Writer and best-belling author, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, gives some of the best advice I’ve heard in a while – especially in this age of social media everything – ‘likability is bullshit.’ Details on the click.
At this year’s GirlsWriteNow awards ceremony, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was honored with the Groundbreaker Award. In her remarks accepting the honor, she spoke briefly but laid out a poignant piece of advice – don’t chase after likability. She noted-
I think that what our society teaches young girls, and I think it’s also something that’s quite difficult for even older women and self-professed feminists to shrug off, is that idea that likability is an essential part of you, of the space you occupy in the world, that you’re supposed to twist yourself into shapes to make yourself likable, that you’re supposed to hold back sometimes, pull back, don’t quite say, don’t be too pushy, because you have to be likable.
And I say that’s bullshit.
So what I want to say to young girls is forget about likability. If you start thinking about being likable you are not going to tell your story honestly, because you are going to be so concerned with not offending, and that’s going to ruin your story.
I definitely resonated with this. In this day and age when people identify themselves by how many followers they have on social media, it’s becoming more and more important to be authentic. And of substance. And true to yourself.
Catch Adichie’s full remarks below:
What’d you think?
