Pretending not to care what other people think is the least authentic thing imaginable. Everyone knows that the people obsess about not giving a fuck are the people who are deeply unhappy with how they're perceived and are fantasizing about a fix.

For secure people, caring what other people think doesn't have to mean being neurotic and miserable about it. It doesn't mean being so cringe that you lose people's respect.

Imagine caring what other people think and not being miserable because of it.

Imagine caring what other people think, and they respect you more for it instead of less.

Top performers care deeply about the opinions of people who matter. CEOs in particular obsess about it. If a CEO acted like your opinion didn't matter, they were probably right, and they were probably too busy thinking about the board and the COO who was angling for an eventual interim job to give you the time of day.

Plenty of documentaries about sporting legends who collected slights and obsessed over proving themselves every day. They cared, and it fueled them.

Trump and Paris Hilton are playing a part for a mass audience who don't know how elites act because they don't know any. Nobody is suggesting that Trump and Paris Hilton don't actually personally care. If they really didn't care, they wouldn't put in the effort. In the years when Paris Hilton was shooting reality shows, she was working a hell of a lot harder than a society heiress needs to. Trump had to keep a president's schedule (a version of it, at least) for four years and came back for more because he wanted to prove he could win again. Being on TV and running for public office are the ultimate forms of caring what other people think. I think the part they play is a part they learned by living it, and is authentic in that sense, but if it was really who they were, instead of being something they act out because they know the masses are impressed by it, we wouldn't know their names.