on personal branding as contempt for human interaction

A discussion broke out on the twittertubes and spilled over onto a couple of blogs, about the nature of branding etc… Rather than trying to pull that all together (read Luke’s take on it), I just wanted to dump my thoughts on the subject in >140chars.

social media

I was on a panel at the Making Sense of Social Media conference last month, where I shared my recent experience with being googled by a journalist and shoe-horned into the “raving opinionated blogger” slot in a story he was putting together. Someone else on the panel mentioned that I had built up a robust brand, through my blogging and photos, and that personal branding was what made these things possible.

I was stunned. Personal branding?

No.

That phrase makes my skin crawl. It’s about as relevant to what I do as “markets,” “consumers” and “monetization”. It distills human interaction into a simple produce-consume transaction, where all we bring to the table is our ability to either create new content, or consume the content of others.

But, to me, this stuff is about so much more than that. This “social media” stuff. It’s not about content. It’s not about producing or consuming. It’s about creating. It’s about connecting.

Could it be perceived as “branding”? I suppose. But only by someone who only primarily valued the productification of everything and everyone. I may be hopelessly naïve, but I see the products as by FAR the least interesting aspect of “social media.”

9 thoughts on “on personal branding as contempt for human interaction”

  1. “personal brand” is a perfectly reasonable way to frame your broadcast personality in that context. you say it’s about connecting; branding is concerned with exactly that.

    1. Yeah. I can see branding as a useful byproduct, but the way it was framed on the panel was that the branding was the Big Goal. That’s misguided, and counter to any genuine sense of presence.

    1. “First, agents must, in the world of the true, prove their competence and demonstrate the required success. This functional reputation is proven in relation to the performance goals of the various functional systems (politics, the economy etc.). In the economic system, for example, it is measured by a company’s profits. This reputation dimension follows a strictly fact-based logic: functional success or failure is measured by figures that can be objectively verified.”

      So, first you must be rich. In the case of bloggers you must have readers.

      “Second, reputation bearers must prove themselves in the social world of the good. This gives rise to the concept of social reputation. The central question here is to what extent actors are ‘good citizens’: that is, whether they simply trample on others in pursuit of success, or whether they act responsibly, in line with social norms and values. Having an intact social reputation requires following codified and non-codified social norms.”

      Must be seen as good.

      “Third, agents also possess an expressive reputation. Whereas judgements are fact-based for the functional reputation dimension and ethically based for the social reputation dimension, it is judgements of taste that dominate in the world of the beautiful (Kant 2004c). Reputation bearers are judged according to the emotional attractiveness of their individual character and according to how unique they appear. Agents with a positive expressive reputation appear fascinating, sympathetic and unique.”

      Judged by image.

      When you do any three of these things immorally, ie get rich through scruples means; falsely attempt to be seen as doing good; or create a false image of sincerity you go wrong. Unfortunately, greed is expected out of the producer, which will make them rich. They can buy publicity by donating to causes. They can coerce emotional appeal through advertising.

      So until a book covers this and denounces it, such a book has no value and is intelligible as far as I am concerned.

  3. In general, people need to shoehorn their thinking into available categories. I talk about personal branding, as a *side effect* of my conversations online.

    In essence, personal branding == being YOU on the Internet. Or perhaps, people getting a better sense of you, online.

    And yes, much of this fiddle faddle annoys me. I remember that one time I tried to kill / rave against the term “blogger”. Now I get to feel the same skin crawl over the term “social media” (which is why we always put it in quotation marks – it’s like putting gloves on just to say it).

  4. Are you sincere? Are you a human being? Are you moral? Do you contribute? I will leave out the creative part, because every fuck-tard especially Steve Jobs is concerned with being “creative” as in “creative capitalism”, and again coercion applies to that. I would answer an affirmative yes in all these categories. That’s why I read this blog, it’s one of the 5 publications that I care about online, the other 4 or so people also are real people not trying to produce. That’s your “brand”. However, in the corporate world it is the coercive image you like to portray in the minds of “consumers” who then consume your crap because they are sick, sick human beings who misunderstand what relationships are (be sure to disagree with me)? So they don’t acknowledge that you do it for greed and want to have a relationship with you because you are good corporate citizen; i.e. they know your brand. So by my definition: when it is coercive, then it’s all bad and that’s what branding is in the corporate sense. When it is genuine then it is all good, that’s what branding is in terms of real human relationships, with real people, that care about real things. There is really no grey area in my book.

  5. I think the branding and “market” discussions are really just an attempt to speak about this new world of sharing, connecting, and creating in convenient, scientific terms. It may seem cold, but it’s just the way that some people want to talk about what happens in an industry. It’s kind of like how businesspeople need to use acronyms for everything, or the film industry has a different language for how they talk about creating films as opposed to how viewers talk about the experience of viewing it.

    I don’t think it’s that bad, it’s just two different languages for two different groups involved in the same industry or experience.

    1. “sharing, connecting, and creating in convenient, scientific terms”

      Sharing for what reason? Connecting for what reason? Creating what and with whom for what ends? When language falsely conveys neutrality when there is none we get away from the actual meaning of words.

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