There are moments when social media doesn’t ask what you think.
It pushes you to have an opinion.
It doesn’t matter if you understand the context.
It doesn’t matter if you lived it.
It doesn’t matter if it truly runs through you.
Your feed fills up with videos, headlines, clips edited to provoke outrage or certainty, and suddenly staying silent feels like complicity.
Like not speaking up means standing on the wrong side.
And that’s when an uncomfortable—but necessary—question appears:
what happens when we give opinions about things we have never lived in our own skin?
Social media trained us to react.
To comment.
To take a position quickly.
A TikTok video.
An Instagram reel.
A carousel with strong statements.
And just like that, we feel like we understand everything.
The situation in Venezuela—like many complex situations around the world—once again became fertile ground for this dynamic.
Remote analysis.
Instant judgment.
Comfortable certainty.
Videos claiming everything is black.
Others claiming everything is white.
Some pushing the idea of being “against both sides.”
Others demanding that you choose a side immediately.
And in the middle of it all, people who are not Venezuelan, who did not grow up there, who do not carry that historical weight—speaking as if they know.
There is a huge difference between being informed and feeling.
Between analyzing and living.
Between having an opinion and having experience.
We can read, watch documentaries, listen to testimonies, follow the news, cross-check sources.
All of that matters.
All of that helps.
But none of that automatically grants emotional authority.
We don’t know what it’s like to grow up with constant fear.
We don’t know what it’s like to normalize scarcity.
We don’t know what it’s like to watch your family leave, one by one.
We don’t know what it’s like when your country becomes a daily wound.
And yet, we still speak.
Today, everything seems to demand a position.
Everything requires a clear, short, shareable phrase.
If you don’t speak, people ask why.
If you hesitate, they challenge you.
If you say “I don’t know,” they push harder.
But there is something deeply honest—and deeply undervalued—about acknowledging your limits.
Saying: this matters to me, but I can’t feel it from here.
Saying: I’d rather listen before speaking.
Saying: not everything needs my voice.
Paradoxically, that is a strong position.
One of the most damaging traits of the digital ecosystem is its constant need to simplify.
To reduce complex realities into clear sides.
But the real world doesn’t work that way.
There are situations where there are no clean answers.
Where every option carries a cost.
Where pain cannot be edited into a 30-second clip.
Accepting that is not relativism.
It is respecting complexity.
There is another phenomenon intersecting all of this:
the obsession with reading every event through the lens of brands.
We saw this recently with Nike.
No campaign.
No public stance.
No commercial intention.
And yet, the conversation revolved around whether it was winning, losing, or capitalizing.
Not everything involving a brand is marketing.
Not every context is an opportunity.
When everything is analyzed as branding, we stop talking about people.
Not everything needs our opinion.
Not everything needs our voice.
Sometimes, conscious silence is a form of respect.
In a world where algorithms reward noise, staying silent can also be a position.
By: Oscar Solano
Vice president – CCO at Shift Latam Porter Novelli
