Opinion | YouTube Gave Me Everything. Then I Grew Up.

Creators, who once felt like far-away friends sharing their authentic selves, slowly started monetizing every post, every outfit, every “casual” recommendation. The personal connection we felt was being recalibrated into a business model. They weren't just sharing their lives, they were capitalizing off of them, turning personal narratives into luc... See more

and because the algorithm was constantly changing, I had to change with it. I was constantly adapting my visual and verbal style to keep up with trends

In digital spaces, brands can have personalities and influencers with whom one has never met can feel like close friends. These are consequences of the same thing. The parasocializing force that humanizes corporations also serves to abstract the individual, collapsing individual identity into something more synthetic and structured

“I kind of want it to go on and on and on because it’s who I am,” she said in her TikTok. I wonder about that. What does it mean to fully self-identify with your artistic output, or marketing concepts, or public reception? What is sacrificed when your primary mode of relating to the world is by way of attention received rather than by attention exc... See more