To produce originally means to present oneself, not to make things
Evidence
Producing is derived from the Latin verb producere, meaning presenting or making visible. Like the French produire it still carries the meaning of presenting. Se produire means “to play to the gallery.” The colloquial German expression sich produzieren probably has the same etymology. Today, we are constantly and compulsively playing to the gallery. This is especially the case, for instance, on social media: the social is coming to be completely subordinated to self-production. Everyone is producing him-or herself in order to garner more attention. The compulsion of self-production leads to a crisis of community. The so-called “community” that is today invoked everywhere is an atrophied community, perhaps even a kind of commodified and consumerized community. It lacks the symbolic power to bind people together. — Grant Bollmer, Katherine Guinness, The Influencer Factory, 100
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Etymology that reframes ‘production’ as self-presentation — the linguistic hinge of Han’s self-production thesis and directly relevant to what the influencer’s commodity is.