In the absence of religion and other community belonging, consumers yearn to find the brands they can use as signals for identity curation and kinship – signaling to other Glossier or Stanley cup girls that no actually, we’re the same. Brands do this signaling implicitly (owning Aesop hand soap reveals something about you - well-to-do, metropolitan... See more

Another lesson to take away, however, is that you need to refine your personal brand and know exactly what you symbolize — that is, which slice of the algorithmic network of consumer identities you represent. Eventually you run the risk of replicating the very institutions you’ve rebelled against.