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The Personal Brand Is Dead

23 points by ecliptik 4y ago

thomassmith65 4y ago
There's something real underpinning this essay, but the author only shallowly investigates it. We live in an age where a person can't participate in normal life (parents, friends, school, work, shopping, public events) without leaking personal information to the entire world, personal information that is liable to stay online forever. I wish the author had explored whether these 'zoomers' understand how much information is already out there, and the ramfications; are they tech-savvy enough to envision a future where info about a person is easier to locate and consolidate? I'd also like to know if they attempt to scrub existing information, and how they deal with parents and friends who overshare. One can proclaim 'the personal brand is dead' but social media has already done so much damage that it isn't clear whether anyone actually can avoid a 'personal brand'
jl2718 4y ago
Gens A-Z would all like to be selectively anonymous, and pseudonymous, and untracked online. I remember when Facebook declared very early on that they were going to solve the ‘problem’ of anonymity online, and I could not believe that people thought that this was a good idea. I realize that advertisers asked for it, and Investors demanded it, but I don’t see how it even helped them. For all their expensive and elaborate Orwellian surveillance capitalism, their ads still don’t work, and search keyword or content-based ads still do.
mikae1 4y ago
Also, recently: https://www.salon.com/2022/04/30/influencer-culture-is-everywhere-even-in-academia/ https://www.salon.com/2022/04/30/influencer-culture-is-every... (Not about Gen Z specifically)
exolymph 4y ago
Ridiculous. The ability to concentrate attention is only getting more valuable as the internet continues to grow and its cultures slowly globalize. Sure, there are plenty of people who don't want a public profile — as there always have been. But the attention-seeking subset has never had a better opportunity landscape and they know it.

23 points by ecliptik 4y ago

There's something real underpinning this essay, but the author only shallowly investigates it. We live in an age where a person can't participate in normal life (parents, friends, school, work, shopping, public events) without leaking personal information to the entire world, personal information that is liable to stay online forever. I wish the author had explored whether these 'zoomers' understand how much information is already out there, and the ramfications; are they tech-savvy enough to envision a future where info about a person is easier to locate and consolidate? I'd also like to know if they attempt to scrub existing information, and how they deal with parents and friends who overshare. One can proclaim 'the personal brand is dead' but social media has already done so much damage that it isn't clear whether anyone actually can avoid a 'personal brand'

jl2718 4y ago

Gens A-Z would all like to be selectively anonymous, and pseudonymous, and untracked online. I remember when Facebook declared very early on that they were going to solve the ‘problem’ of anonymity online, and I could not believe that people thought that this was a good idea. I realize that advertisers asked for it, and Investors demanded it, but I don’t see how it even helped them. For all their expensive and elaborate Orwellian surveillance capitalism, their ads still don’t work, and search keyword or content-based ads still do.

mikae1 4y ago

Also, recently: https://www.salon.com/2022/04/30/influencer-culture-is-everywhere-even-in-academia/ https://www.salon.com/2022/04/30/influencer-culture-is-every... (Not about Gen Z specifically)

exolymph 4y ago

Ridiculous. The ability to concentrate attention is only getting more valuable as the internet continues to grow and its cultures slowly globalize. Sure, there are plenty of people who don't want a public profile — as there always have been. But the attention-seeking subset has never had a better opportunity landscape and they know it.