“Be yourself.”

It’s easily been one of the most common phrases written and spoken about on social media in recent years, and we’re probably all guilty of having dished it out as advice to someone in good faith, at some point.

Overused, uninspired, stating the bleeding the obvious… definitely all fair assertions of this two-word mantra that sycophants up and down your socials will claim ‘changed’ their lives when they first heard it uttered from the gob of a guru.

But, for what it’s worth, here are 7 reasons why I think “be yourself” is also – deep down – truly fucking terrible advice when it comes to marketing whatever it is that you’re selling.

1. Being yourself is boring. This is why social media platforms, dating apps, and Hollywood as an entire entity are all multi-billion pound/dollar industries. Fakery is much more fun. And profitable.

2. “Be yourself” only works as sound advice if you’re absolutely certain that you’re not in any way a bit of a prick. And you probably are a bit of a prick, if you’re totally honest with yourself, aren’t you. Whether it’s your strange sense of humour, your ‘ruin it for everyone’ social awkwardness, or your woefully-warped political allegiances, someone will hate you for it. It’s only natural that in a world this big, you will come across as a partial or complete shitgibbon in some way, to someone, somewhere.

3. Being yourself doesn’t pay the mortgage. Brazenly lying to people and selling them a course for £2997 that guarantees they’ll ‘never have to worry about paying the mortgage’ is what pays the mortgage.

4. “Be yourself, everyone else is already taken“ may be a wonderful quote from a wonderful man, but Wilde-Man Oscar* would no doubt spin in his grave if he thought his perfect prose was mainly being doled out by people on social media who also comment with platitudes like, “You’re beautiful on the inside and out, babes” on photos of ‘mates’ they’ve met maybe once in their life in a nightclub lav, but who you know full well are actually complete bogtrolls (inside and out).

5. Being yourself is only ever really acceptable to those people you agree with, share the same values as, or are likely to kiss the arse of. Everyone else wishes you were someone else. People don’t like your yourselfness if your yourselfness conflicts with their yourselfness. Got it?

6. If being yourself was so wonderful, the people who most passionately plead for you to exercise this behaviour on social media wouldn’t be filtering the fuck out of their pictures and videos presenting that information, would they. Hello insanely white teeth and feature-free faces, and goodbye point they’ve just pissed all over. Be yourself (but only the flawless version of yourself that people find infinitely more attractive).

7. If you spend too much time being yourself, how are you supposed to find the time to falsify your earnings and fabricate your social media celebrity status? That’s a full-on job in itself that needs no distraction from who you actually are and what you actually do as a human person, thank you very much! And besides, nobody wants a human person, anyway. They want labels, dammit. Layers and layers of labels. Bundle up, bitch.

It’s rare I bother with a disclaimer in my posts, preferring the strength of my sarcasm and the intelligence of my audience to easily highlight and understand when I’m clearly taking the piss or being an arsehole, but because I’m writing this in a week when I’ve had to mutter the phrase, “FFS, it was a JOKE!” under my breath more times than I care to count, consider this your forewarning that you’re supposed to take the words you’ve just read with a pinch of salt – and preferably some lime and a shot of tequila, too.

Don’t like what I’ve written?

I’m just being myself.

Apparently that’s a good thing.

*No fucking clue if it genuinely is his phrase, by the way. Could have been Taylor Swift, for all I believe on the internet, these days.

Ps – Want even more of me as myself? Come join my micro-community!