The people who cheered at zero go quiet when you grow
This week one of my videos reached thousands of strangers. Way more than anything I'd posted before. And the people who used to like every single thing I shared? Nothing. Not a like. Not a comment.
Meanwhile, strangers who'd watched seventeen seconds showed up to tell me how to raise my kid.
So for about a day I was furious. Delete-everyone furious. Then I realized nobody talks about this part of growing, which means a lot of you are sitting in the same silence wondering what you did wrong.
You didn't do anything wrong. Here's what's actually happening, and what I'm doing about it.
Why the silence happens
When you're starting out, supporting you is easy. You're small. Cheering costs nothing. It even feels generous.
When you start to grow, the math changes for some people. Your progress becomes a mirror. It makes them look at where they are. Some people can clap anyway. Some don't know what to do with that feeling, so they do nothing.
And some people supported you as long as you were useful to them. When you stop being useful in the way they wanted, the cheering stops too.
None of that is a verdict on you. It's information.
What to do instead of spiraling
Don't read the silence as a judgment. Quiet isn't "your content is bad" or "you're too much." Most of the time it's awkwardness, or their own stuff. People who know you in real life often don't know what to say on a vulnerable post, so they scroll past. Give them the benefit of the doubt once.
Mute, don't delete. Deleting in anger is permanent and it's usually about the hurt, not the person. Muting gets their posts out of your feed so you stop watching who isn't showing up. They never know. If in a month you still want them gone, decide then, calm.
Count who is clapping. The stranger who saved your post. The one friend who shared it. The woman who commented that she needed this today. That's your real circle, and it's almost always bigger than the list of people who went quiet.
What I'm not doing
I'm not calling anybody out. I thought about it. Hard. But a call-out makes the story about them, and this isn't their story. It's mine, and the people who matter to it are the ones who show up.
I'm just paying attention now.
The hardest moment to support a friend isn't when they're struggling. It's when they're winning and you're not. If you can clap then, you're rare. Be that friend.
If this is you right now
If you're building something and the people you expected to cheer have gone quiet, you're not imagining it, and you're not alone. Keep building. The right people find you while you're doing the work.
And if you're a woman who claps for other women when they win, not just when they're struggling, you're my people.
come say hi, I read every DM → @heykayandco