Two years ago, a TikTok creator named Kara posted a vegan bean soup recipe to help “anemic girlies” consume extra iron. The video wasn’t especially interesting or shocking. The comments were what made it go viral.
“What can I substitute for beans?” one person asked.
“What about people who don’t like beans?” said another.
Most commenters were asking how to make bean soup... without beans.
On the surface, it’s easy to dismiss this as a niche internet absurdity. But the comments went so viral it became known as “The Bean Soup Theory.” Suddenly we had a name for something we had all witnessed: algorithms have destroyed our ability to recognize when something isn’t meant for us.
It’s not entirely our fault. We’ve spent the last decade being fed content tailored specifically to our preferences. Your “For You” page knows you better than you know yourself, the saying goes.
Netflix suggests shows and Spotify creates playlists that seem like they’re reading your mind. Our brains love feeling special and unique, so no wonder every tech company touts their personalization features. (It’s also great for ad revenue, by the way.)
But this has created a dangerous expectation: the more our algorithm personalizes our feeds, the louder our echo chambers and the more we believe that everything we encounter should apply to us. And when it doesn’t, we feel angry and self-righteous.
To be clear, accessibility matters. Historically marginalized groups have fought for legislation and accommodation that changed the world for the better — voting rights, workplace protections, closed captions, ramps and elevators. When someone says, “I can’t participate because this space isn’t accessible to me,” we must pay attention.
But it is not advocacy to ask for a bean-free bean soup recipe when thousands of other soups exist. It’s just making it about you. And when everyone treats personal preferences like accessibility issues, actual advocacy gets drowned out.
It’s easy to fall into this pattern. We spend hours in comment sections monitoring whether content applies to us and announcing our caveats. Our relationships suffer because we’re keeping score instead of connecting. So why do we keep doing it? Because it gives us a short-term dopamine hit — the satisfaction of being right and the validation when someone responds. It’s like scratching a mosquito bite. It feels good in the moment but makes everything worse.
So let me say something radical: not everything is about you. Instead of taking that as an attack, I want you to consider that it might be the most freeing thing you hear all day. Bad things can happen, and you aren’t necessarily responsible for solving them. You can let people have bad days, make different choices, or disagree with you without taking it personally.
This doesn’t mean you won’t have feelings. When someone makes plans without you or celebrates something you are struggling with, of course you will feel sad. But those feelings are yours to process, not theirs to fix. And when you leave a comment announcing, “Must be nice,” you’re not processing your feelings — you’re making them everyone else’s problem.
Obviously, there is nuance to this. If a friend forgets to invite you once, that’s probably not about you, but if you’re consistently left out, this is a pattern to notice. You might decide to invest less in that friendship. You might have a conversation with them. But all of this is different from taking every single instance personally and making it mean something about your worth.
We’ve lost the skill of discernment — the ability to tell the difference between something irrelevant and meaningful information. And in the current age of information overload, we need to be able to see information without losing ourselves. To recognize we cannot and should not form an opinion about absolutely everything. To focus our time and energy where we can make a difference instead of spiraling about everything.
Start by practicing “This isn’t for me” without judgment. When content doesn’t apply to you, notice your urge to comment. Then don’t. Scroll past. Before commenting, ask yourself, “Is this helpful? Does this need to be said? Does this need to be said by me?”
Get in the habit of thinking, “What’s the most and least generous way I could interpret this?” Not because that interpretation is necessarily true, but because it helps you see alternative points of view (and the truth is often somewhere between them).
Deliberately expose yourself to content outside your algorithm that isn’t tailored to you. Better yet, get off your phone! Do things to remind yourself that life is happening offline. Call a friend instead of commenting on their post. Take a walk. Make something with your hands. Invest your energy in things that give back to you.
Not everything is about you. That’s not a criticism — it’s a relief. Because when you stop taking everything personally, you have more energy for what actually matters.