derogatory about certain demographics without meaning to be. They were caught up in the hype of certain big global moments. I knew that when we were together, we were great. We could have open honest convos about our different beliefs. I would rather this, than have a social media relationship with someone. So, I stopped following them online so I could maintain a real relationship with them where we actually talk about things.

I have friends who purposely don’t follow friends and vice versa. They have hard boundaries between their social media and their personal lives and ya know what? I get it!

I don’t have such staunch lines. I check in with friends stuff, but never as a performance. I don’t make it a priority in my life to be across their social media work. It’s not where our relationship exists. I comment and like when I see something and if I particularly love it, but again, not as a performance. Our relationships are not measured by our IG engagement. Do I need to walk into their workplace and pretend they need my presence there? no. I do care about being an active friend though.

You’ve got to draw whatever lines you need. But with social media in 2026? You sure need some lines.

it’s getting weird out there. Decide whether your socials are for socialising, or for a message/mission. If it’s both, expect a little blurriness.

I want to really hammer this home too because I know it’ll free you:

If you are using your social media for your work, your expression, your message— you need to stop writing for the girls in your hometown, or your cousins, or your high school friends.

No, this is not inauthentic.

Social media— substack, Instagram all of it— will never capture the totality of who you are.

Authenticity itself is a performance now. People believe they have to reveal every crevice of their life to be ‘real’. No. You can be both private and authentic. Authenticity has layers. Not everyone who follows me online is gonna know what a funny b**** I am in real life ok? Cos online most of the time I just deliver butt whoopings. it’s my signature style. But its not ALL of who I am.

It is ok for your social media presence to serve your work and your mission, and not your intimate relationships.

I am blessed that my closest people can read and appreciate my work and many of them love it and follow it genuinely. Some of them don’t give a shit about it, and I love them for it.

I believe there is some spiritual warfare going on where relationships are ending because of the fake and performative nonsense in the online world.

Come to it new.

Unblur it for yourself.

Tell your friends and family if you need to, that your social media presence is not meant for them but that your real life relationship is.

Free your voice, by writing with more precision without factoring in what all of your home town people will think— you’re not writing for them.

It is impossible to reach who you want to reach if you’re writing for people you are not meant to reach.

It is impossible to even be authentically expressed if you have the wrong people in your head when you’re writing.

If you want to grow a sizeable audience, take this piece of advice— stop writing for your family and friends. It’s not for them.

Nurture those relationships separately, and if they love your work anyway? Great!

Think about it… do you need your closest people coming to your workplace and approving what you do? No. That would be inappropriate. This is my WORK mate, Ill call you later.

We have to untangle it for ourselves.

You must, if you want a clean voice, and tidy boundaries.

You can find my books and classes here at petakelly.com. if you’re up for a big reboot, I suggest either TERRITORY my most recent class or HONEST— 118 pages about creative integrity in a performative world.

Lotsa love,

PK