We live in a culture of entertainment, a society in which being entertained is so highly valued that at times it seems that if something isn’t entertaining, it should be avoided or ignored. The demand for just about everything to conform to the standards of entertainment has, in the last few decades, extended to the person. You have to be entertaining, or you will be avoided or ignored.
Therefore a small industry has arisen to help you develop your personal brand. As you know, big corporations spend millions to develop brands with flashy logos that encourage consumers to view the corporation and its products as exciting, cool, edgy, etc. Well,, if products need brands, why not individuals? Inevitably, “branding coaches” have started popping up offering advice on topics such as “Here’s what it takes to be the CEO of Me, Inc.” Most of the advice comes down to this: figure out your strengths and then figure out how to market them, thereby creating a public relations image for yourself.
This approach is generally oriented toward career management, but there is also a much larger (and somewhat harder to spot) process of self-branding going on in contemporary society. People have always used consumer products such as their cars and clothing to advertise who they are, but in recent years that process has accelerated. These days many high end houses are built not only to display the owner’s wealth, but also to assert claims about who the owner is: “I am the master of a Tuscan villa”, or “I am royalty” (I see lots of houses these days with turrets, which I suppose might be useful if you need to defend your house in a siege, otherwise they are just a way of saying, “I own a castle”).
Or , to take a different sort of example, I don’t listen to much country music, but I get to hear it sometimes at the gym, and these days it seems to me that a lot of it is about the sort of people who listen to country music: “I’m proud to drive a tractor and salute the flag” etc. Back in the day country music was about things like cheating spouses and drowning your sorrows at the bar; now a popular theme seems to be “I’m the sort of person who listens to country music.”—more self advertising. My final example is one that is so obvious it almost doesn’t need to be mentioned: social media. What is Facebook other than a vast platform for creating brand you?
Why do people feel they have to shout so loud to establish who they are? My answer would be: This happens for the same reason that movies get louder and brighter and more violent each decade: there’s a competition going on for people’s attention, and the competition will be won by whatever is the most stimulating. And increasingly that holds for people as well: people who are able to put together an impressive and eye-catching brand will be more likely to get noticed, get hired, be popular, etc.
I do have one question, however: What’s the difference between marketing yourself and simply being yourself?
Photo provided on flickr by austinevan.
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“What’s the difference between marketing yourself and simply being yourself?”
Ironically, most personal branding coaches (who themselves project larger-than-life uber-cool personal brands) tend to claim that marketing yourself is all about being “authentic”—as if managing other people’s impressions of you (branding) is the equivalent to just being yourself!
The topic of authenticity opens up a vast realm of ironies. For example, personal authenticity is typically established in no small part through the consumption of commercially available products, which suggests that others are seizing upon similar authenticities, which in turn raises the possibility that one’s authenticity is a form of conformity.
Hi Peter,
I’ve been reading you blog for a while now, even quoted it on my blog a few times. It’s interesting that I find Duff commenting here as well, since he’s another fascinating individual. Anyway, I thought this would be a good time to stop lurking and comment once and for all.
What’s the difference you say? In the ideal scenario (if there’s such a thing), it means that you are yourself, but you also spend time making it public. I don’t think it goes beyond that. In the not so ideal but much more common scenario, it means creating a lie, a powerful public image that’s only destined to disappoint in real life.
I wrote a post about this that I’d like to share with you, where I also expose my negative thoughts towards personal branding: http://www.owlsparks.com/advice/to-hell-with-personal-branding/
Thanks for the always stimulating content Peter, keep it up.
You raise a central and important question. As a social scientist, I believe that any talk about “the real me” must be taken rather lightly. In all societies, people are largely defined by cultural expectations, norms, etc. People are built to respond to this, it’s not like if we left an infant isolated and alone he or she would develop into who he or she was meant to be (whatever that would mean)
Our society happens to promote an ideology of “realizing yourself,” but on closer inspection realizing yourself turns out to entail participation in certain social projects, projects primarily related to work (career) and consumption. For the most part I am supposed to realize myself by being a big success and acquiring lots of stuff. The “personal branding” stuff is largely an ethical matter. It raises the question of more or less intentional deception in order to pursue one’s desired ends. Those of us who are critical of this are, I think, pointing out that in some sectors of the society values have shifted to such an extent that integrity and honesty are seen as impediments to success.
I look forward to reading your post. Great to hear you have gotten something out of some of mine.
one needs to market oneself when it needs to have a social standing in a society that is so caught up who is what. And that is simply measured by assests one possess and the likeness of things that are branded ELite. it depends on the society you want to be recognised with. If you are happy standing alone in the crowd, happy to be a spectator, content at listning more importantly just want to be you then you are happy being yourself.
Yes, all societies provide resources for a symbolic image for a person. In our society, there resources can be used to assert that one is a member of some elite group. Such activity, however, goes against another of our moral commitments, namely the idea that the self has a some sort of coherence, even sanctity. The person who is willing to alter what they are in order to manipulate their identity seems to some to be committing a form of betrayal.
Thanks for commenting.