Dear Prudence,
I’m a writer in my early 20s who grew up on the internet. This means that I’ve been posting my thoughts online ever since I was a tween (yikes!). My career is now starting to take off, and I’m gaining recognition for my work. I thought getting here would feel good, but it’s terrifying. I can’t stop imagining the worst-case scenario of getting “cancelled” or having people turn against me for things I thoughtlessly posted when I was younger. It’s not that I’ve ever posted anything egregious—I don’t think I have—but my stomach drops whenever I think about my 13-year-old self’s thoughts, especially being taken out of context. This fear is amplified by the knowledge that even the stuff I’ve deleted from Facebook, Twitter, or wherever else technically still exists on some web archive somewhere. I’ve built up an unreasonable amount of fear around this. The thought makes me nauseated. I’ve always dreamt of gaining recognition for my work, but now that it’s happening, I kind of just want to disappear from the internet (which I know isn’t an option in my field). How do I work through this?
—Dreading Cancellation