if you want to survive the scroll economy, STOP THE POLISH

And re-insert your “human tells” 

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not the strategy to convey

• “I’m put together”

• “I’m impressive”

• “I’m… not approachable”

Because that creates distance,

and when people feel distance, they do this:

→ they scroll

→ they assume

→ they don’t DM

→ they don’t buy

→ they don’t build a relationship with you

and you've been doing it so long, you don't even notice anymore.

We self-edit constantly.

on calls. mid-sentence. out loud in meetings before the thought even finishes forming.

by the time you sit down to write, you've already rehearsed a cleaner version of the real thought.

and the real one never makes it out.

Okay so I’m here to name a solution you can take home with you, or I guess “think about” the next time you sit down to write.

Because i've gotten more comments about "sounding human" on LinkedIn then I can count.

If i’m honest, I’ve never sat down and identified EXACTLY why…

it comes naturally to me.

Until now. 

I sat down to collect and name the things i do (whether I realized it or not) that make a reader feel like a real person wrote this.

I'm calling them the Human Tells.

and I'm not telling you to perform them.

I'm telling you to stop deleting them.

this one isn't a stylistic choice.

it's a preserved accident.

when you're typing fast and a letter follows the I before autocorrect catches it, you delete your own correction and autocorrect doesn't fix it the second time.

so the lowercase i stays.

Or in this contraction, “i’m” 

Auto-correct doesn’t pick the “i” back up 

it means you were moving too fast and thinking too hard to go back and clean it up.

it's evidence you didn't stop.

Sometimes shouting sure.

But also,

pacing. feeling. emphasis that punctuation can't do alone.

when you write "this CHANGED everything" the reader hears you say it.

you don't write ALL CAPS because you're performing excitement.

you write it because that's actually how it lands in your head and you refused to flatten it into something quieter and more composed.

"this changed everything" is a different sentence 

(and much more likely to be written by ai)

That’s how I knew I was finally exploring.

How else are we supposed to grow, unless we get uncomfortable first?

dont. wont. Cant do it.

the apostrophe is the edit.

the missing one is proof you were in flow and left it alone.

you didn't care enough to go back.

that's the thought moving faster than the cleanup crew.

you felt that. In number 2?

Here.

It.

Is.

again.

it forces a full stop at every single word.

use it when you need someone to actually land on something instead of sliding past it.

it's the written version of a hand on the shoulder.

(this is where you say the thing you almost cut.)

example: "yesterday I filmed this in my living room (with a tripod that's seen war. 😆)"

THAT is the part people screenshot.

that's the part that gets sent to someone with "this is so us."

the parenthetical is where your actual personality lives.

stop cutting it.

For me, I use it A LOT to replace an em dash.

I think i have an odd attachment to this one… 

Im not so sure…

it creates a moment of suspense inside a single sentence.

readers lean in without knowing why…

that's why.

sometimes a sentence doesn't have a clean ending because you hadn't finished having the thought yet and that's actually exactly how it should read because that's what real thinking looks like when it's arriving in real time.

see what happened there?

that's not a mistake.

that's a thought forming in front of someone.

readers recognize it because their brain works exactly the same way.

FORGET ALL YOU KNOW about proper grammar when it comes to captions

not "I rushed out of the house this morning"

More like

"I kid you not…

I spilt my coffee not on my way out the door

Changed my entire outfit,

Just to spill it at the red light too?"

Here, I am asking like the disbelief I had with myself. 

My INTERNAL DIALOGUE. 

Use that gold! 

the specific, slightly uncomfortable, completely real detail that you thought made you look unprepared?

THAT is the post.

the weird nickname you gave something. the offhand description. That's the part that makes people feel like they know you.

and people buy from people they feel like they know.

Here’s the ultimate bonus hack. 

Write it to your friend first. Imagine that the only person you’re writing for is the one you can be unfiltered with

same zero fear of judgment.

Because there is ONE person reading your post on the other side of the screen. 

reading it in their own head in their own voice.

This is the NUMBER one communication hack that translates into nearly every format of communication.

when you write to a crowd you perform.

when you write to one person you connect.

the Human Tells are what happen naturally when you stop performing.

don't.

unpolished is not a personality you put on.

it's what's left when you stop performing one. leave about 20% of you’re mess in,

(because we still want people to understand and communicate clearly)

and it only works if the foundation is there.

your hook still has to earn the scroll.

your point still has to land.

You still have to address the identity of your icp (ideal client prospect) to move the needle.

master the basics.

THEN let the Human Tells through.

stop strangling the real thought on its way out.

these keep performing across platforms. steal them.

how to use it: name something. even if you made it up. the power is in the label. "theory" creates curiosity and authority in one word. the more unexpected the source (grandma over coach, always), the more it stops the scroll.

important: don't keep it vague. the more concrete the shift, the better it converts.

example: "my therapist told me about the 'grey rock theory' and it completely changed the way i handle difficult people online"

how to use it: create contrast. what people assume vs what's actually true. make the "NOT" something widely believed — that's the scroll stopper.

example: "the biggest lesson i learnt about looking confident on camera and it is NOT posing"

how to use it: get specific. call out exactly who your person is and exactly what they want. specific identity + specific desire = follows.

important: test multiple variations. swap the identity, swap the desire, see what sticks.

example: "POV: you're a creative who wants to grow on social media in 2026 without spending all your time making content and you find my page"

how to use it: you did the experiment. they get the data. position yourself as the person who went first so they don't have to guess.

example: "i posted every day for 30 days so you don't have to. here's exactly what happened…"

how to use it: call out what your audience is doing right now that isn't working, then use the second line to show your own transformation. lead with empathy, land with credibility.

example: "i wish more creative business owners knew that posting your work isn't marketing. take it from me, an ex photographer who grew from 2k to 22k in 90 days posting this instead…"

if this hit different than what you usually read on a wednesday forward it to the founder in your life who sounds like a brand instead of a human.

They will thank you for it.

And PLEASE, if you made it here, reply with your favorite one (:

— Syd