Attention from audiences provides genuine affective and psychological benefits

Evidence

Indeed, much of this self-production of the neoliberal subject is pleasurable for the subject; it would not be so widespread if it wasn’t. During the dot-com era, Michael Goldhaber gave a speech at a Harvard conference on digital economies in which he stated that “having attention means having recognition, identity, and meaning in the eyes of those around you. It provides sustenance to spirit, mind and body, in just about any form.” The pleasure involved in pursuing self-branding strategies comes partially from having people pay attention: being read, getting @replies, and receiving conference invites have real affective benefits. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 518

Categorization

• DEFINE: Goldhaber’s formulation is an early articulation of the attention economy—useful as a foundational citation for the creator-culture field.
• SEED: Angle: the counterintuitive downside of critique—if self-branding genuinely gives people pleasure and recognition, what does an anti-influencer stance devalue or deny?
• XREF: Links to the reader’s library on silence/noise and on trust—attention as a felt form of recognition parallels how imprecise metrics both satisfy and reproduce status. — connects to: Performing at one-to-one scale deliberately neutralizes celebrity aura and asymmetry — Yves Citton, The Ecology of Attention, 300