The internet did not invent fake it till you make it.
It just gave it analytics.
Long before follower counts, profile pictures, screenshots and personal brands, people were already doing some version of the same thing.
Dress for the job you want.
Act confident until you feel confident.
Talk like you belong in the room.
Buy the suit before you have the title.
Walk into the expensive place like nobody is going to ask why you're there.
The exact phrase “fake it till you make it” seems to show up in print by the early 1970s, but the underlying idea is much older. William James was already writing in 1890 about deliberately acting as if something were real until the behaviour started affecting how you actually felt and lived.
So no, some guy with a rented Lamborghini and a blue check did not invent this.
We have been rehearsing identities forever.
The internet just made the rehearsal public.
Most people become things before they fully feel like them
This is the less scammy version of fake it till you make it.
Your first day doing almost anything feels slightly fraudulent.
First day running a business.
First day managing people.
First time somebody pays you for something you made.
First serious client.
First time you walk into a room where everyone seems more experienced than you.
There is usually a gap between doing the thing and feeling like the kind of person who does the thing.
So people perform the confidence first.
You answer the phone like you know what you're doing.
You send the invoice.
You say “my business” even though the business is you, a laptop and $84 in the account.
You show up.
Eventually the weird feeling wears off.
The role becomes normal.
Nobody calls this LARPing because, ideally, reality is catching up behind the performance.
But structurally it is pretty similar.
You are trying on an identity before it fits perfectly.
Humans have always used props
The internet version looks new because the props changed.
Before screenshots and follower counts, there were clothes.
Offices.
Cars.
Business cards.
Titles.
Addresses.
Members-only clubs.
A watch.
A briefcase.
A table at the right restaurant.
People have always read status through objects.
And people have always figured out that if objects create an impression, you can manipulate the impression.
You don't need Instagram to understand that arriving in an expensive car changes how somebody reads you.
You don't need LinkedIn to understand that a title can make a person sound more important.
You don't need Crypto Twitter to understand that standing beside powerful people makes you look connected.
The mechanics are ancient.
The internet turned the props into pixels.
Now the office is a landing page.
The suit is a profile picture.
The business card is the bio.
The social circle is the following tab.
The expensive car is sometimes literally still the expensive car, unfortunately.
Online, the gap can get enormous
This is where fake it till you make it starts getting strange.
Offline, reality used to place more friction on the performance.
If you wanted to look like a successful businessman, eventually somebody might visit the office.
If you claimed to be well connected, people might actually know the people you were naming.
If you claimed to be rich, maintaining the appearance could get expensive.
Online, you can build an enormous perceived identity out of tiny pieces.
A good username.
A clean site.
A confident bio.
A few screenshots.
The right vocabulary.
Some replies from recognized accounts.
A nice photo taken in a place you were in for 40 minutes.
Suddenly the viewer's brain does the rest.
That is one of the internet's favorite tricks.
Give people five pieces of evidence and let them invent the other fifty.
Sometimes the fake thing produces a real result
This is also why the line is not as clean as people want it to be.
Imagine somebody starts posting about design before they are particularly good at design.
They make the profile look serious.
They talk to other designers.
They publish constantly.
They take themselves more seriously than their current skill probably deserves.
A year later they actually are good.
Was the first version fake?
Kind of.
Was it useless?
Apparently not.
The performance created practice.
Practice created skill.
The identity pulled the person toward it.
This happens with businesses too.
A tiny operation presents itself professionally.
That presentation wins a client.
The client provides money.
The money improves the operation.
Now the thing that looked slightly bigger than it really was actually becomes bigger.
The LARP eats reality.
That is very different from somebody inventing fake results, taking people's money and hoping nobody notices.
Same phrase gets used for both.
Very different behaviour.
The internet removed the waiting period
The biggest change is probably speed.
Old-school reputation took time.
You needed repeated real-world contact.
People had to hear your name.
You had to enter rooms.
You needed other people to vouch for you.
Now you can construct the shell of an identity in an afternoon.
Domain.
Account.
PFP.
Bio.
A few posts.
Nice visual language.
Suddenly something exists that did not exist that morning.
That can be useful.
It can also be complete bullshit.
The internet doesn't really care.
It shows both versions through the same interface.
A legitimate company and a fake one can both have a beautiful website.
A great trader and a terrible trader can both post a green PnL screenshot.
A real founder and a guy who discovered the word “founder” yesterday can both put it in the bio.
You have to figure out what exists behind the presentation.
Fake it till you make it only works if something is actually moving
This is probably where the phrase splits in two.
One version is rehearsal.
You perform confidence while building competence.
You present the business seriously while trying to make the business serious.
You act like the person you are trying to become while doing the boring work required to actually become them.
The other version is just maintenance.
Keep the image alive.
Keep the story going.
Keep manufacturing proof.
Keep finding new people who haven't looked closely yet.
Nothing underneath changes.
That is not really fake it till you make it.
There is no “make it” coming.
You're just faking it.
The internet did not create either behaviour.
It just made both of them much easier to watch.