Why UGC Works: The Psychology Behind "Someone Like Me"

Accepting Select Projects — Making the Imagined Tangible.

Why UGC Works: The Psychology Behind "Someone Like Me:

Published: October 21, 2026

Home > Blog > Art/Design> Why UGC Works: The Psychology Behind "Someone Like Me"

Why UGC Works: The Psychology Behind ”Someone Like Me"

A brand can spend thousands on a polished commercial: studio lighting, a perfect model, a voiceover that sounds like velvet. Then a creator films the same product on their phone, at a messy desk, with a little background noise. And the phone video wins.

That's not luck. Our brains read those two videos very differently. One says advertisement. The other says a person like me tried this.

User-generated content (UGC) works because it speaks to some of the oldest shortcuts in how we decide what to trust. Here's what's happening underneath.

As a creative, this one humbled me. We tend to believe the cleverest hook, the most cinematic shot or the prettiest b-roll will beat the algorithm. But the mind doesn’t always reward surprise. Our brains are prediction machines: they expect certain formats, and content that’s easy to process tends to feel more trustworthy. Psychologists call this processing fluency.

Familiar formats can make content easier to understand, but surprise can capture attention. The challenge is balancing both: giving viewers enough familiarity to understand what they're watching while introducing something unexpected that makes them want to keep watching.

"Someone like me": similarity and social proof

When we're unsure what to do, we look at what other people are doing. Psychologist Robert Cialdini called this social proof, and it's one of the most reliable forces in persuasion. Reviews, bestseller badges and "10,000 sold" counters all run on it.

UGC adds a second layer: similarity. When we're uncertain, we're often especially influenced by people who seem similar to us. A creator with a normal room, a real budget and an honest reaction feels like a peer. A celebrity in a studio feels like a performer.

That's why the "imperfections" in UGC aren't flaws. The messy desk, the natural lighting, the slightly awkward pause are signals that say: this person is like you, and it worked for them.

When I recorded my first voiceover, my phone’s microphone picked up a lot of background noise. My instinct was to redo it ten times until it sounded clean. Instead, I kept the second take. I hated it at first, but when I watched it back, I realized the noise made it feel natural. Like a real person, in a real room, talking about something they actually use. As perfectionists, and especially coming from an agency mindset, we tend to treat imperfections like stains to scrub out. But that raises a question worth asking: when we polish everything, are we making content for our audience, or for ourselves?

Lowering our ad defenses

Everyone has an internal alarm that goes off when someone's trying to sell them something. Researchers Marian Friestad and Peter Wright described this in the persuasion knowledge model: as we learn how advertising works, we start recognizing the tactics, and we push back against them.

That's why a classic commercial can trigger an instant eye-roll. The polish itself announces the pitch.

UGC-style content may trigger less immediate skepticism when it resembles an ordinary recommendation, although viewers can still recognize it as advertising. It looks like a recommendation from a friend, so viewers keep listening instead of bracing against a sale.

But this is exactly where honesty matters. When creators endorse products and have a material relationship with the brand, the FTC generally requires that relationship to be clearly disclosed if it isn't already apparent. That includes paid endorsements, affiliate arrangements and certain gifted products. Hiding the #ad to keep defenses down isn't clever marketing; it borrows trust you didn't earn. Research suggests that disclosure can influence how audiences perceive creators and advertisements, sometimes increasing skepticism while also supporting transparency. Honesty doesn't guarantee engagement, but it gives audiences the information they deserve.

Transparency should be one of the pillars of any brand built to last. People can tell when someone is being disingenuous. As creators, we’re often afraid that saying “this is an ad,” “this is sponsored” or “this is an affiliate link” will make people stop supporting us. So we tuck the disclosure somewhere discreet and hope nobody notices. But hiding it usually costs more than it saves. Saying it naturally in the video, adding #ad, or placing a short note at the top of a blog post builds the same trust that hiding it would tear down.

Imagining it's already yours

Before we buy something, we often picture ourselves using it. Researchers call this mental simulation, and visuals can make it easier. In one well-known study, people responded more positively to a product image when it was oriented for easy use, like a mug handle turned toward their dominant hand. The picture did some of the imagining for them.

That imagined use can create a feeling of psychological ownership: a sense that something is mine before you've paid for it. And people tend to value what already feels like theirs.

This is where faceless UGC quietly shines. When a video shows only hands unboxing a product, a first-person view of a desk, or a cursor moving through software, there's no stranger's face to look at. When viewers see hands interacting with a product or a first-person view of someone using software, they have an opportunity to imagine themselves performing those actions.

I build my own UGC this way, with hands, screens and point-of-view shots, partly for privacy and partly because of this effect.

I chose faceless content mainly for privacy. The internet is close to permanent. Once something is posted, you lose control over who saves it, where it ends up, and how long it exists. Social media can feel like leaving a window open: anyone can look in, and you’d never know they were there. But I’ve come to see faceless content as more than a safeguard. Without my face in the frame, there’s no one to compare yourself to, no one to envy, and no one pulling attention from the product. The viewer gets to step into the frame instead. I’d rather be behind the camera than in front of it, and I think the content is better for it.

The Opening Seconds: Hooks and the Curiosity Gap

None of that psychology matters if nobody keeps watching. On a scrolling feed, the opening seconds are critical. A strong hook gives viewers an immediate reason to keep watching.

The strongest hooks open a curiosity gap, an idea from economist George Loewenstein. When we notice a gap between what we know and what we want to know, we feel a pull to close it. A good hook creates that gap on purpose:

"This looked easy. It was not."
"POV: you're restocking his convenience store at 2am."
"Gaming mouse? Sure. But this thing does a lot more than gaming."

Each one raises a question the video promises to answer. The viewer stays to find out.

My first two UGC reels gave me a small, real-world test. My Clip Studio Paint reel, showing Sakura from Naruto being drawn and animated, is outperforming my Logitech mouse reel. Was it the hook? Honestly, I can’t say for sure. Sakura is recognized by millions of people around the world, and that recognition may have done the hooking for me. But that’s a lesson in itself: familiarity is a hook. A face, a format or a feeling people already know stops the scroll before a single word appears. The next step is testing it properly, keeping the subject the same and changing only the hook, to see which one is really doing the work.

Where UGC goes wrong

The same psychology explains why some UGC falls flat:

Scripted "authenticity." When a creator reads brand copy word for word, viewers hear the ad, and the alarm goes off again.
The wrong creator. If the audience can't see themselves in the person, similarity disappears. A gaming peripheral shown by someone who clearly doesn't game won't land.
No hook. Great content that opens on a logo or a slow intro gets scrolled past before the psychology has a chance to work.
Hidden sponsorship. It might lift one video, but when viewers find out, the trust it borrowed is gone, for the creator and the brand.

I’m a multidisciplinary creator. I game, code games, design, edit video, model, rig, animate and texture in 3D, draw manga, write, and keep up my Mandarin. On social media, communicating a clear identity can help audiences understand what to expect from a creator. When I work across several disciplines, that positioning becomes more complicated. But in UGC, range is an advantage. I can film the content, edit it, build a 3D render of the product, design the thumbnail and write the copy, all with one consistent vision and no handoffs between freelancers. For a brand, that means one creator who understands the whole pipeline. My challenge isn’t skill; it’s focus. So I’ve learned to lead with one thing at a time and let the rest support it.

The creator as a bridge

UGC isn't magic, and it isn't a trick. It works because it lets a brand borrow something it can't manufacture on its own: the trust people place in someone like them.

That makes the creator a bridge between a product and the people it's meant for. The best UGC respects both sides. It's honest about the product, honest about the partnership, and made by someone the audience can genuinely see themselves in.

For brands, the lesson is simple: don't buy polish. Buy trust, and protect it.

If you’re a brand in tech, gaming or creative software looking for content that feels real, and visuals that look premium, I’d love to work with you. Let’s talk at hello@hekasebek.com.

References & Further Reading

Google Sites

Report abuse