You are not a commercial for yourself

What does “community” mean? Facebook calls its billions of users a community, and multinational brands use this word to refer to their customers. Are these communities in any meaningful sense? What about the “brand communities” I mentioned earlier, do these qualify? And can a community that is paid truly be called a community at all? As paid commun... See more

Within such virtual spaces, “community” is a shorthand for interaction — not necessarily belonging. From a business standpoint, community is a means to harness customer loyalty. From fitness companies like Peloton to beauty and fashion brands like Glossier and Victoria’s Secret PINK, brand communities have become essential marketing mechanisms, esp... See more

We are forced to pick a singular lane and consistently craft our personal brand, package ourselves into a product and appease the repetitive, insatiable appetite of the algorithm. If we do this successfully, we can grow our audience and reap the rewards of financial and social capital.

This is the winning strategy for competing in today’s Olympic ga... See more

I’m extremely wary of the cult of contemporary self-making, and the fact that it’s become an expected part of life in the attention economy for middle-class workers.

From the college essay – the first time many of us are required to tell a selling story of ourselves in the service of social capital – to the dating website to Twitter or Instagram, we... See more

There’s a joke around “the best minds of my generation were tasked with getting people to click on ads”. At least you can attribute those ads to powering free global communications, information networks, and technical research.

I’d argue that the most creative minds of my generation were told to believe that creating yet another self-satisfying pro... See more