Eighty-seven percent of digital initiatives announced via social media “build-in-public” threads never survive to see a third month of actual operations. Transparency is the highest virtue of the digital age. And yet, it is almost always a carefully curated simulation of honesty-a sequence of “vulnerable” updates that, while appearing to let the light in, actually function as a series of spotlights directed away from the project’s flaws-that prevents any real work from occurring.

We have been told that narrating our work is an act of generosity, a way to help others learn from our mistakes, but in the harsh light of the social feed, it has become something far more transactional. It has become a performance of ascent.

The Lumpy Reality of the Fitted Sheet

I spent forty minutes this morning trying to fold a fitted sheet. If you have ever attempted this, you know the specific brand of existential despair that accompanies the task. You start with the intention of creating a crisp, geometric rectangle, and you end up with a lumpy, shameful fabric ball that you shove into the back of the linen closet.

This morning, I considered filming it. I considered posting a time-lapse with a caption about “the messy middle” or “the struggle of the process.” But then I realized that the moment I turned on the camera, the folding would no longer be about the sheet. It would be about the image of a person who is diligent enough to fold sheets. The actual sheet would remain a mess, but the narration of the mess would become a new kind of social currency.

This is the central trap of the modern builder. We are addicted to the narration of the climb because the narration provides the dopamine hit of the summit without any of the actual gravity. When you tell the world you are “building a revolutionary new platform,” and you post a screenshot of a half-finished landing page, the likes and comments you receive are a pre-payment for a success you haven’t yet earned.

The culture of building in public has turned the work itself into a secondary product. The primary product is the builder’s identity as a person who is “on the move.” We see the progress bars, the daily commits, and the “raw” behind-the-scenes photos, and we mistake these for momentum. But momentum is a vector-it requires both magnitude and direction. Most of what we see online is just magnitude: a high-frequency vibration that stays in exactly the same place.

The Sound of Removed Noise

Ethan P.-A., an acoustic engineer who spends his days isolating noise in concrete bunkers to test high-end speakers, once told me:

“Silence is never actually empty; it’s just the sound of everything we didn’t want to hear being successfully removed.”

– Ethan P.-A., Acoustic Engineer

In the world of digital growth, the “noise” is the actual work-the tedious, unpostable hours spent fixing a broken database or arguing with a payment processor. The “silence” we present to the world is a polished, curated version of that noise. We remove the boredom and the doubt, leaving only the rhythmic beat of “progress.”

The problem is that this narration creates a tax. Every time you stop to frame a shot of your workspace or craft a witty tweet about your latest bug, you are leaching energy away from the problem you are trying to solve. You are no longer an engineer or a designer; you are a publicist for a company of one. And the publicist is always more interested in how the company looks than how it functions.

In the Italian market, where the aesthetic of “bella figura” often dictates how we present ourselves to the world, this performance is particularly seductive. We want our brands to look established, our profiles to look authoritative, and our projects to look inevitable. We know that visibility is the engine of growth. If nobody sees you building, are you even building at all? This is the pragmatic reality of social media. You need social proof to get the first client, the first follower, the first “yes.”

When the performance of progress becomes the goal, the project becomes a hollow shell. We see this in the way people obsess over “authenticity.” The moment you have to announce you are being authentic, you are engaging in a theatrical act. Real authenticity is messy, quiet, and often very boring to watch. It looks like a lumpy fitted sheet, not a high-definition video of a lumpy fitted sheet.

Bypassing the Narrative Tax

For creators and businesses trying to navigate this, the pressure to maintain a constant stream of “traction” is exhausting. They feel they must document every breath to stay relevant in the algorithm’s eyes. This is where the logic of the performance breaks down. If the goal is simply to establish a baseline of credibility so you can get back to the actual work, there are more efficient ways to do it. You don’t have to sacrifice your creative energy to the god of the “daily update.”

If you can bypass the need to constantly narrate your “growth” by securing a baseline of authority, you reclaim the most valuable resource you have: your focus. The time you would have spent staging photos of your coffee next to your laptop can be spent actually writing the code, or the book, or the strategy. You move from the theater of building to the workshop of building.

The Terrifying Silence of the Workshop

There is a specific kind of vanity in the “build in public” movement that we rarely talk about. It is the vanity of believing that your process is so inherently fascinating that it deserves an audience before the result does. It assumes that the “how” is more important than the “what.” While this can be true for masters of a craft, for most of us, it is just another way to avoid the terrifying silence of the blank page.

We fill the silence with updates because the silence is where the real questions live. The silence asks: Is this actually good? Does this solve a problem? Am I just wasting my time? The theater of progress allows us to drown out those questions. As long as the “likes” are coming in, we feel we must be on the right track. But the algorithm rewards the performance, not the profit. It loves the builder who is always “on the verge” of a breakthrough, because that person will keep posting forever.

When I finally gave up on folding that sheet and just stuffed it into the cupboard, I felt a strange sense of relief. The cupboard door closed, and the mess was hidden. My linen closet did not look like a Pinterest board, but my bed was made, and I was free to go about my day. I hadn’t signaled anything to anyone. I had just finished a task, poorly but completely.

We need more of that “hidden” work. We need more projects that are developed in the dark, away from the feedback loops and the status games. We need people who are willing to be invisible for six months so they can emerge with something that actually works, rather than something that merely looks like it’s working.

This doesn’t mean you should never share your journey. But it means you should be honest about why you are sharing it. Are you teaching, or are you signaling? Are you seeking feedback, or are you seeking applause? If you find yourself spending more time editing the caption than you spent on the task itself, you are no longer a builder. You are a set designer.

The most successful people I know are surprisingly quiet. They don’t have time to tell you how busy they are because they are actually busy. They understand that every public update is a tiny leak in the pressurized vessel of their focus. They use social media as a tool-a way to broadcast results, not a way to simulate process. They invest in their social proof as a one-time setup cost, not a daily subscription of their soul.

Ultimately, the “build in public” trend will fade, like all trends that prioritize the map over the territory. What will remain are the things that were built with a total disregard for the audience’s opinion during the construction phase. The houses that stand are the ones where the architect wasn’t busy taking selfies on the scaffolding.

A Return to the Workshop

The next time you feel the urge to post a screenshot of your progress, ask yourself what would happen if you didn’t. What if you kept that little win for yourself? What if you let the pressure of the unshared secret drive you to the next step, and the step after that? You might find that the work becomes harder, but it also becomes more real. You might find that you don’t need the crowd to tell you you’re moving when you can feel the wind in your face.

It doesn’t care about your follower count or your engagement rate. It only cares about the next commit, the next call, the next honest hour of work. Stop building the image of the builder. Just build. If you need the world to notice, find a way to make it look like you’ve already arrived, then get back to the shadows where the real work happens. The lumpy sheets are waiting, and they won’t fold themselves while you’re watching the likes roll in.