Personal branding emerged as a response to job insecurity in the 1990s

Evidence

In the late 1990s, as I was researching and writing No Logo, the first murmuring could be heard that personal branding was something to which all of us, even noncelebrities, should aspire. In the book, I explored this new and controversial idea: that the insecurity we all felt about the rapid disappearance of stable jobs could be solved if everyone made like Michael Jordan and Oprah and branded up. The management guru Tom Peters laid out the new rules in a 1997 cover story in Fast Company titled “The Brand Called You”: Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 155

Categorization

• XREF: Links backward to No Logo and forward to the diagonalism thesis — the same neoliberal insecurity machine that produced personal branding is what later feeds wellness/crisis opportunism on the far right. — connects to: Public self-promotion is now required for employment across many occupations — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 406