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Dude, you're responding to a 16 year old. At that age, they are literally inventing their identity. As for the "building your brand", everyone is doing that eve

Dude, you're responding to a 16 year old. At that age, they are literally inventing their identity. As for the "building your brand", everyone is doing that even when they don't know it (consciously or unconsciously). Doing it consciously is because teens are by and large shit scared that they aren't or won't be "good enough", and often they're steered into "standing out" in some way (for nerds, often through academic excellence "with a twist"). They are exhibiting standard behaviour for an envioronment in which there's much more (perceived) demand for "good careers" than (perceived) supply.

krebs_liebhaber 7y ago
> academic excellence "with a twist" Nailed it better than I ever could.
nil-sec 7y ago
Building your identity should not be tied to building your brand when you are 16. I’ve grown up in Europe but lived in the US for some time. What I noticed is a distinct lack of subculture in young people (college), everyone seems to be very homogenized and this is in stark contrast to what I perceived in Europe. Of course this is anecdotal but I wonder if this is a result of this crazy system that doesn’t allow missteps, doesn’t allow building your own identity, but instead forces you to be focused on security and your brand from an early age onwards as not to be crushed by college debts.
- michaelt 7y ago
  Isn't "building your personal brand" just a synonym for "building your resume" or "building your reputation"? At least, unless you're planning to become an Instagram influencer with their own line of cosmetics? I can assure you, kids have been doing extracurriculars that look good on college applications for longer than most of us have been alive.
  - nil-sec 7y ago
    Well that’s a bit my point. This isn’t really a thing where I grew up, but has become very normalized in the US. Building your resume certainly wasn’t on my or any of my friends mind when we were 16. To me this is insanity. Maybe it’s awesome though, what do I know.
  - foldr 7y ago
    My resume when I was 16 (in the UK) was "passed high school exams, did paper round". That was perfectly normal, and I wasn't worried about it how it compared to my peers'.
  - itronitron 7y ago
    True, but a lot of people on this thread have not been alive that long. The difference now is that extracurriculars are done in order to look good on applications.
deleted 7y ago
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krebs_liebhaber 7y ago

> academic excellence "with a twist" Nailed it better than I ever could.

nil-sec 7y ago

Building your identity should not be tied to building your brand when you are 16. I’ve grown up in Europe but lived in the US for some time. What I noticed is a distinct lack of subculture in young people (college), everyone seems to be very homogenized and this is in stark contrast to what I perceived in Europe. Of course this is anecdotal but I wonder if this is a result of this crazy system that doesn’t allow missteps, doesn’t allow building your own identity, but instead forces you to be focused on security and your brand from an early age onwards as not to be crushed by college debts.

michaelt 7y ago
Isn't "building your personal brand" just a synonym for "building your resume" or "building your reputation"? At least, unless you're planning to become an Instagram influencer with their own line of cosmetics? I can assure you, kids have been doing extracurriculars that look good on college applications for longer than most of us have been alive.
- nil-sec 7y ago
  Well that’s a bit my point. This isn’t really a thing where I grew up, but has become very normalized in the US. Building your resume certainly wasn’t on my or any of my friends mind when we were 16. To me this is insanity. Maybe it’s awesome though, what do I know.
- foldr 7y ago
  My resume when I was 16 (in the UK) was "passed high school exams, did paper round". That was perfectly normal, and I wasn't worried about it how it compared to my peers'.
- itronitron 7y ago
  True, but a lot of people on this thread have not been alive that long. The difference now is that extracurriculars are done in order to look good on applications.

deleted 7y ago

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