The Courage to be Real

Authenticity in Ocean Work

We live in an era of watching.

Not just watching content, but watching people: their vlogs, streams, unfiltered updates, moments of vulnerability and joy. The influencers who rise above the noise aren’t necessarily the most polished or optimized. They’re the ones who feel real. We follow them because their honesty disarms us. They let the seams show.

And before anyone rolls their eyes—okay, Boomer—this isn’t about shaming screens or pretending we can unplug our way back to authenticity. We all live online now; our work, our friendships, even our grief pass through pixels.

We form parasocial relationships—one-sided bonds with people we may never meet, yet whose stories shape our emotions, habits, and hopes. This too is part of our new reality: connection that is mediated but still meaningful. Maybe what we’re craving isn’t less connection, it’s more real connection. Not another platform, but presence. The kind that reminds us we’re still animals in bodies, not just avatars on feeds.

Connection Beyond Proximity

For all its flaws, the digital world has opened doors that geography and circumstance once kept shut. Many of us have found our truest communities not in our zip codes but in our feeds: through conversations, shared grief, and shared joy with people we may never meet. Our “For You” pages and timelines have become informal classrooms; places where Black, Brown, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, disabled, neurodivergent, and other underrepresented voices expand our sense of what conservation, and belonging, can look like.

These parasocial relationships aren’t replacements for real-world kinship, but they can be lifelines. They give us language, solidarity, and a global lens that pushes back against the narrowness of our own experience. They remind us that empathy doesn’t require proximity, only presence.

Authenticity as Connection

Authenticity builds trust; one of the rarest currencies in conservation. It says: I’m not performing optimism; I’m practicing it, sometimes imperfectly. It invites others into the work not as spectators of virtue but as participants in a shared, messy, human effort. When someone shows up as themselves, they open the door for others to do the same.

This isn’t about turning scientists into influencers or making conservation performative. It’s about aligning voice and values. When the person who studies mangroves also tells you why they find solace amongst their tangled roots, or when a policy advocate admits to feeling eco-grief and still keeps showing up, we see integrity in motion. That’s what inspires commitment. Not slogans, but sincerity.

Vulnerability as Strength

Conservation has long prized expertise, precision, restraint. But to connect with a world that’s skeptical or exhausted, we have to balance credibility with humanity. Vulnerability doesn’t dilute authority; it deepens it. The ocean doesn’t need more perfect heroes, it needs more honest ones. People who can say, “I don’t have all the answers, but I’m here to try.”

In the same way that tide pools reveal hidden beauty when the water recedes, the moments when we drop our professional armor can reveal why this work matters most.

Presence as Practice

Maybe not everything needs to be broadcast. But the moments that move us most can ripple farther when shared with intention. The goal isn’t to vanish offline; it’s to pause long enough to actually feel the thing before we post it. To remember that awe precedes the upload.

Amid the constant firehose of voices vying for attention, it’s the ones grounded in presence, vulnerability, and authenticity that actually reach us. We recognize the difference instinctively—but it can still make us flinch. Authenticity has its own uncanny valley: when it’s too raw or unrehearsed, we tense up, mistaking sincerity for awkwardness. We’ve grown so accustomed to curated polish that genuine emotion can feel dissonant, what we’ve come to label as “cringe.”

Because what we call cringe is often just truth without its armor—the unfiltered humanness that reminds us we still care. And in the end, that’s exactly what moves people. The noise scrolls past, but sincerity lingers.

Presence isn’t absence. It's attention. It’s choosing to notice, to breathe, to let the world imprint on us before we try to translate it for others. It’s knowing that the more we inhabit our own experience, the truer our storytelling becomes.

Bringing Your Whole Self to the Tide Line

Authenticity doesn’t mean oversharing or abandoning rigor. It means coherence… the alignment between what we study, what we feel, and how we act. For some, that might mean weaving art into advocacy; for others, humor, spirituality, or grief. These aren’t distractions from conservation; they are the currents that keep it alive.

When people show up to ocean work as their full, multifaceted selves, we get richer stories, stronger communities, and more enduring hope. Just as ecosystems thrive on diversity, so does the movement to protect them. Authenticity is our biodiversity of being.

The Deepest Current

Authenticity isn’t a retreat from the digital world, it’s a recalibration within it. The same presence we practice in the field, at sea, or in community can exist online when we slow down enough to mean what we share.

In the end, authenticity is our most renewable resource. It fuels trust, connection, and momentum across every medium we touch. Whether it’s a post, a project, or a conversation, what matters is the same: Be present. Be honest. Let people feel the real you behind the work.

That’s what cuts through the noise. That’s what keeps the tide turning.