Familiarity does strange things to judgment.

It’s surprisingly easy to feel informed about people we’ve never met. Artists, leaders, creators, public figures. When someone has been around long enough, their presence alone can start to feel like understanding.

But being familiar with someone isn’t the same as knowing them.

Using the recent conversation around Sean “Diddy” Combs as a loose reference point, we talk about what happens when new information messes with a picture we already had in our heads. How quickly we settle into stories about people. How slow we are to change them. How much of what we “know” is really just repetition and proximity doing their thing?

We also explore the concept of parasocial attachment, examining why closeness (real or imagined) sometimes softens our judgment and how familiarity often convinces us we’ve figured someone out.

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If, while you’re listening, something crosses your mind, or you get that urge to jump into the conversation, we’d love to hear from you! Please send us a quick voice note using here: http://bit.ly/sensemakingvn