A self that is both fully authentic and fully business-oriented cannot logically exist
Evidence
Thus self-branding contains a paradox: if one’s projected self is both “authentic” and “businesslike,” the assumption becomes that people never do anything that would be considered unbusinesslike, illegal, or controversial in any way. … Self-branding is not a reflection of actual life. It is about constructing a strategic self-image to appeal to a particular audience and furthering that image through every online and offline action. … If the Web 2.0 self is one that must be both entirely transparent and entirely business-oriented, that self cannot logically exist. Furthermore, this elimination of long-standing divisions between corporate life and social or home life is a myth—but even trying to blend the two requires a great deal of time, effort, and affective output. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 514
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines self-branding precisely as constructing a strategic self-image for a target audience, not reflecting actual life.
- QUESTION: If the authentic-business self cannot logically exist, what does that imply for the influencer economy’s use of ‘authenticity’ as a selling point—is it inherently an ideological fiction?
- XREF: Connects to Erving Goffman’s front-stage/back-stage self-presentation and to the broader critique of the transparency ideal in surveillance studies. — connects to: The logic of selfhood becomes indistinguishable from the logic of the corporation — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory: A Marxist…, 25; Authenticity is a socially constructed ideal defined only against what it is not. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 651; Authenticity as full self-identity is impossible because iterability makes self-presence unattainable in principle — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of…, 767
- SEED: Angle: ‘The theoretical impossibility of the authentic brand’ — an essay on why the influencer’s promised authenticity is a structural contradiction that brands must perpetually paper over.
Broader Connections
- The logic of selfhood becomes indistinguishable from the logic of the corporation
#qualifies(0.85) — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 25 - Authenticity is a socially constructed ideal defined only against what it is not.
#qualifies(0.80) — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 651