...because everyone else is taken.
Be Yourself is a popular trope, especially in shows aimed at children. One character tries to persuade another character to change their image and not be a loser, geek, etc. After the change goes amiss, "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome almost always ensues, and An Aesop is delivered about how it is better to be true to one's own nature rather than putting on a facade to impress others. Usually, that means being behind the times, unfashionable, out of shape, handicapped, overweight, uncool, a complete and utter failure, socially inept and that especially means being "that guy". Being oneself also requires a person to live below his or her full potential. It's one of the most frequently broken Aesops, tying in to the Status Quo Is God mindset.
If this trope is played well, it can carry the message that you can be worthy of love and acceptance without sacrificing the things that make you who you are and to value your unique traits rather than hide them to fit in, but if done poorly or too often, the message can imply that any kind of personal growth and self improvement are bad and you must never try a new look, pick up new interests, or make new friends. Or, worse, that you should be a Jerkass rather than work to become a better person. Bonus points if a Subculture of the Week is featured to try to sway our hero to their side.
The Easily Embarrassed Youngster often learns this one. If the trope succeeds, it may lead to said character declaring I Am What I Am.
In Real Life, this is one of the important tenets of Existentialism: one's purpose in life should not be judged or determined by society, but rather one should shape one's own purpose. Of course, this is a great oversimplification, and it doesn't account for how existentialism usually plays with this trope more than just rendering it straight (most existentialists, especially Nietzsche, would have probably disapproved the way this trope is commonly executed in modern media), but it remains as a popular way to explain it. Compare Honesty Aesop, Against the Grain. Goes with Conditioned to Be Weak, where a powerful character is only docile and submissive because they are conditioned to follow orders and/or fear their leader.
Super-Trope of Redundant Romance Attempt, acting out of character to impress a love interest who likes your true personality.
Examples:
- One of the last Erin Esurance commercials, right before the campaign was pulled.
It's okay to be yourself because you are...you / It's okay to release your pwrfl...power.... / 'cause it feeeeeeeeeels goooooooo-hoooooood~!! ♪
- Being beautiful and being yourself are mutually exclusive according to this Converse All Stars commercial
- Averted in the Mandalay Bay commercials. Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas isn't the place to be yourself as Mitchell Bernstien C.P.A
and Suzanna Jones, a 5th grade teacher and mother of 3
demonstrate.
- An early-1980s cinema advert
for National Westminster Bank, starring Adrian Edmondson as a character not unlike Vyvyan Basterd, played this trope for laughs. In his quest to open a bank account, pseudo-Vyv dons an ill-fitting three-piece suit, buzzes his mohawk and has the metal stars on his forehead removed (apparently, they are piercings). After this, and overcompensating with his RP at NatWest, he is granted an account … and moments later, the punked-out guy behind him in line opens his own account without a hitch. Our hero doesn’t take this well.
- In this Heinz commercial
this woman's being herself through her crude table manners.
- Inverted by all those "above the influence" commercials telling teenagers not to do drugs.
- The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You:
- In chapter 80, the group gets separated by a flash flood during their hiking trip. This results in elderly Yaku being paired with Naddy, who does her darnedest to act as American as possible. This includes speaking in mangled language that's difficult even for modern day students to parse, never mind an 89-year-old. After a few instances of Yaku failing to comprehend a word Naddy says, she reverts to proper speech until Yaku, noticing the change, assures Naddy that she much prefers her usual energetic self, even if she can't always understand it. A more cheerful Naddy is ready to find the rest of their friends.
Naddy: Let's get a move on, El Grande Madre!
Yaku: Are you talking to me? - In chapter 142, when Tama (a woman who got so worn down by her job she decided to quit being human in favor of becoming a cat, courtesy of an Animal-Eared Headband, a fake tail, and a sweater with paws) joins the group, a good number of the girls point out she's obviously human. Naddy sticks up for her, declaring everyone's got the freedom to live how they want.
- In chapter 80, the group gets separated by a flash flood during their hiking trip. This results in elderly Yaku being paired with Naddy, who does her darnedest to act as American as possible. This includes speaking in mangled language that's difficult even for modern day students to parse, never mind an 89-year-old. After a few instances of Yaku failing to comprehend a word Naddy says, she reverts to proper speech until Yaku, noticing the change, assures Naddy that she much prefers her usual energetic self, even if she can't always understand it. A more cheerful Naddy is ready to find the rest of their friends.
- In Asteroid in Love, this is what Misa tells Moe as the former leaves for college, which also serves as an indirect rejection to the latter's Love Confession.
- A major theme in many early Astro Boy stories is Astro learning to deal with being different from his human friends (he's much smarter than the average human but he's incapable of understanding art and music and can't feel pain or fear). In one story he gets an upgrade that lets him experience more emotions but the villains of the week take advantage of his new sense of fear. In the end, Astro decides it's better to be the best robot he can be instead of trying to be something he's not.
- Bloom Into You:
- Learning a variant on this lesson is a major part of Touko's Character Development. She'd originally started out as a shy girl with mediocre grades and few friends, but after her older sister's death, she started to emulate her and change for the better. Eventually, she learns that her sister was, in actuality, a bit of a slacker who only pretended to be a model student, and is deeply shaken by it, but can't give up on her desire to emulate her sister. However, Yuu finally gets through to Touko by helping her realize that everyone who likes Touko sees her as herself, not as a copy of her sister.
- In the School Play, the main character is a high school girl who lost her memory (and is played by Touko, so it plays into her character development above), and hears three different accounts of herself from her schoolmate, her brother, and her girlfriend- respectively as The Ace, an Aloof Big Sister and a surprisingly needy crybaby. In the original ending, she "chooses" to become the person her girlfriend saw her as, but in the revised version, her nurse convinces her to remain true to the person she became after waking up in the hospital.
- Blue Flag: Deconstructed and reconstructed in chapter 39, as Masumi and Akiko talk about the former's sexuality. Akiko immediate advice is for Masumi to just be herself, but Masumi answers by saying that when you're different, you are putting yourself in a situation where you can lose friends who disagree with you and that is easier to live with others and empathize when you are as similar to the majority as you can, so she can still lose by being herself. Akiko acknowledges this but reconstructs when she says that people are so different she'll never be able to identify with everyone, and though she may lose some people on the way, even those she loves dearly, choosing the best path for yourself is something necessary.
- Mikoto teaches Ritsuko this in the A Certain Scientific Railgun manga. Considering Mikoto is a tsundere who is always hiding her feelings for the guy she likes, she's a terrible choice to dispense this and ends coming like a Broken Aesop or something. Now, Kuroko, who is always herself, would have been perfect for this, and likely funnier to boot.
- In Dr. Ramune: Mysterious Disease Specialist, many of the patients get afflicted by the mysterious disease because of the stress they experience from suppressing their true self.
- "Condiment Tears": Koto has been forced to suppress her own feelings and desires so that her mother could use her acting talent to make herself rich, and the condiment she cries are the manifestation of her bottled-up emotions. Part of the treatment Dr. Ramune gives her is some tea that causes her to speak out her mind.
- "Chilli Pepper Fingertips": Takaharu is actually The Ace, but deliberately holds himself back in order to let his best friend shine. To remove the chilli peppers, Dr. Ramune gives him a magic tool that only allows itself to be used by those it considers "worthy", forcing Takaharu to display his true talents to be considered as such.
- "Popcorn Head": Shun Aona is a talented artist whose father wants him to stop "playing around" with art and start helping out with his business. Shun recovers after his parents agree to let his talents flourish rather than force him to become someone he's not just to keep him nearby.
- Deconstructed pretty harshly in Fate/Zero. Gilgamesh gives this advice to Kotomine- except that Kotomine's natural inclination is to take pleasure from suffering, and Gilgamesh knows it.
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Alphonse Elric once sent Sheska a message telling her not to be discouraged that her best asset was reading and that he respected her for having a unique talent.
- Granny Girl Hinata-chan: Hinata is a kindergartner who retains the memories, personality, and mannerisms of her past life as a grandmother. After an attempt to see her old self's grandson ends in disaster, Hinata resolves to be more like a normal six-year-old. She trades her tea for juice, tries playing more video games, and tries watching childrens' television instead of her preferred sumo. Hinata's mother catches on to her behavior and tells her it's okay to be her usual self and she will be loved no matter what. The experience gives Hinata a greater appreciation for her mother.
- Great Teacher Onizuka: This is Onizuka's message to Tomoko, who discovers she has Hidden Depths when he enters her in a beauty pageant. He denies doing anything to make her popular, saying she did that all on her own.
- In Hetalia: Axis Powers, when Canada tries to stand out and goes overboard, his brother America at first teases him but then tells Canada that he's fine the way he is. Canada doesn't buy it, but the end of the strip states that America meant what he said.
America: [about Canada] He has a rare personality that can get along well with everyone, and he actually wants to change it? He seriously doesn't know how blessed he is.
- Early on in His and Her Circumstances Yukino is Ms. Perfect at school and a Slacker at home who likes to wear sweat clothes and be comfy. She learns to "Be Herself". She put so much work into faking perfection that she's constantly exhausted and burnt out when she's at home.
- One of the main themes in I'm Gonna Be an Angel!, where it mainly applies to the heroine, Noelle, but as it turns out, most of all to Mikael
- This is the big life lesson of Kimi ni Todoke. Sawako uses her gifts to make friends and isn't forced to change her innate nature.
- Mayonaka ni Kiss: Nono tries to fit into high society by being the kind of lady the wife of the founder of Ichijou Group was but ends up fitting as herself.
- In Mission: Yozakura Family, Taiyo tries multiple times to engineer perfect dates and outings for Mutsumi while keeping her safe, following tips he sees in magazines and what not. But he's always at his coolest when he's just being honest with himself and clearly expressing his feelings for her. It's in those moments that he manages to make her swoon even if he doesn't realize it.
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: In the endgame battle between Kira Yamato and Rey Za Burrel, the latter tries to get into Kira's head by pretending to be Rau Le Crueset, the previous season's Big Bad and both are clones of Al Da Flaga. Ultimately, Kira bluntly tells Rey that he is his own person rather than living on the identity of someone he is not. This ultimately compels Rey to betray and shoot Gilbert during his standoff with Kira.
- My Dress-Up Darling: Female lead Marin Kitagawa firmly believes that people should be able to enjoy whatever hobbies they want, and that nobody should judge them for it, no matter who they are. It's this ethos that allows Wakana Gojo, someone's who never been able to share his passion with others, to open up to her and others.
- All Might in My Hero Academia gives this advice to Endeavor. Telling him that the reason he's always been second best is that he was copying someone else, rather than following his own beliefs.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Nagi (in Alberio's pactio): You should be yourself.
- Subverted in Neighborhood Story, where the author obviously considers daring to be your eccentric self and going against the current in a society as stiff and homogeneous as the Japanese a sign of bravery and something admirable, but at the same she doesn't gloss over the hardships that being an oddball is likely to bring you. Like being bullied and expelled from school and having close to no friends until you find more kindred spirits.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion plays this in a horribly cynical way. The whole plot probably wouldn't have gone as insane as it did if Shinji had just been honest with himself and others from the start.
- Ouran High School Host Club does this with Nekozawa and, even more memorably, Kasanoda. Also done with Honey; in his case "being himself" includes being a hedonist who values sweets and toys above people (even his own family). Haruhi even notes that "himself" isn't that great of a person. This is used for Haruhi herself, as a sort of subversion. She says that she'll "Be herself from now on," meaning she would leave the host club. Haruhi eventually decides to pursue her dreams and become a lawyer, moving away to America.
- Iris from Pokémon the Series: Black & White starts off being this pompous, haughty jerk towards Ash by trying to assert her supposed "maturity" towards Ash by teasing him about the petty mistakes he makes. She eventually learns to be herself by embracing and learning from her childish mistakes (she even calls herself a kid a few times), respecting Ash a lot more as a trainer, and becoming a lot kinder to not only him but others as well.
- A theme in the final episodes of Princess Tutu. Ahiru has trouble giving up her pendant, which contains the final shards needed to complete Mytho's heart, because that will end the story and turn her back into a duck. In the end, with Fakir's help, she is able to realize that her true self is a duck, and that's all right.
- Played with in The Quintessential Quintuplets. Itsuki, as a way to cope with her mother's death, often tries to act as the Team Mom for her sisters, which means she forces herself to act more mature than she actually is. When Fuutarou starts looking for the girl in his photo, Yotsuba asks Itsuki to pose as her, and while she's worried about not being able to act convincingly, Yotsuba tells her to just "be herself".
- In GO-GO Tamagotchi! episode 10, Lovelin is worried about not sounding good enough when she goes to sing with hitomitchi and practices with Melodytchi and Pianitchi by playing rock music and wearing matching clothes. Near the end of the episode, she loses her confidence, realizes she wasn't being herself and regains her confidence when she performs with hitomitchi as she would at any Lovelin concert, casting aside the rock music and clothing.
- Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: This is a huge part of Simon's character arc. At the beginning of the series, Simon had very low self-esteem and lacked confidence in himself and his own abilities, due in part to others looking down on him and tragically losing his parents at an early age. His Big Brother Mentor, Kamina, circumvented this issue by telling him to "Believe in the me that believes in you", essentially saying that even if he doesn't have confidence in himself, he can have confidence in someone else's faith in him. This worked well enough, but Kamina unintentionally made himself Simon's Living Emotional Crutch as a result. When Kamina tragically dies, Simon's emotional state is at an absolute low as he tries to, and unsuccessfully, live up to the example that Kamina set. Fortunately, before passing on, Kamina amended his previous statement and told Simon not to rely on other's faith in him, but to have faith in himself, a lesson that Simon eventually understands and takes to heart.
- In ...Virgin Love, Daigo has to reassure Kaoru that it's okay to be a Crazy Jealous Guy and that he shouldn't run from relationships because of self-hatred. In turn in ...Junai no Seinen, Kaoru tells Daigo he doesn't have to try so hard to live up to Kaoru's expectations because Kaoru wouldn't date him if he wasn't already what he wanted.
- Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Season 1 has this present during Judai's duel vs. Kaiser in the graduation duel. Judai tried dueling like Kaiser or Misawa would and it nearly cost him the duel. After some food and some advice from Kaiser to be himself, he went back to normal to try and win, making a huge comeback. He didn't win, but neither did Kaiser as he forced the duel into a draw.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, Jack Atlas looks down on Yuya Sakaki because so far, Yuya only emulates his father instead of forging his own path and finding his own way of doing things. Then later played with in their second duel where Jack states that everyone is influenced by the people around them and says it is fine to use other's words as long as you fully understand them and can convey your will through them.
- In Yuri is My Job! this is one interpretation of Kanoko's advice to Hime. After Hime learns that she's been working alongside her former friend Mitsuki, the only person besides Kanoko who knows that Hime's cute façade is merely an act, and who dislikes her due to a past incident, Kanoko tells Hime that if this is true, then Hime doesn't need to put up the façade and get Mitsuki to like her. Since Kanoko believes the real Hime is cuter than the façade she puts up, it can be interpreted as an example of this trope, or as her trying to convince Hime to give up on Mitsuki since Kanoko later becomes jealous of Hime's closeness with Mitsuki.
- Zombie Land Saga: In episodes 6 and 7, Junko begins to suffer from an identity crisis as she realizes the idol industry has long moved past the perfectionist ideals she was taught in the 80s. She suffers a Heroic BSoD following a heated argument with Ai over this fact. Eventually Kotaro reassures Junko that she can still represent her time-period and not force herself into conforming with the hyper-social lifestyle of modern idols.
- Discussed and contraindicated by Chris Rock, who has gone on record of saying that on a first date, you are not you; you are the ambassador of you.
- Subverted in Lucifer, in which the eponymous protagonist takes this to the extreme. He even tells his protégé: "Be yourself until you bleed."
- In the end, Lucifer's attitude is deconstructed by Yahweh, who points out that no-one can truly be entirely themselves: Everyone is created and shaped by external influences, and Lucifer's continued desire to be himself means he'll be eternally seeking for something he can never have and be forever alone and miserable.
- This is the aesop of Swamp Thing Annual #2. Alec Holland asks his predecessor the plant elemental Swamp Thing from Alan Moore's run what it did to become The Paragon of Green champions. It tells him that the secret to its success is very simple: if something tries to change who he is as a person, he can always say no. The past Green champion who introduced them tells Alec that all he needs to do to be successful is to emulate his predecessor exactly. Alec proves he learned the lesson by saying no.
- The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye: Subverted in one instance when Crankcase is preparing to meet a friend and is getting advice from his fellow Scavengers. Krok tells him to be himself, then adds "be a less abrasive version of yourself".
- Astro City: Starbright tries telling his archnemesis Simon Says this, after escaping a deliberately flawed deathtrap of Simon's (which is the supervillain's way of saying "thanks" for Starbright bring Simons' friends to a birthday party). It isn't until after Starbright's death that Simon follows up on those words herself.
All you have to do is just be yourself. Figure out who you really are and be that. Just as much as you possibly can. Light up the whole world with it.
- Archie Comics:
- Subverted in an issue where Archie is asked what he believes to be the secret to popularity, and answers "Just be yourself. Unless you're a jerk, of course, then be someone else."
- Being true to yourself is Jughead's core tenet in Archie Comics (2015):
Jughead: If you're going to survive in this world, here's what you need to know: You are who you are, not what people think you are. Be straight. Be weird. Be whatever. Just be what you wanna be.
- Deconstructed in Brody's Ghost. Kagemura demands that Brody destroy all but his most essential belongings so he can focus on his training, to which Brody refuses, citing that Kagemura is trying to change who he is. Given that at this point Brody has proven to be an out-of-shape slacker who let one break up ruin his life, Talia rightly points out that he needs to change who he is because who he currently is is not good.
- Forever Evil (2013): The ultimate lesson of Cyborg's arc in the Justice League tie-ins. He learns that he doesn't have to reject his identity as part machine, but instead embrace both the human world and cyberspace, which belongs to him.
- In "Secret Identities", Supergirl starts high school under an assumed identity, but after a few days, she gets sick of teenagers pretending to be friendly as planning to backstab you. Deciding a secret identity was a mistake, she reveals her true self to her classmates and flies off after telling them they should stop pretending to be other people. A bullied girl takes her advice to heart and starts talking back to her tormentors.
Supergirl: Do yourselves and each other a favor... Be yourself. It makes life a Hell of a lot easier.
- In Demo, it's the aesop of "Volume One Love Story". Instead of treating her compulsion with notes as a problem, as per her therapist's insistence, Marlo accepts it as a part of who she is and something she enjoys, and the story closes on her about to enjoy a date with someone who finds her compulsion fascinating.
- Spoofed in Dilbert. Wally demonstrates what taking this literally
would mean. Savaged again in this strip
. Then there is the manifesto of rapper Freshy Q
.
- Arguably, the lesson one can take, overlapping with You Were Trying Too Hard, of Jon's love life in Garfield. Before he and Liz developed a stable relationship, Jon would often go to some crazy lengths to score a date, comprised of over-the-top antics and lying about what he was like to the point of near creating a whole new persona. After Liz went out with him enough to like him for the real Jon, we see that Jon is perfectly capable of being romantic, charming and a decent person to be with when he's no longer trying to be someone he's not.
- Jon: In one strip, an ugly kitten asks for advice on how to get attention and Garfield's advice is to do that and scratch curtains.
- The Ultra Fast Pony episode "Utter Lunacy" discusses and plays with this one. Twilight Sparkle insists that Princess Luna needs to conform if she wants to be accepted by Ponyville. Luna wonders if perhaps "being yourself" would be a better message to send to the viewers—and Twilight busts a gut laughing. But the events of the episode eventually prove Luna right. Her attempts to "act normal" all fail hilariously, but when she gives up and starts complaining about Twilight Sparkle, everyone congratulates her on how well she's fitting in.
- In A Diamond Under Pressure, the very theme is about Raquel being himself by getting in touch with his feminine side despite identifying as a man.
- Chapter 54 of BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant has a twisted take on this trope. After Yuuki Terumi finishes thoroughly kicking Adam Taurus to the curb and calling him out on believing himself a hero of his kind when he's just a delusional psychopath, he then encourages him to stop hiding from the truth and embrace what he really is deep down: a selfish, spiteful monster who only cares for himself.
Terumi: So do yourself a favor. Drop the mask. Feels good, embracing what we really are.
- Subverted in Calvin & Hobbes: The Series. After spending the entire episode trying to break a world record, Calvin seems to be headed in this direction until he proclaims that millions of people's suffering was completely justified by his own existence.
- This is a recurring theme for Zuko's character arc in The Stalking Zuko Series. It's pointed out that Zuko considers his mastery of stealth and Dao swords an important part of his identity since they're things that he mastered on his own. Lu Ten's final letter also tells Zuko that he shouldn't conform to others' expectations of him, although he, having internalized others' opinions of him, believes it means he can't change and begins to despair until Katara helps him to understand. The author believes that Mai's relationship with Zuko will not work out because of their mutual desire for the other to change.
- In Despair's Last Resort, Kaito is given this advice by Hikaru when he asks how to get girls to like him.
- In the Worm x Dark Souls II crossover fanfic, Outcry, Weld gives Taylor this advice in light of everything she's been through.
Weld: "I joined the Wards on probation in Boston, after a year, probation was up, and they liked me. So I kept doin' what I was doin' to be a hero. As for how I deal with the looks I get… to be honest, I kinda don't. There are people that matter to me, and people that don't. And those who mind or look at me funny, don't matter, and those who matter don't mind. I don't try to make myself perfect to please a bunch of strangers. Just do what you want. Be yourself."
- In the Miraculous Ladybug fic Bring Me Back Home, Bridgette has been trapped in another universe and forced to impersonate her counterpart Marinette. After Adrien finds out and he manages to convince her he's a good guy (compared to her own Cat Noir), they have this conversation.
Bridgette: Do you- do you think you could teach me?
Adrien: Teach you what?
Bridgette: How to be more like Marinette. Everything the people here say about her… she seems incredible. So… perfect. I wish we were more alike.
Adrien: (laughs) Marinette isn’t perfect and neither is Ladybug. It just depends on how well you know her. The closer you get, the more flaws she has. […] But I don’t think you need me to teach you to be like Marinette.
Bridgette: Why?
Adrien: Because you make a much better Bridgette than a Marinette.
Bridgette: Do you really mean that?
Adrien: I do. I think Bridgette definitely still has room to grow, but I think she should grow into herself, not someone else. - In My Huntsman Academia, Yang gives Izuku this advice when he asks how he could have possibly won her over while hanging out Vale at night.
Izuku: [after a night of romantic chicken] Oh... so I didn't stand a chance, huh?
Yang: Hmm... Well, I wouldn't say that.
Izuku: What, you're serious? How?! What did I need to do?
Yang: [laughing and patting him on the shoulder] You know what Izuku? Don't worry about it. Really, just... be you and that kind of stuff will work out. Trust me. - The Many Dates of Danny Fenton (Danny Phantom Western Animation, TV Series, and Comic Books.): All of Tucker's dates end up pretty badly because he purposely made his dating profile to describe him as someone he's not. When he's finally honest with his dating profile, he gets a good date with Velma Dinkley.
- Deconstructed in Ghosts of Evangelion when Asuka points out that Misato enabling Shinji didn't do him any good.
Misato: Shinji's a doormat.
Asuka: Isn't that my line?
Misato: He is! He's helpful and earnest and very nice, but he wouldn't know assertiveness if it walked up and bit him. And it's so frustrating! He stands up to you all the time, I see it, but with everyone else, he's a passive little mouse.
Asuka: That's true. He doesn't like it when I yell at him, and he's learned that being assertive around me means I'll be nicer to him. But the rest of you are too polite to criticize him, so he doesn't feel the need to change. Typical Japanese.
Misato: How delightfully racist of you.
Asuka: It's true. You only ever called him out when it came to his piloting; apart from that, you let him do whatever he wanted, which was usually nothing at all. What did you expect? - Darth Vader: Hero of Naboo: Vader (having been sent back in time from Episode V to Episode I) tells Anakin that, should the boy join the Jedi Order, he should strive to become the Jedi he wants to be, not what the Council wants him to be.
- This is the crux of Yamato's Character Development in Heroes of the New World; following her escape from Wano and some discussions with Izuku and others, she realizes she doesn't have to be Kozuki Oden to be like him, and so she abandons her habit of introducing herself as Oden and embraces just being Yamato.
- In Second Chance, Kairi's father is trying to raise her as a Proper Lady, and she goes along with it for a while despite her own desire to join in Sora and Riku's sword training. Ventus soon picks up on this.
Ven: You know my friend Aqua I was just talking about? She’s a girl, and she fought alongside Terra and me. Not only that, but she’s one of the strongest people I know. She was the first of us to become a Master, and she deserved the title. She worked hard and was good at what she did. So what if she was a girl? She could do anything us boys could, and more besides. She didn’t care if it was considered ‘proper’ or not. And who’s to say if something is proper for you anyway? Only you can decide what you want to do, you can’t let other people control how you live your life. You should get to choose. Besides, look around us. Do you see anyone on this island that will care about you being proper?
- Boldores And Boomsticks: Whisper adores Weiss so much that she wants to fight exactly like her, even though they have different dominant hands and abilities.
- This moral failing to be recognized by everyone but the Big Bad in All Mixed Up! is actually what kickstarts said Big Bad's Start of Darkness, and fuels the entire conflict of the story. Mariana Mag made language her expertise because it was what she was good at, and she found that it made her unique from other Odd Squad agents. Then Oprah took all that away from her and forced her to love mathematics instead like everyone else despite her not being skilled in the subject, which caused her to become evil.
Mariana Mag: I thought Ms. O wanted me on the Squad for who I was, not for someone I could never be.
- Almost every movie from the Disney Animated Canon post-Renaissance features this (ironically, along with very self-assured villains, and the dissonance is never addressed In-Universe):
- The Little Mermaid (1989) is a bit of an Unbuilt Trope, since Ariel being herself means she can't be with the man of her dreams, but her Deal with the Devil to live on land robs her of her voice, the only means by which she could have told Eric who she was.
- Ditto Beauty and the Beast, where Beast's selfishness is what curses him, but because he wants to be free of said curse he does his best to become a better person, while Gaston being true to his self is what kills him.
- This is a significant theme of Disney's Aladdin (and only the Disney version): Pretending to be the overbearing, pompous "Prince Ali" only alienates the hero from Princess Jasmine, who finds the earnest, resourceful "street rat" more appealing. This aesop is driven home in a memorable scene on the balcony, the Genie transforms himself into a bee and encourages Aladdin— "bee yourself!"
- Although it's not explicitly stated in Tangled there's a definite undercurrent of this moral throughout the film. For example, Rapunzel encourages a group of rough-and-tumble thugs to follow their dreams (even though they don't fit their image) and tells Flynn Rider that she prefers his real name, Eugene.
- In Wreck-It Ralph, Ralph plays the role of the Bad Guy and doesn't like it. The film even starts with his being told that Bad Guys are necessary to the world he lives in. In contrast, however, the sequel's moral is a more conventional of staying true to yourself rather than working in the confines of society, as Vanellope gets to be in a game she prefers.
- The Emperor's New Groove, however, both subverts and plays this straight — Kuzco being himself once meant being the jerkass that he was until Character Development finally kicked in, and once it does, he tries to embrace that part of himself. Now Kuzco being himself means being a Jerk with a Heart of Gold that he is.
- Kronk's New Groove: Kronk learns that he shouldn't try to change himself or betray his ideals just to earn his father's approval because by being himself, he's able to surround himself with friends who like him for who he is, which is everything.
- Frozen: Zig-Zagged Trope, as Elsa's true nature (whose ability to control ice decreases as she loses hold of her emotions) is incredibly dangerous to both herself and everyone around her, but her way of "managing" this by trying to completely repress it backfires horrendously. Embracing her nature doesn't solve all of her problems, but it helps her enjoy the good parts and find healthier and more effective ways to manage the downsides.
- Stitch! The Movie plays with this at the beginning. Stitch jumps out dressed in a disguise only for Lilo to take it off and tell him to be himself. In response, Stitch lets out his antennae, spikes, and extra arms, prompting Lilo to tell him "Maybe not that much yourself."
- Pixar:
- Toy Story: Played with, in that Woody is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold, while Buzz believes he is the real Buzz Lightyear. The sequels, however, play the Ironic Echo "You. Are. A. Toy." for all its worth.
- Ratatouille: Be yourself and follow your dream, even at the risk of death.
- Coco: Ernesto decided to embrace his true nature as a musician instead of his family and encourages Miguel to disregard his family's wishes to do the same.
- In Turning Red, Jin encourages Mei to accept what Ming rejected, as a part of her.
Jin: People have all kinds of sides to them, Mei, and some sides are messy. The point isn't to push the bad stuff away, it's to make room for it, live with it. - Happy Feet: The whole point of the movie's Aesop is that Mumble made all the difference in the world by being himself.
- Kung Fu Panda:
- In Kung Fu Panda, this is key to understanding the Dragon Scroll's message, which contains the power to make whoever reads it one of the greatest kung fu masters in existence. It's a blank scroll that shows nothing but the reflection of the reader's face. Or rather, the true secret of the Dragon Scroll is that there is no secret ingredient. The most important factor in your success is you and your desire/determination to improve yourself.
- Makes a return in Kung Fu Panda 3 where the arc words for the heroes are essentially "I need to turn you into you", a koan that naturally baffles everyone who hears it for the first time. What it means is that a good teacher cannot make a student into something they are not (Shifu cannot make Po into another Shifu, Po cannot make the other pandas into another Po), but instead should make their student into the best version of themselves possible by embracing their own abilities to win the day.
- In How to Train Your Dragon (2010) Hiccup is told a few times that he just needs to change, but eventually becomes respected for his own abilities. The quotation below becomes a set of Arc Words.
Gobber: You need to stop all...this.
Hiccup: But you just pointed to all of me!
Gobber: Yes! That's it! Stop being all of you! - It's what both Fievel and Tanya learn by the end of An American Tail: Fievel Goes West, and it's shown that they've learned it more through action than words; i.e. Tanya washing her make-up off and Fievel turning his hat right-side-in so it's blue again and not a cowboy hat. A rare example of the trope executed in a way that doesn't come off as sappy. Also inverted when Tiger saves the day and gets the girl by going from peace-loving to badass via training montage. Kind of breaks the whole aesop if you think about it.
- The ultimate lesson Manolo learns while in the world of the dead in The Book of Life.
- In the Maya the Bee Movie, Flip the grasshopper tells Maya to just be herself and she'll be just fine. He and his friends then sing about it.
- Fantastic Mr. Fox: Deconstructed. Exactly what "being yourself" means to the animals in the film is never clear—they straddle the line between the humans and the truly wild wolf. At the beginning, they act like humans, with lawyers, gym teachers, and newspaper columnists. The film later asks, how much like yourself should you be, when that self is brilliant but destructive? We never really get a good answer.
- A major part of Shrek 2, Shrek begins to feel insecure about his relationship with Fiona and tries to make it right by taking a potion to turn them into a more beautiful human form. But Fiona assures him that he's already everything she wants and they decide not to make the transformation permanent, becoming ogres again after the stroke of midnight.
- Comes up in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It's even symbolised with Miles's costumes. Prior to his big heroic moment, he's wearing a cheap Halloween Spider-Man costume, and spends his time trying and failing to be a poor man's Peter Parker. Later, when he figures out how to be his own Spider-Man instead of an inferior copy of the first one, he comes up with his own design and uses that. This is also part of his lessons from Peter B. Parker, although sadly the line that best exemplifies it was only in the trailers:
Peter B. Parker: First of all, don't do it like me. Do it like you.
- The Peanuts Movie: Charlie Brown spends the movie trying to talk to the Little Red-Haired Girl or even simply get her attention. As it turns out, he didn't need to do any of that for her to see him as the wonderful person he is.
- The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part: Everyone keeps picking on Emmett because his nice-and-sweet personality and interests clash with the post-apocalyptic world they're all playing in, but when he eventually starts to take these jibes on board and tries to change himself, the results are only disastrous.
- In The Land Before Time XII: The Great Day of the Flyers, Petrie learns from Guido that he should stand out from the crowd instead of being like everyone else.
- Double subverted in About a Boy where Hugh Grant's character Will, helps nerdy teen Marcus by buying him the latest trainers and teaching him about the latest music to fit in better with his classmates, is shown to be doing him a favour. Because his nerdiness really wasn't "himself", just who his mother wanted him to be, as evidenced in his mom and Will's argument.
- Bertie and Elizabeth: Subverted. Edward VIII was made to look like an uncommon jerk for being himself. George VI was praised for being a Wise Prince. The message was "do your duty" not "be yourself". It helps that Edward VIII was a royal brat and that George VI is to this day one of England's most beloved monarchs due to his steadfast leadership during World War II.
- Invoked in Cherry 2000, wherein the hip, New Age Californian villain orders his henchmen to spread out and be themselves!
- One of the main themes in Dead Poets Society, which is subverted when you consider that staying true to himself indirectly leads Neil to be Driven to Suicide. Also completely averted with Todd, who initially did not idolise Mr. Keating and follow his ideas. One should think that Mr. Keating would accept that not all of his students share his way of thinking, considering how he claims that he wants all of them to be independent thinkers, but it turns out that he would have none of it. In fact, he puts a lot of effort into changing Todd, and evetually succeeds, but it never crosses his mind that maybe Todd's initial personality was already his true self to begin with. It becomes clear that when Mr. Keating says he wants his students to be independent thinkers, he actually means that he wants them to be reflections of himself.
- Ed Wood: The point of the film is basically "love what you do, do what you love". Yeah, Ed may be bad at making films, but it's a passion he undeniably loves doing and, even with all the setbacks, he still plows on.
- One of the songs in High School Musical, "Stick to the Status Quo", features three people who move out of their group's normal behaviour (a geek who likes hip-hop dancing, a stoner who plays the cello, a basketball jock who bakes) and their friends exhort them repeatedly to "Stick to the stuff you know; stick to the status quo".
- Chris's mother says something of this nature to him in the movie Just Friends.
- Theodora Goes Wild: Theodora gives a rousing little speech about being a modern woman, and the importance of being yourself.
- Subverted in Morgan. The title character is told to just "be yourself" during an upcoming psychological evaluation. Given that Morgan is an artificially-created Super-Soldier, this doesn't end well.
- Shadows: After her heartbreak with Tony, Lelia adopts a brassy, hard-shell attitude with Davey, making him wait two hours to take her out, insulting him, and also acting sexually aggressive. When Davey tells her to knock it off, saying simply that "It's you I like," she starts to cry and then embraces him as they dance.
- In The Hunger Games, this is Cinna's advice to Katniss regarding her interview with Caesar Flickerman.
Katniss: How do you make people like you?
Cinna: Well you made me like you.
Katniss: That's different, I wasn't trying.
Cinna: Exactly. Just be yourself, I'll be there the whole time, and just pretend that you're talking to me. Okay? - In Rags, Kadee's big issue is that her father and costume designer are pressuring her into performing exactly what they want her to, how they want her to, regardless of her own wishes. Charlie encourages her to be herself and sing the music she wants to sing, despite her fears about doing so.
- In House Party 3, Kid goes to his questionably-sane Uncle Vester for advice on how to get his fiancee's parents to like him. Vester's response?
Uncle Vester: Boy, just be yourself. If people don't like you for being yourself... FUCK 'EM! Let me tell you something. I scored with a girl when I was about your age. I try to please her poppa all the time; wen' out my way to please her poppa. I came in one day, I said, "Nice weather we having." He said, "You can't say that. You can't say that; it might rain." I said, "Nice tie you got on." "You can't say that; wife try to choke me with it." Point I'm trying to tell you, son, is be yourself. People who don't like ya for being yourself... FUCK 'EM! FUCK 'EM AGAINST THE WALL, WITH HANDCUFFS ON AND CRAZY GLUE ON THEIR LIPS!
- Audrey, Wait!: A side character preparing her for live, national TV says these exact words to Audrey... before handing her cue cards on what to say. Audrey ultimately takes the advice to heart, ignoring the cue cards and screwing over the network airing her (and their duplicitous label associates).
- Murder for the Modern Girl Guy Rosewood's character arc is based around him being hesitant to accept his true identity as Peter Buchanan due to guilt over getting his father killed and wanting to separate himself from his past. However, due to Ruby Newhouse's encouragement and their mutual love, he slowly but surely accepts his original identity with Ruby even stating that she prefers kissing his true self. At the end of the novel, he stops using his Guy Rosewood form and makes his true identity his Shapeshifter Default Form to show that he has embraced his true self, not wanting to put on any more "masks".
- Nathaniel Keene, from the novel of the same name, is encouraged to do this by his school principal. Unfortunately, since Nat is a vampire, 'being yourself' involves becoming a bloodthirsty murderer. Nat doesn't bite.
- Reviving Ophelia, a book focusing on the struggles of adolescent girls, discusses the various good and bad points of the Be Yourself lesson; on the one hand, self-confidence is the key to resisting a lot of the negative pressures girls face as they approach their teenage years. On the other hand, that can lead to destructive rebellion and depression when one's self is not the one that parents and peers want. As one girl puts it, "I am a perfectly good carrot that everyone is trying to carve into a rose. As a carrot I have good color and a nice, leafy top; as a rose, I wither and die."
- Played with in Dragon Bones — Ward fears that, by pretending to be someone else for so long, he has lost his self. Oreg tells him that he knows exactly who Ward is, and encourages him to stay that way. Ward, however, is a bit bitter about the fact that all attributes Oreg mentioned are actually from some role Ward has been playing. (At least he thinks so - the narrative doesn't really prove him right, his kindness at least is a very stable trait)
- On the Broken side, "Be yourself" has often been used to restrain ambition. The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings is a cautionary tale in which the bunny gets what he wants — and his mother doesn't recognize him and slams the door in his face. There's an excellent takedown of it here
. It was written by a white woman named Carolyn Bailey who claimed it was adapted from an Afro-American folktale. The poem "Just Be What You Is" is another example, also written by a white author.
- In the Warrior Cats book Bramblestar's Storm, Bramblestar tells Sandstorm that he's trying to do what Firestar would have done. Sandstorm points out that that's not what he's supposed to do: he's not an echo of Firestar; he should be himself and trust his own judgement on what's best for the Clan.
- In The Mysterious Benedict Society, each of the members of the titular society is chosen for their own particular talents, and though they may at times wish to be more like each other or doubt themselves, ultimately they can only succeed by being themselves. Used humorously when Constance is lamenting a hastily devised plan that even narration describes as being "bold, ill-formed and likely to fail."
"How are we supposed to do that?" Constance asked, launching into a tirade about how ill-prepared they were, how little time they had, and how this plan was giving her a worse headache than the hidden message broadcasts did. "So I ask you again," she concluded, "exactly how are we supposed to distract the Helpers?" "Just be yourself," Kate said with a sigh.
- The title character of Franny K. Stein learns this lesson in the first book Lunch Walks Among Us. In an effort to fit in and make friends with the other kids at her school easier, Franny drinks a potion that turns her into a normal child and adapts to enjoying the same food and activities her peers like. When a Pumpkin-Crab Monster shows up and goes on a rampage at the school, Franny takes an antidote so she can become a mad scientist girl again and save the day. The next day at school, Franny is finally accepted by the other children, who like her for who she is and are grateful for her stopping the monster.
- Diary of a Wimpy Kid provides a good example of how this type of lesson can backfire. One chapter has Greg describe how his class was shown an educational film titled It's Great to Be Me and address how the moral of being fine just the way you are and not trying to change anything about yourself is a terrible lesson to tell the kids in his school. As an example, we see some bullies gleefully declare "It's great to be me" while beating up another kid.
- Shallan Davar of The Stormlight Archive is a Master of Illusion who crafts different personas, most prominently street-smart Veil and dignified Radiant, but is insecure about her real self. When she tells her fiance Adolin that she can be anything he wants, he tells her that the Shallan he wants is the real her, the one that's currently speaking to him.
- Keedie from A Kind of Spark works so hard to mask her autism at university that she ends up with massive burnout. Meanwhile, she makes no real friends, and almost loses touch with who she really is. She warns Addie not to repeat her mistake.
- In Because of the Rabbit, Emma and Jack give each other rocks with motivational words and phrases painted onto them. Before Emma goes to public school for the first time, Jack hands her a two-sided one but tells her not to look at it until she needs it. She eventually peeks and discovers that one side reads "Be." She spends some time wondering what it says on the other side before finally flipping it over and revealing "Yourself." Despite this, she spends much of the book worrying that nobody will really like her if she reveals her whole self before finally deciding to lay it all on the line at the end.
- Dungeon Crawler Carl: When Katia is uncomfortable with the "stage persona" that Donut is trying to craft for her, Carl recommends she just be herself. Donut snaps that she's a doppleganger; her entire species is about being someone else. Katia says she never understood that advice even back when she was human.
- Fight Club does a Decon-Recon Switch on this trope. The deconstruction comes in the worldview of Tyler Durden, who believes that the message of individualism pushed by the media, while presented as liberatory, does nothing more than atomize society, leaving only a mass of disconnected consumers who have nobody to turn to for help when things get rough. In Tyler's view, the ruling elite of plutocratic capitalists loves this message, because it leads dissidents down a rabbit hole and short-circuits any real resistance that can truly threaten their power. The reconstruction comes when we see Tyler's alternative, Project Mayhem, take shape, quickly turning into a terrorist cult where Individuality Is Illegal in favor of The Spartan Way and a quest to restore mankind to a "state of nature" where violence is king. The protagonist's victory, such as it is, comes by rebelling against Tyler and learning to be his own man, defined by neither mainstream society nor Project Mayhem.
- Arrow. Early in the series, Thea gives this advice to her brother Oliver Queen regarding his relationship with Laurel Lance. So he visits her in his vigilante Arrow persona which she takes a liking to...until she witnesses the Arrow inflicting a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on someone who attacked her.
- Deconstructed in The Boys (2019) by Stormfront in Season 2 and Homelander is Season 3. Both are characters who are forced to act in a specific manner by Vought to fit marketing views, and heavily desire to express their true selves. The problem is that Stormfront is a literal Nazi who stopped aging due to Compound V while Homelander is a raging Super Supremacist with a god complex and a Psychopathic Manchild besides. Both of them being themselves is inherently detrimental toward anyone whom they don't like, as for them, "people I don't like" equates to "ones who do not deserve to live".
- The Brady Bunch: Multiple episodes have had this as the moral, most notably "Will the Real Jan Brady Please Stand Up," "The Personality Kid" and "Today I Am a Freshman."
- Family Matters: Deconstructed with "Stefan Urquelle". And then reconstructed when Laura decides she loves regular Steve, instead of letting him be Stefan permanently. But the fact that Steve ended up with Laura is a painful inversion of this trope in itself. Laura had always refused to give Steve a chance until he suddenly stopped wearing suspenders and "improved himself". But he gladly did all of this just to end up with his "true love", despite the fact that he was already dating another girl, Myra, who had been in love with his true self from as soon as she met him.
- Clarissa Explains It All:
- In one episode Clarissa's guidance counselor tries to get her to be more "normal." After trying out "normal" activities suggested by her guidance counselor and seeing her example of normalcy, Clarissa decides it's better to just be her own quirky self.
- There is an episode where Clarissa starts dating a guy while pretending to a different persona, "Jade". But it becomes a Reconstruction, as the boyfriend decides to give Clarissa another chance even after finding out that she lied to him.
- Amongst Petey Greene's ramblings in How to Eat a Watermelon is this. Interestingly, he teaches this not by avoiding a stereotype, but by fulfilling it. Rather effective, actually.
- Ruthlessly parodied on 30 Rock, when Tracy gives one of these speeches at a high school graduation, which concludes, "Just be yourself, and I guarantee you every single person in this room will one day be President of the United States!"
- This is the moral of The Weird Al Show episode "One for the Record Books". Al spends the entire episode trying to break a world record in order to feel special until he finally learns that he's special just the way he is.
- Glee: In one episode, token Camp Gay Kurt just wants to be normal, his standards for "normal" being his father, and musician John Mellencamp. For a glee club assignment, he performs Mellencamp's "Pink Houses", complete with false Southern Indiana accent. The teacher Will is visibly concerned, and by the episode's end, Kurt learns he was trying way too hard to be more like his dad, even if it meant not doing his hair and making out with Brittany.
- Dexter: Dexter Morgan spends much of the second season deciding whether he should be himself. Thing is, the "himself" he means is a serial killer...
- Inverted in the reality show Beauty and the Geek with a series being about men (and women) having to act in specifically uncharacteristic ways to get their smart or attractive partner.
- Warehouse 13:
- Claudia has just been made an apprentice agent, and tries desperately to act the part. She naturally makes a fool of herself.
Claudia: Umm... maybe I should stick with the computer stuff. I'm really not good at the interviews. Especially with the... people.
Myka: Why do you say that?
Claudia: Well, I tried to be like you, you know all professional and adult and...
Myka: [Burst into laughter] That... that is really dumb!
Claudia: Is this your version of a pep talk?
Myka: We already have one me, we don't need another me. I want you to go in there and be more like... you. - Later, when Claudia is about to go on a date with a hardware store employee named Todd, who appears to be clueless about anything tech-related. When she asks Artie for advice, he tells her to just be herself. Her attempt ends up completely ruining the date, and she blames Artie for giving bad advice (to be fair, Artie's not exactly an expert on relationships). Artie does end up fixing things. Later, it's revealed that Todd is, in fact, a geek in a witness protection program, and Claudia instantly falls for him (she gets off on him using technical terms).
- Claudia has just been made an apprentice agent, and tries desperately to act the part. She naturally makes a fool of herself.
- Subverted in the Highway to Heaven episode "Friends", in which the lesson is that it's okay to be yourself if you're not fat. Jenny is a fat girl who doesn't have any friends. The lesson she must learn in the episode is that she needs to lose weight for people to like her.
- Community: In the episode Physical Education, Jeff gives this advice to Abed when the rest of the study group is telling him to act differently when approaching a potential secret admirer. In the end, it's subverted, as Abed teaches everyone else that if you're confident in your own identity, it's no big deal to change. This leads Jeff to realize that his clothes aren't an important part of his identity and play pool naked.
- Saved by the Bell: Lisa pretends to be high-class to date a rich guy. She discovers he's a jerk when he scoffs at her old friends.
- Mister Rogers' Neighborhood: In the Every Episode Ending, Mr. Rogers delivered this message with great sincerity directly to his viewers, getting right to the heart of the matter and warming everybody's heart in the process:
"You make each day a special day. You know how; by just your being you. There's only one person in the whole world like you. And people can like you exactly as you are."
- Kamen Rider:
- In Kamen Rider Fourze, this is the motto that Amanogawa High School follows, having each of their students be themselves, and thus have a diverse student body. However, this also creates a chaotic school ground, especially considering that some of the students are given Zodiarts Switches.
- In Kamen Rider Wizard, this actually gets deconstructed. Rinko goes and talks with a guy who she sees as being down on his luck. She soon finds that he became a Phantom (the Monster of the Week species) and talks with him about that and for a while, she actually manages to get through to him, realizing that he doesn't like what the Phantoms are doing and doesn't like being ordered around to do exactly that. Then she suggests just doing what he wants. Turns out that she was talking to the Phoenix Phantom, a recurring enemy to Wizard whose major encounter with him involved assaulting a woman so that her son would succumb to despair. See, he likes wanton destruction more than just breaking the wills of people, and that he'd prefer doing the former more often. It actually becomes bad for all parties involved. It's bad for Rinko who soon gets held hostage by Phoenix, bad for Wizard since Phoenix grew so much in power that he would have died in one encounter, and bad for the Big Bad himself since Phoenix is going out of his control and might wind up undermining his own goal of creating more Phantoms by making his victims despair (they can't despair if they're dead). And all because someone suggested to Phoenix that he should be himself.
- Subverted in Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. Ami, afraid that Usagi and others would leave her if she didn't act more social, reads a self-help book and tries to immerse herself more in her friends' habits, even lying just to establish herself as a more outgoing person. Usagi finds the book and realizes Ami has been faking it, and it seems that we're in for a straight Be Yourself aesop... until we find out at the end of the episode that while Ami has indeed reverted to her old shy personality, some of the positive changes have stuck, and she has the potential to defrost even more. People don't change overnight, but can change slowly, given enough time.
- Addressed in Frasier. When Frasier is mocked and pranked repeatedly on-air by some shock jocks at his station, he compares it to the bullying he and his brother faced as kids. Martin is unsympathetic to both instances, pointing out that the reason he and Niles were picked on, both then and now, is that their high-class, stuffed shirt personalities made them easy targets, and the only way for it to stop would be to act more middle-class. Frasier realizes toward the end of the episode that while that he may get picked on for being different, the only real way for a bully to win would be for him to change who you are.
- Girl Meets World handled this particularly well; when the yearbooks came out, everyone found out what the rest of the class thinks of them. Three of the four main characters put on the sort of over-the-top, costumed transformations you'd expect from a Kid Com, and just when you can feel the usual Broken Aesop coming, Farkle decides he's going to drop the assumed name and attitude-but keep the edgier look.
- Subverted on Israeli sitcom HaPijamot: in season 2 ep. 1, when the eponymous band are working at a hotel, wannabe sensitive artist Elan fancies his coworker, and his bandmate Alona suggests this Aesop. Ilan decides to take her advice, but while flirting with her he sees a cockroach, and pushes her aside to run away screaming. Alona tells him he was himself, but unfortunately himself is a coward.
- This is arguably the central Aesop of Samurai Gourmet, but since the protagonist is a mild-mannered, sixty-year-old Japanese man, it plays rather differently than usual. His social dilemmas and samurai fantasies teach him to be less restrained and more like the Cool Old Guy in his heart.
- Turns up as a lesson for a student teacher in Welcome Back, Kotter. First she tried Mr. Kotter's personality, but her jokes fell flat. Next she tried By-the-Book Cop, consulting her textbook every few minutes to figure out what to do next. This ended up pissing Epstein off, and she ran crying from the room. Kotter counseled her to be herself, and that worked.
- In the 2004 Made-for-TV Movie Biopic Man in the Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story. From his rough child star upbringing onward, Jackson keeps mentally flashing to a vision of Diana Ross advising "Follow your heart".
- Played with in Brooklyn Nine-Nine where Peralta wants to impress Santiago's father at Thanksgiving dinner. Boyle says the trope to him, but Peralta is skeptical and asks his colleagues how long it took for him to get them to like him.
Diaz: Couple weeks.
Terry: Six months.
Holt: Jury's still out.
Peralta: See, Charles? "Be myself," what kind of garbage advice is that? - The song "Everyone Is Special" from Barney & Friends is all about this trope.
- The Twilight Zone (1959):
- In "Mr. Bevis", Mr. James B.W. Bevis learns this Aesop after his Guardian Angel J. Hardy Hempstead makes him a Slave to PR.
- In "Cavender is Coming", the Guardian Angel Harmon Cavender turns Agnes Grep into a very wealthy woman and a member of high society. After all of her old friends and neighbors fail to recognize her, she tells him that she was happy as she was, even though she was unemployed and behind on her rent. Cavender returns things to normal, telling Agnes that she is the richest woman that he knows and that money does not guarantee contentment.
- Father Ted gives this advice to his junior, Father Dougal, in regards to talking to women. Unfortunately, what Dougal is is an awkward, none-too-bright Manchild, and he goes on to make a visitor extremely uncomfortable before selling her the parish house, leading Ted to take back his advice.
"Be yourself" is just something people say. Never be yourself with women. Never, never, never!
- Friends: Phoebe is nervous about meeting her boyfriend's parents for the first time and asks the other girls for advice. Monica tells her this, assuring her they'll love her as she is, but it doesn't go over well.
Phoebe: They live on the upper east side on Park Avenue.
Rachel: Oh yeah, she can't be herself.
- The main theme of "Life's Too Short" by aespa:
I'm doing me regardless
And I don't care what you say about it
And it don't matter if you like it or not
I'm having all this fun, so why would I ever stop? - The (unstated) moral in Joe Nichols' top 10 country hit "What's a Guy Gotta Do." The song itself isn't as harsh as the video — a man trying too hard to land a girlfriend, with his efforts resulting in him being accused of harassment — but, through examples of cruising the parking lot and making small talk that fails to get over with desirable young women, and bumping into another (presumably single) young woman's shopping cart at the grocery store (on bad advice from an elderly friend), the man eventually learns that being himself is the best way to land a girlfriend.
- Nirvana's Come As You Are is about this
As I want you to be
As a friend, as a friend
As an old enemy
Take your time, hurry up
Choice is yours, don't be late
Take a rest as a friend
As an old memoria
- Billy Joel's "Just the Way You Are
" conveys the message of love means never changing anything about yourself.
- Madonna's "Express Yourself" from Like a Prayer:
Don't call for second-best, baby. Put your love into the test. You know, you know, you've got to make him express how he feels. And maybe then you'll know your love is real.
- Most of Lady Gaga's Born This Way, with the eponymous song, "Hair" and "Bad Kids" being foremost (respectively, a song about society's prejudices being beneath you, a song about your individuality as a concept and a song about how you don't care if people call you screwed up).
- Kesha's Animal:
I am in loveWith what we areNot what we should be
- Yusuf Islam's "Be What You Must".
Be you dust or be you star, to be what you must, just reach out for what you are.
- Oasis, "Supersonic"
You need to be yourself. You can't be no one else.
- Britney Spears utilizes this as her message, subtly and unsubtly
- Baby I'm a freak and I don't really give a damn
- Eminem
- "Beautiful" is all about this trope
Be yourself man, be proud of who you are / Even if it sounds corny / Don't ever let anyone told you you ain't beautiful
- "The Real Slim Shady" is a far more blunt and irreverent version of the trope: as repressed and censorious as the Moral Guardians want our society to be, the fact remains that "every single person is a Slim Shady lurking," and instead of suppressing your rebellious or nonconformist side, you should embrace it — "Be proud to be out of your mind and out of control."
Genius Lyrics Annotation: Society tends to project the ideology that you should live a normal life, do normal things, work a nine-to-five job, date one girl, marry her, raise a family, etc. Slim Shady is disregarding this. Telling the free spirits of the world that it’s OK to be different. Be proud of who you are, even if you’re one of God’s unwanted children.
- "Beautiful" is all about this trope
- Black Veil Brides: Their music exists to say this.
- Chesney Hawkes's one hit:
I am the one and only me, nobody I'd rather be......But while this may be true, you are the one and only you.
- The main theme of Lindsey Stirling's piece "Transcendence
" is about being who you are and the happiness and freedom that comes with that, rather than trying to fit ideas other people project onto you or how culture says you should be.
- Kevin Max's "Be".
Be, be yourself
there's no one who does it quite like you.
And be no one else,
cause if you don't, then who is going to? - "Thou Shalt Always Kill" by dan le sac vs. Scroobius Pip. After three minutes of bafflingly specific, vaguely anti-consumerist didactic rhetoric from the titular Scroobius Pip, he admonishes listeners to "think for yourselves".
- "Follow Your Arrow" by Kacey Musgraves:
Make lots of noise, kiss lots of boys
Or kiss lots of girls, if that's something you're into
When the straight and narrow gets a little too straight
Roll up a joint, or don't
Just follow your arrow wherever it points… - Quadrophenia by The Who ends with this. One of the more mature uses of the trope: the plot is about Jimmy trying and failing to find his identity by fitting in with other groups (and constantly being let down). It's only when he lets all that baggage go at the end of the story and decides to be himself that he finds his identity.
- "Whistling In The Dark" from They Might Be Giants' Flood.
There's only one thing that I know how do to wellAnd I've often been told that you only can do what you do wellAnd that's be you, be what you like, be like yourself
- "Be Yourself" by Audioslave
- The Doubleclicks:
- "Dimetrodon" admonishes...
- Their "Clever Girl" is about not judging oneself by Hollywood's unrealistic depictions...of Velociraptors!
- Meghan Trainor's "All About That Bass", while sounding like a Stuffy Old Song About The Buttocks is also about not judging yourself by impossible standards of beauty.
I see the magazines working that Photoshop,
We know that shit ain't real, come on now, make it stop.
If you got beauty, beauty, just raise 'em up
'Cause every inch of you is perfect from the bottom to the top! - Christina Grimmie's song "Ugly" is all about not caring what other people think because those who are judging you aren't that great.
- Van Zant's "Help Somebody" has the line "It's better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you're not."
- "All You Need Is Love" from The Beatles tells us that "Nothing you can do, but you can learn how to be you in time / It's easy!"
- This is the central theme of Sting's song "Englishman in New York", about a man who tries to be who he is despite being a stranger in the crowd.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile,
Be yourself, no matter what they say - At the end of rapper Lil Mama's "Lip Gloss" music video, Lil Mama is happy and thanks her mother for the lip gloss that helped boosted her popularity at her school. Her mother responds with "it wasn't the lip gloss, it was you all along."
- KT Tunstall's "Hard Girls":
Oh, you soft girls,
Trying to be hard girls,
You know that nothing changes,
Just be yourself.
And all you good boys,
Trying to be bad boys,
You know that nothing changes,
Just be yourself. - "Complicated" by Avril Lavigne: "Seeing the way you're acting like you're somebody you're not is getting me frustrated."
- Mitch Benn's "Love Handles" and "How I Feel About My Face" are both about not holding yourself to unrealistic standards of appearance.
It's my face, and it looks like me,
And it's as pretty as I need to be,
It's my face, and it looks like me,
And I think it's all right. - "That's Just About Right" by Blackhawk is about a painter who, through his work, comes to realize the individuality of the human condition:
"Real life", he says, "is the hardest impression
It's always movin' so I let it come through"
"And that", I say, "is the glory of true independence
Just do what you do what you just gotta do"
Your blue might be gray, your less might be more
Your window to the world might be your own front door
Your shiniest day might come in the middle of the night
That's just about right - SOPHIE's album OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES implicitly has this as its central theme, but with a twist. Several songs allude to concepts of self-identity and immaterialism, how she thinks "your inside is your best side," but the song "Faceshopping" in particular brings to mind photoshopping, plastic surgery, fitting social dialects, etc. She believes that this sort of self-alteration for personal branding reflects a certain type of honesty from the subject and that there's authenticity in artificiality.
- Elvis Costello's "Pay It Back":
"And I tried so hard just to be myself
But I keep on fading away" - Grupa Operacyjna: "Bądź Sobą" hammers in that if you don't know who to be, be yourself, not some celebrity.
- First-person variant in "I Will Follow
" by Chapel Hart, combined with The Power of Love:
Mama always told me don't be afraid to shine
Don't you try to please no one except the one inside
No, you can't change the weather and you can't change where you're from
The color of your skin or the beat of your own drum
Love will keep you chasin' the wind
Just to keep you chasin' it again
But I know who I am, and no matter what they say
When my heart leads the way, I will follow - "You've Got to Stand for Something" by Aaron Tippin:
You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything
You've got to be your own man, not a puppet on a string
Never compromise what's right and uphold your family name
You've got to stand for something or you'll fall for anything - Tic Tac Toe's "Ich find dich scheiße" is this, albeit in the form of a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
- Lauren Alaina's "Road Less Traveled" is about daring to be different even if others may disapprove of it, because conformity will get you nowhere in life.
You won't make yourself a name if you follow the rules
History gets made when you're actin' a fool
So don't hold it back and just flaunt it
Show what you got and just own it - The New Seekers' "Free To Be... You And Me" from the album of the same name invites children to come to a land where they are free to be whoever they want to be.
- Origami Angel's Somewhere City: "Find Your Throne" includes the singer telling a friend that they don't have to try being someone they're not, and he knows them better than anyone else:
So tell me all about the life you live
Tell me all the things that you would give to be someone new
I think you're better being you - Prozzak, "Be As," whose bridge features various kids discussing the subject and ending with the trope name.
- Spelar Ingen Roll by Caramell
- Spanish band Taxi's "Da igual" invites the viewer to pursue freedom to be himself even if others don't understand them.
- The Bible: Book of Psalms 139 invokes about being yourself that God made and loved you before you were born.
- Satirized on the podcast Behind the Bastards, which tells the real-life stories of some of history's most unpleasant people. After being pressed on what seems to connect bastards during the episode on John C. Woods
, host Robert Evans concludes that the most common trait seems to be boundless self-confidence and an inability to self-reflect, rather than outright sadism or wickedness. He then jokingly suggests that the lesson to be learned from this is 'don't always try to be yourself; you might be horrible without realizing it'.
- Ever since Jerk Jackson was renamed "Bobby Fish" in Pro Wrestling NOAH, this has been his main jerk justification. You may not like it but all it's him and all Fish is interested in doing anymore is being him.
- This "lesson" might have lead to a Create Your Own Villain scenario, as Jessicka Havok claimed in a SHINE preview she learned the importance of being herself from Su Yung, and as such we've seen Havok go from The Stoic to mad woman willing to go to potentially lethal lengths in matches, including against Yung. Ironically Havok said this in reference to the fact Yung hadn't been herself since becoming a thrall of Sweet Saraya.
- ACH stopped teaming with Matt Sydal during Road To Best In The World out of a desire to be his own man, which lead to Silas Young attacking ACH out of the belief he didn't know what was good for him, the importance of being secure in yourself, or not, becoming central to their resulting feud.
- In The Wubbulous World of Dr. Seuss episode "Who Are You, Sue Snue?" It's Sue's eleventh and a half birthday, so she has to decide which of her uncles she wants to follow in the footsteps of, or else eat her hat. When her attempts to be like her uncles have all failed, she realises she just needs to be herself and doesn't need to decide anything else yet, and her uncles agree.
Sue: I am me,
But even more than that,
I'm a girl,
Who'll never, never, never have to eat her hat!
- Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues:
- When Josephine asks Travers how she can be more likable, Travers' only advice is that she be herself- otherwise she'll regret bending to the will of others down the line. This hits close to home for Travers, who's a trans woman that still struggles with being comfortable in her own body.
- Michal tries to act suave in order to impress Lenore but doesn't manage to grab her attention beyond a little curiosity. Ciro says that, with this sort of thing, most people would advise Michal to be himself if he wants to try and impress her.
- Yelled repeatedly along with "dude" in the Aladdin show in Disney's California Adventure park by the genie when Aladdin goes to meet Jasmine. After yelling for a good minute, the genie becomes overly embarrassed at how long he took, and then goes off to "find nemo".
- The trolls from Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt. "Be thyself, and thyself is enough!" It's a repeated motif in Ibsen's plays. It plays an important part of A Doll's House, and also in Brand ("Be what you are, complete and whole, not a divided, piecemeal soul.")
- Cyrano de Bergerac: Cyrano is ugly and eloquent. He loves Roxane, but he will never dare to confess to her because he is afraid she would reject him. Christian is fair but not witty and wants to confess to Roxane, but he knows she never will accept someone who is not eloquent. Cyrano convinces Christian to woo Roxane (who desperately wants to believe Christian is as eloquent as fair) by Cyrano being... well, Playing Cyrano. When Christian discovers the rather obvious truth that Cyrano also loves Roxane, Christian accepts the fact that he is fair but unwitty and forces Cyrano to tell the truth. Notice that Christian still has hope that Roxane will choose him, but if not, Cyrano and Roxane, the two people Christian loves most in the world, would have been happy.
Christian:'' I will be loved myself—or not at all!
- In Twice Charmed, Cinderella learns that it wasn't her dress that made the Prince fall in love; it was her.
- Finding Light: Downplayed. Malady wonders if she needs to significantly change her personality because of how Uno took their son Dylan and left her out of fear she would hurt Dylan with her odd way of raising him. Mari states that she can still be herself, but that she should at least be mindful of Dylan.
- Persona:
- This is a major idea, plot point, and overall Aesop delivered in Persona 4. Whenever someone gets thrown into the TV world, they're confronted with a twisted "Shadow" version of themselves that attempts to Break Them by Talking, and then just break them. The only way to survive is to accept their repressed issues, which turns the Shadow into a Persona. Becomes darkly twisted in the case of Adachi, who is implied to have gained his Persona due to accepting his Shadow and thus embracing his depravity. A similar case would be Mitsuo, where his shadow represents that he's a worthless human being, which he rejects with a feeble attempt at claiming that his life is actually worth something. Although, the boss fight after, an outer shell that looks like an 8-bit character, implies what happens to people like that, and that part of themselves is the shell they hide behind, but it's not as "self" as what's under it.
- ...or at least, that’s the message the game preaches. In practice, every character who is “themself” and also goes against what society wants ends up changing their mind and deciding what they actually want is what’s been forced upon them by Japanese society and not what they spent their arc fighting for. While individually, these are fine, only four characters (two in the Updated Re-release, as the new true ending CG has the two heroic characters who didn’t change to something uncomfortable to them for society’s norms end up doing so even when it caused great distress for one when doing it in private with a loved one a mere few months ago) don’t break the message to conform...and two of them are villains.
- While they never outright say it, Persona 5 inverts this with its main story. The villains have, in Persona 4 terms, accepted their true selves and yet are unrepentant in being evil. When you see their Shadow selves, they're the same exact character, with the only difference being in that they don't bother putting on a public persona to appear fit for society.
- This is a major idea, plot point, and overall Aesop delivered in Persona 4. Whenever someone gets thrown into the TV world, they're confronted with a twisted "Shadow" version of themselves that attempts to Break Them by Talking, and then just break them. The only way to survive is to accept their repressed issues, which turns the Shadow into a Persona. Becomes darkly twisted in the case of Adachi, who is implied to have gained his Persona due to accepting his Shadow and thus embracing his depravity. A similar case would be Mitsuo, where his shadow represents that he's a worthless human being, which he rejects with a feeble attempt at claiming that his life is actually worth something. Although, the boss fight after, an outer shell that looks like an 8-bit character, implies what happens to people like that, and that part of themselves is the shell they hide behind, but it's not as "self" as what's under it.
- Namco High: "BE TRUE TO YOURSELF" shows up at least once in each route and in the end credits.
- In Agarest Senki Vira-Lorr's people, the onerthes are... not treated kindly by others. Most have taken to hiding their third eye and pretending to be human to avoid being hunted. Vira-Lorr on the other hand openly displays her third eye and practically dares hunters to come after her, rather than hide what she is.
- In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II, Valimar essentially tells the main protagonist, Rean Schwarzer, this, noting that there's little point in him trying to be someone or something that he's not.
- In The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie, Lapis and Rufus end up telling this to each other at different parts in the game.
- Super Robot Wars V: This is what Amuro tries to tell Full Frontal that he shouldn't act like he's Char but be his own person.
- In Tales of Berseria, although never stated this way directly, this idea lies at the heart of the creed followed by the characters and they are fighting against a force that would turn everyone into unthinking creatures without any personality. "In my heart is a flame I could not extinguish even if I wanted to. To live as you are, and to be true to yourself."
- In Harvest Moon: The Winds of Anthos, Neil's events revolve around his wanting to improve as a cook. He started it up because he liked eating, and he wanted to emulate his father, the restaurant's previous chef. He keeps comparing himself and his cooking to that of his father, until the later events make him realize he doesn't have to do that. He can still aim to follow his father's path in cooking, but he can also add his own note in how he cooks the same dishes.
- In Kings Quest (2015), Chapter 4 sees King Graham and his long-lost son trying to reconnect. But Graham is a pun-loving guy who prefers to work through puzzles in the traditional manner, while Alexander has become a mage during his absence and is more comfortable using his magic to resolve problems. The crux of their disagreement comes from Alexander wanting to be himself instead of the person Graham has always thought he would be.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, this is implied to the reason why Zelda had such trouble with their powers, especially compared to other Zeldas in the series who was (more or less) able to behave as they liked. In the past memories, her father King Rhoam constantly quashed and suppressed their interests, dismissing them and forcing and pressuring Zelda to behave as their ancestors would have.
- Spider-Man: Miles Morales is about Miles learning to be his own Spider-Man and his own adult. The trope name is fittingly the title of the Platinum Trophy.
- Shantae and the Pirate's Curse: This pops up at the end when, after having come to identify with Risky Boots somewhat and see a deeper side of her during their Enemy Mine, Shantae hopes the pirate will drop the villainy and become a good guy. Risky Boots brushes it off saying that, like how Shantae can talk and dress the part of a pirate but will never truly be one as that's simply not what the young half-genie is, she can act the part of a good guy but will simply never truly be one and that the two of them need to just be themselves.
Risky: Listen carefully, runt. You walked the walk and you talked the talk. Heh, you even dressed the part. But in the end, you're no seafaring cutthroat. Far from it. You can't pretend to be something you're not. And... neither can I. So long.
- The Most Popular Girls in School: At the end of Season 2, Brittnay and Mackenzie resolve to never change who they are to become rich and famous. Even if who they are is being rude, crass, and kind of psychotic.
Tristan: But Brittnay, what about your show?
Trisha: Yeah, Mackenzie, what about your modeling career?
Brittnay: Fuck it.
Mackenzie: Yeah, we don't need to be rich and famous right now if it means we giving up who we really are.
Brittnay: Yeah, I mean, if somebody wants to give me my own show and a whole bunch of money, you better goddamn believe it's gonna be on my own terms.
Mackenzie: Yeah! Besides, if we were to sacrifice everything we are to become rich and famous at this age, well, we could end up like Amanda Bynes.
Brittnay: Or Lindsay Lohan.
Trisha: Or Shia Lebouf.
Saison: Or Michael Jackson.
Mackenzie: So for right now, we're just gonna be exactly who the fuck we are and not anybody. Besides, we're still the most popular girls in school!
Brittnay: You're goddamn right we are. - The Music Freaks: The entire story is about Jake learning to embrace his passion for music, regardless of what other people say.
- Dr. Havoc's Diary: The lesson that Dr. Havoc teaches Crystal Mynxx in Episode 8. Unfortunately, that lesson ends up working a little TOO well...
- Anon: When Dani admits to Ian she wants to be with Hunter, Ian is happy as long as she's happy but reminds her not to change her personality to fit in with Hunter's lifestyle.
- In RWBY Volume 9, this is the lesson Ruby ultimately learns, having spent so much of her life aspiring to be like who she thought her mother was or the heroes in the storybooks she was read and crumbling under the pressure of various failures, setbacks and deaths.
Ruby: What happens... if I choose me?
Blacksmith: Then maybe... that girl is enough.
- In Joy To The World, Joy struggles with dealing with her mothers attempts to make her act and dress more like a girl. Joy hates dresses.
- In Homestuck, Vriska Serket learns this.
- In Rusty and Co., Mimic soothes Dirk telling him that only Cube is Cube -- he should just be Dirk.
Stabs comments on the irony of a mimic advising "Be Yourself."
- Zebra Girl: After Viv and Incubus trying to get Sandra to become human or demon, Mabel tells Sandra
that she is not Viv or Incubus but her own person.
- Nautilus from Cucumber Quest gives some helpful advice.
"You can't make the world like you, Panpipe. All you can do is be true to your heart. And then, some people still won't like you! Ever! ...But if you like yourself, it's really not so bad."
- Played for Laughs in Paranatural with Johnny Jhonny. Johnny admits to Ed that he finds himself respecting and ultimately wanting to befriend Max, but is concerned that his jerkish ways will just cause friction with the much more morally-centered Max. Ed, put on the spot, vaguely responds that Johnny just needs to believe in himself. Unfortunately, this leads Johnny to believe that Ed is invoking this trope, and he concludes that it will all work out as Max will eventually come to like him for who he is: a violent bully.
- In one Arthur, King of Time and Space strip, a reformed Morgana says
she's struggling with humility because she's "perfectly me. I'm a much better me than you are, or than you could be even if you wanted and tried. I'm a superb me. I'm very good at ignoring what other people think should be me, and instead being the me I know I am." When Arthur says this sounds like a cool way to live, she says she got it from him.
- Hypergamouse demolishes this in its very first episode, with later strips burning the debris and salting the earth. The comic's attitude is, "If you are prone to one-upmanship, unsolicited corrections and embarrassingly dorky revelations about yourself, you should probably curb those tendencies if you want to endear yourself to others."
- Subverted
in Penny and Aggie: "Where has 'being myself' gotten me? Are your eyelids 'being themselves'?"
- Deconstructed in one The Onion article, "Local Man Ruins Date By Just Being Himself
."
"I'm glad he felt comfortable being himself," said brother Chris Scanlon, 39. "But when you're in full-blown mid-30s-crisis mode with misogynist tendencies and a desperate, neurotic need for approval, maybe 'the real you' is not the best thing to put forward." - A 2016 article
from Cracked points out one example of how this trope is often hypocritical in practice with: Hangman's Curse: Always Be Yourself, Unless You're A Weirdo Or Something.
- Defied in Urban Dictionary with one of the definitions of "Be Yourself":
Be yourself: A stupid statement because no matter what you do, you're always "yourself".
- Deconstructed in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog in Captain Hammer's song "Everyone's a Hero," which at first appears to be a pretty straightforward "accept yourself for who you are" anthem, but it gradually becomes clear that the message comes with a coda, "and incidentally, accept that who you are will never be as great as I am."
Everyone's a hero in their own way,
Everyone has villains they must face.
They're not as cool as mine, but folks you know it's fine to know your place....