A content creator’s crafted persona can outgrow her private self

Evidence

Rachel thus expressed a tension between sharing an “authentic” version of herself and one that fits with the brand persona she had created for and through her audience. Though she recognized the promotional value of her socially mediated self-brand, this caricature she had created no longer squared with her “real-life” self. — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love, 328

Categorization

• STORYSTEM: The mismatch between self and brand persona is a plausible fiction hinge—the influencer beginning to feel her online character has overtaken her.
• XREF: connects to: GOMI constructed bloggers as public figures to justify reader scrutiny — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love:…, 353; Currency of one’s self-brand can trap producers in unhappy life situations — Brooke Erin Duffy, (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love:…, 553; Media let a person occupy more space than their physical body — Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol, 510 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Micro-celebrity requires deliberately commodifying the self into a marketable persona #expands (0.82) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 278
• Personal branding online creates performative doppelgangers demanding constant attention #corroborates (0.80) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 32
• Showing oneself as a self online begins the manufacturing of the self as commodity #expands (0.78) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 61
• A person’s digital self is a strategically edited simulacrum, not a direct reflection #corroborates (0.75) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 547
• Social media reframed self-identity as a personal brand selling attention #expands (0.75) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1031
• Self-branding demands maintaining an edited yet authentic self before an audience #qualifies (0.72) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 507