Self-branding success remains exceptional and gated by networks of power
Evidence
Boyd is a new breed of tech scene insider, one who has harnessed self-presentation techniques to successfully build a career. He is exactly the sort of person whom Gary Vaynerchuk might hold up as a role model, and who is poised to succeed in a de-centered, destabilized American economy. But Boyd’s success is exceptional. He is able to talk about the “right” sort of things and have the “right” sort of people pay attention. There are far more people who have tried, and failed, to make this work, because they find the discomfort and conflict that comes with an internet presence too difficult; because the information they broadcast is too feminine, raw, or “uninteresting”; or simply because they exist outside of the tightly wound networks of power and capital that make up Silicon Valley. — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, 719
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the labor/Inequality critiques in earlier chapters on who gets to succeed at self-branding, and to broader gig-economy precarity literature. — connects to: Self-branding succeeds for few yet is promoted as a universal fix — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 525; Self-branding gurus achieve bestseller success despite tepid critical reviews — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 434; Self-branding success is unsustainable for most and structurally excludes marginalized workers — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 444 (+1 more)