The Strangest Thing I Ever Made Turned Out to Be the Most Me

I almost didn't put it out.

I'd spent weeks on it, but in the final stretch before sharing, I started to panic. It was too weird. Too inside-my-own-head. The references were obscure, the structure was unconventional, and the emotional core was so specific to my experience that I genuinely couldn't imagine who else would care. I sent it to one trusted friend and her response was, "I don't totally get it, but it feels very you," which I somehow interpreted as a reason to shelve it.

I released it anyway, mostly because I'd run out of excuses not to.

The response floored me. Not in a viral, overnight-sensation way — but in the way that actually matters more. People reached out who said they'd never felt seen by a piece of art quite like that. Strangers described back to me, in their own words, exactly what I'd been trying to express. One person said it made them feel less alone at 2am, which is basically the highest compliment I've ever received in my life.

And I almost didn't put it out because I thought it was too niche.

The Trap of Making Things for Everyone

There's a version of creative work that comes from a place of trying to be universally appealing — smoothed out, reference-checked, audience-tested. We all know what it looks like because we've all made it at some point. It's competent. It hits expected beats. It doesn't offend anyone.

It also doesn't move anyone.

When you try to make something for everyone, you end up making something for no one in particular. The edges that would have snagged someone's heart get filed down in the name of accessibility. The specific detail that would have made a particular person feel deeply understood gets replaced with something more general, more relatable, more forgettable.

I've done this. I've looked at a line or an image or a sound and thought, most people won't get this reference — and then replaced it with something safer. Every single time, the work got a little worse.

Why Specificity Is Actually the Universal Language

Here's the counterintuitive thing I keep relearning: the more specific a piece of art is, the more universally it tends to land.

Think about the songs, books, or films that have hit you hardest. I'd bet most of them were intensely particular — rooted in one person's very specific grief, joy, obsession, or confusion. They weren't trying to speak to everyone. They were speaking from somewhere real and precise, and that precision is exactly what made them feel true.

Specificity creates trust. When an artist commits fully to their weird, particular perspective — when they don't hedge or soften or explain away the strangeness — it signals to the audience that this is the real thing. And people are hungry for the real thing, especially right now.

Your niche isn't a limitation. It's a frequency. The right people will tune in when you stop trying to broadcast on every channel at once.

What 'Too Niche' Usually Actually Means

When I tell myself something is too niche, I've learned to ask a follow-up question: Or am I just scared?

Because a lot of what gets labeled as "too specific" or "too uncommercial" is really just work that feels dangerously personal. Work that would require me to own something — a perspective, a feeling, a story — in a way that feels exposed. It's easier to call it unmarketable than to admit I'm afraid of what happens when I fully commit to it.

Niche and vulnerable aren't the same thing, but they often travel together. The work that feels too inside-your-own-head is frequently the work that required you to go furthest inside your own head to make. Of course that's scary. That's also why it's worth making.

The Audience You Actually Want

Mass appeal is a seductive goal, but it's worth asking what you'd actually do with it. A huge audience of people who kind of like your work is, in my experience, less satisfying — and less creatively generative — than a smaller group of people who are genuinely obsessed with what you do.

The latter group becomes a community. They share your work with the people in their lives who would get it. They show up consistently. They give feedback that actually helps you grow because they understand what you're trying to do. They're not just passive consumers; they're collaborators in a longer conversation.

You can only build that kind of relationship by being specific enough that the right people can find themselves in your work. And that means releasing the ones that don't fit, rather than chasing them.

Lean Into the Strange

If you're sitting on something right now that feels too niche, too weird, too particular to your own experience — I want to gently suggest that might be exactly the thing you should release next.

Not because it's guaranteed to connect. Nothing is. But because creative work that comes from the deepest, most specific place in you is the only work that has a real shot at doing what art is actually supposed to do: make someone feel less alone.

The strange stuff is the real stuff. And the real stuff is the only stuff worth making.

Release the weird thing. Trust the 2am people. They're out there, waiting for exactly what only you can make.