You Are NOT A Brand

If you read one manifesto this year, read this one. Maureen Johnson is an author and she wrote up this short manifesto about the trend that is overtaking social media and the internet as a whole, branding yourself online, becoming a product online. This relates to the digital Ego and how it is overrunning not only social media... but the internet as a whole.

It appears, that I have . . . entirely by accident . . . developed a manifesto. Let me tell you how this happened.

My neighbor had a lot to say. She had a MESSAGE. She talked longer than anyone, and over everyone and through everyone. Her message, as far as I could determine, was that the internet is all about getting out there and SELLING yourself.

Just to be clear on this thing I am not, maybe I should define my understanding of personal branding. A personal brand is a little package you make of yourself so you can put yourself on the shelf in the marketplace and people will know what to expect or look for when they come to buy you. For example, Coke is a brand. When you see Coke, you expect a dark brown effervescent sweet drink that is always going to taste like . . . Coke. McDonalds is going to sell you inexpensive, fast food. The Ritz or the Four Seasons is going to sell you a luxury experience. BP will now be known as the brand that destroys the costal ecosystem of the southeastern United States.

I am not saying that it is a bad or dishonest thing to try to sell your work. It is not. What I am saying is that I am tired of the rush to commodify everything, to turn everything into products, including people. I don’t want a brand, because a brand limits me. A brand says I will churn out the same thing over and over. Which I won’t, because I am weird.

MY POINT IS . . . it’s early days yet on the internet, and lines are being drawn. We can, if we group together, fight off the weenuses and hosebags who want to turn the internet into a giant commercial. Hence, the manifesto. It goes something like this:

The internet is made of people. People matter. This includes you. Stop trying to sell everything about yourself to everyone. Don’t just hammer away and repeat and talk at people—talk TO people. It’s organic. Make stuff for the internet that matters to you, even if it seems stupid. Do it because it’s good and feels important. Put up more cat pictures. Make more songs. Show your doodles. Give things away and take things that are free. Look at what other people are doing, not to compete, imitate, or compare . . . but because you enjoy looking at the things other people make. Don’t shove yourself into that tiny, airless box called a brand—tiny, airless boxes are for trinkets and dead people.

Read it all here...

I saw it to be pretty profound. You and your username (real name on social networks) are nothing more than a brand seeking attention and higher status.

It's allright to be a brand as long as you are an awful product that no one in their right mind would ever buy...or at least that's what I've been trying to do all this time...Please point out to me where the shame is in that.

People present themselves the way they wish to be presented - it can be used to achieve something, and it can be used to fuel ego. Who and What you associate yourself with are the same, they can be used to achieve something or it can be used to fuel ego.

But she speaks wisdom, nice find.

s+f

reply to post by nine-eyed-eel

Originally posted by nine-eyed-eel
It's allright to be a brand ...

A brand is a name applied to a product which looks exactly the same every time it is produced and reproduced. It has only one face, no alterations, nothing unique between one product and the other, etc.

I don't think its alright to be a brand.

Got ya - cat pics - I post those everyday on another site, I talk to my friends there about fun stuff and important issues. I love chatting with people on the net and I am not trying to sell myself, I am not a Brand. Sure some people get a little carried away on things they are interested in but that does not make them a Brand. Everyone has something to contribute, whether it be intelligent, silly or just plain ignorant. We are humans, we all have our flaws but we are not Brands.

I need a Coke!

reply to post by crazydaisy

I need a Coke!

*cough*



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People should not be 1-dimensional or 2-dimensional.


Triangulate mayne!!!!!!!!!!

My issue with this dilemma is the societal impact of a massive herd of people looking to everything without humanity, but with the notion of profiteering. Or how it can be turned into a profit. How maximization of profits can be achieved, how cost of regulations can be avoided, how blahblahblah ...


Point is, too many people have their mind on the green and they forget the dynamics of being human.


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I'm personally going through an infuriating hell-storm of trying to "sell" myself efficiently, so that I can satisfy the expectations of the man in charge, being someone I don't want to be, doing things I don't want to do.

Being told you're not good enough, when you're trying your damnedest to meet with their expectations, is enough to make you want to flip over a building and throw that entire company into the sun.


But what else is there?

For many, it's either death or living a life that you don't really care to live.

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Blessed are those that live a life of their own choosing.

reply to post by serbsta


Remember that line from Fight Club "You are not a unique snowflake"...

People stay the same and seem the same once you understand what you are looking at...What could be more monotonous than the underlying continuity of Madonna's reinventions of herself?

Even someone like myself - I am random, unpredictable (as people go), with "poor impulse control", and seriously likely to do any damn thing from one day to the next - over the years, even my senseless hijinks do wind up assuming an overall strictly consistent flavor...oh sadly yes...Even if you always play it counter-to-type...

So if you complain of the eternal sameness of the branded, are you yourself actually able to do something different from your last-year's-model? (This is a friendly question, I am just shooting the breeze, yes-yes.)

I googled my name and found a guy who writes heavy-metal homo-erotic Flash Fiction, and has a pretty big online following. So much for branding. I may as well sell my modem.

I've been noticing this a lot of youtube lately. Youtube in the old days wasn't so much about marketing yourself. Anyone could make a good video. Later on it seems like things turned more fake and people were trying to produce material so they could become popular. A lot of the people you see they edit things so much that even after watching tons of their videos, you really would have no idea what they are like as a person. Some people are really desperate to make a popular youtube channel and it shows, early days no one really tried to be popular.

The popular on youtube have sort of become the popular of our high school days. The fake ones get the most attention. I guess on youtube it just matters what your goal is.

I created and built brands for 25 years. I am not a brand, and neither are you.

We are human beings. We are far too complex (and self-contradictory) ever to be brands. Brands are simple things, deliberately oversimplified things in fact, used to sell things that aren't worth the money you pay for them and need to be given a bit of extra 'personality' to make them seem worth the price.

A person who wants to be a brand is a person with no self-respect.