You're the only person who really knows who you are behind your handle
In the age of relentless digital visibility, two artists who owe their careers to social media have arrived at a quiet but hard-won wisdom: the platforms that elevate you can also erode you, if you let them. Comedienne Jessie Woo and rapper Kid Kenn, speaking at ESSENCE's Wellness House, offered not a rejection of social media but a reckoning with it — a reminder that the self worth protecting is the one that exists when no one is watching.
- Social media handed both Woo and Kenn their careers, but the same visibility that opened doors also invited cruelty, false narratives, and comments that land in tender, unguarded places.
- For Woo, the danger is real and specific — online words have triggered old trauma, proving that digital harm is not abstract but deeply personal.
- Kenn's defense is deliberate simplicity: when the feed becomes too much, he closes the phone and lets the platform cease to exist for him, treating it as a tool rather than a residence.
- Woo's approach is more internal — she lets the noise in, acknowledges it consciously, and then releases it, a practice born from learning the hard way what happens when she doesn't.
- Both artists converge on the same essential strategy: know who you are outside the algorithm, because that grounded self-knowledge is the only armor that holds.
Jessie Woo knows exactly when scrolling stops feeling good. The Wild 'n Out comedienne credits social media with launching her career — strangers found her there, opportunities followed — but she's equally clear-eyed about its shadow side. Visibility invites a false intimacy, and from that false intimacy comes judgment, cruelty, and comments that have touched wounds she didn't know were still open. Her response is a practiced ritual: let the noise in, acknowledge it, then flush it out.
Rapper Kid Kenn takes a simpler route. He doesn't let the platform live inside him. When it becomes too much, he closes his phone and it disappears. Both artists shared these reflections at ESSENCE's Wellness House, in a conversation moderated by ESSENCE Lifestyle Director Charli Penn about mental health and the cost of public life online.
The paradox they named is genuine: social media is a career accelerator, a community builder, a door-opener that didn't exist a generation ago. Neither of them would have their platform without it. But exposure cuts both ways. When audiences construct who you are from fragments — a joke, a post, a misread moment — they feel entitled to weigh in, and sometimes those words land as weapons.
What both artists point toward is not withdrawal, but fortification. Woo speaks of self-love and self-care as non-negotiable — knowing who you are outside the metrics and the comments, so that cruelty bounces off rather than burrows in. Kenn's boundary is behavioral: step away, turn it off, remember that you control the relationship. The lesson, hard-earned by both, is that social media is a powerful tool that demands intentional management — and that the difference between thriving and drowning online often comes down to how well you know yourself when no one is watching.
Jessie Woo has learned to recognize the moment when scrolling stops being fun. The Wild 'n Out comedienne knows that social media launched her career—strangers discovered her there, opportunities followed—but she also knows the platform has a shadow side. When you're visible, when thousands of people think they know you, they feel entitled to say things they'd never say to your face. Some of those things have cut deep, touching old wounds she didn't know were still tender. So she's developed a practice: she lets the noise in, acknowledges it, and then she flushes it out. "If I don't," she said, trailing off with the kind of knowing laugh that suggests she's learned this lesson the hard way.
Rapper Kid Kenn takes a different approach. He doesn't let social media get under his skin because he doesn't let it live there in the first place. When the feed becomes too much, he simply closes his phone. The platform disappears. It's that simple for him—a tool he uses when it serves him, nothing more. Both artists were speaking at ESSENCE's Wellness House event, a conversation moderated by ESSENCE Lifestyle Director Charli Penn about the intersection of mental health and the relentless visibility that comes with building a public life online.
The paradox they both articulated is real and unresolved: social media is a genuine career accelerator. It's how audiences find you. It's how you build community, find collaborators, create opportunities that wouldn't exist otherwise. Kenn was direct about it: "I love social media." Woo echoed the gratitude. Without these platforms, neither of them would have the platform they have now. The exposure was transformative. But exposure cuts both ways.
Woo was candid about what the darker side looks like. When you're in the public eye, people construct narratives about who you are based on fragments—a video, a joke, a misunderstood post. They feel they know you. And from that false intimacy, they comment, they judge, they sometimes weaponize their words. For Woo, some of those comments have triggered trauma she carries. The cruelty isn't abstract; it lands in specific places. She's had to learn that those words, however sharp, don't define her. The person behind the handle—the one who exists in the world without a camera, without an audience—that person is the real one. That's the self worth protecting.
The strategy both artists pointed toward is less about avoiding social media entirely and more about building a fortress around your sense of self. Woo emphasized self-love and self-care as non-negotiable practices. You have to know who you are outside the algorithm, outside the comments, outside the metrics. That knowledge becomes armor. When someone online says something false or cruel, you can feel it bounce off because you already know the truth. Kenn's approach—the ability to simply step away, to turn off the phone and let the digital world vanish—is another form of that same boundary-setting. Both are saying the same thing: you control your relationship with these platforms, not the other way around.
For anyone building a public presence, the lesson is clear but not easy: social media is a tool, powerful and useful, but it requires intentional management. The benefits are real. The risks are real too. The difference between thriving and drowning online often comes down to whether you remember who you are when nobody's watching.
Citações Notáveis
I'm thankful for social media because that's literally how a lot of people got introduced to me, so I'm really thankful for that aspect of it.— Jessie Woo
You're the only person who really knows who you are behind your handle. People can say whatever they want, but at the end of the day, you have to know who you are outside of social media.— Jessie Woo
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
When you say social media has a dark side, what does that actually feel like in the moment?
It's disorienting. You see something written about you that's not true, or it touches something painful you thought you'd moved past. The weird part is it comes from a stranger who thinks they know you.
But you said you're learning to flush it out. How do you actually do that?
You have to separate the person online from the person offline. The real you exists without the phone. That's the one that matters.
Kid Kenn just turns his phone off. Is that realistic for someone whose career depends on being online?
It's about knowing when to step away, not disappearing entirely. You use the platform when it serves you, then you close it.
What would you tell someone who's just starting out and doesn't have that thick skin yet?
Build it intentionally. Know who you are before the comments start. That knowledge is what keeps you grounded when things get messy.
So it's not about avoiding social media. It's about protecting yourself while you're on it.
Exactly. The platform isn't going anywhere. You have to be the one who stays solid.