It's time to kill the personal brand

As a possibly too-online freelance creator, the phrase "personal brand" has been seared into my mind. It's the cornerstone of every blogger or professional YouTuber who wants to convince their viewers that, with a little effort, and a strong personal brand, they, too, could become successful, just like them.

Ignoring the idea of "success" that's so terribly offputting here, I want to get to my main point: that the idea of the personal brand more often than not kills the creativity and passion of the person who it supposedly represents. It relies so heavily on consistency and polish, two things that are the opposite of "organic", forcing a changing, growing, living person into a strictly-defined box, all in the name of Financial Success(TM).

And it sucks.

Now, as someone who does, in fact, run a small business (and someone who, at the same time, works in marketing for a slightly larger business), I get that there's a strong desire for business success, and that a lot of that success has to do with financial freedom. The idea of the freelancer, however unrealistic, is that one day you'll achieve the freedom to do the work you love and make a living doing it. And, because of that idea, the ever-ethereal vision that, for many, never materializes, freelancers and creatives are motivated to do things that are less-than-ideal in order to achieve this goal. Nothing great is ever achieved without sacrifice, after all.

I get it, really. I do it, too. I've been pulled in by the allure of the personal brand. "Make yourself consistent" and "always create content to attract your ideal customer" is the goal of the brand, and at the same time, you have to ensure that you never make anything that might not fit with your personal brand. Never, ever. Not once.

And we, as freelancers, entrepreneurs, artists, or whatever, take this advice and never question it. We see the successful artists or creators, the freelancers who've achieved their dreams, and we're told that all we need to do is form our public image into a cohesive brand that appeals to whoever we're selling to.

And, ignoring the fact that "always be selling your brand" is a terrible way to live, the idea that we should shape our ever-growing public lives, including how we interact with our friends or colleagues, into a business-focused brand is so opposed to our happiness and flourishing that it's astonishing to think anyone would feel comfortable recommending it in the first place.

And before you think "well, that's great, but I'm not an entrepreneur, so I don't need to worry about this," I'm going to jump in and say that, if you have a social media account, and you've posted on it with any sort of consistency, that you have a "personal brand." Or, at the very least, you've been influenced by the idea of one.

It isn't just freelancers. It's anyone who has ever thought about making something for the world to see. We're all given this same message: make it consistent, and make it sellable. And don't, under any circumstances, show that you're a real person with flaws, quirks, and failings instead of a perfectly-coordinated brand.

The personal brand is an insidious part of everyday life. At its most innocent, it's a front we put up when we're around strangers or distant acquaintances. But as the online world shrinks the gap between what's open to the public and what's shared between friends, the front that we present to the world around us starts to infiltrate our own personal lives. We become trapped in a prison of our own making, forced to constantly present the personality we've curated for ourselves, and we let our creativity fall apart in the name of consistency and popularity.

So: I think it's time for us to kill the very concept of the personal brand.

Of course, it's fine to have a "brand" in the colloquial sense of the word. I've probably thought and spoken more about the theological implications of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles than most other people. If someone who knew me heard me talking about it, they'd say it's "on-brand."

The difference is this: a personal brand is cultivated from the outside in. It's a concept created to market yourself to the widest possible audience, whereas the idea of something being "on-brand" for someone is just a way of saying that, of course, this guy is going to rant about whether or not Michaelangelo the turtle will get to Heaven or not.

In my eyes, the death of the "personal brand" is what allows the "on-brand" to truly come back into being. It's an invitation to revert back to simply being a person, in all the goodness and wonder that's found therein, while making space for the mess and confusion that comes along with it.

The personal brand forces you to maintain a carefully-curated collection of infinitely palpable, entirely-related, easily-consumable interests that can help you appeal to the widest possible audience.

A person, on the other hand, contains multitudes. We have interests unrelated to our professional fields. We have hobbies and desires that don't fit perfectly within the bounds of a marketable online portfolio. It's not only possible, but it's welcomed in this new world, to create and enjoy things that offer you no professional fulfillment whatsoever.

Heck, you can write an entire blog post about your personal thoughts on the philosophy of **being a person** on a website dedicated to your own photography business (thanks for being here, by the way).

You can be free to be you, and anyone who wants to come along for the ride is more than welcome to do so.

Another point: the personal brand forces consistency. A brand cannot change its mind. It must be set in its approach: this is how I do things, and this is how I will always do things. A person, on the other hand, is a mess of half-completed thoughts and misconceptions.

I like this quote from Jenny Odell in her book How to Do Nothing, a hilariously-titled book focused on the idea that it's in paying attention, to ourselves and to the world around us, that we find peace:

"This is one of the things I find the most absurd about our current social media, since it’s completely normal and human to change our minds, even about big things. Think about it: Would you want to be friends with someone who never changed their mind about anything?"

By paying attention, Odell asserts, we open the door to change. A personal brand, on the other hand, forces us to remain the same, stagnant in our ideas, presenting ourselves as perfect though we know, deep down, we're so deeply the opposite.

Human beings are inherently messy. We've been like this from the beginning. And the social media mindset (of which the personal brand is only a part) tears away this fundamentally human aspect in favor of perfect curation. A brand is expected to be perfect from the beginning. A person who presents themselves in this way has no freedom to learn, grow, or change in any way! What kind of life is that, where we remain stagnant, unchanging, when we could grow in creativity, holiness, or skill?

Who are we if we are expected to be perfect without even figuring out what our imperfections are?

And, finally, the personal brand has completely overwhelmed our sense of expectation. For ourselves. For others. For our culture as a whole.

The work we present must be perfect. The ideas we have must be fully finished. We allow ourselves and others no room for growth, change, or experimentation. We can't, for instance, write a blog post with the knowledge that we'll be coming back to edit it later, presenting an idea that's sure to receive feedback (both positive and negative), with the intention of growth and expression rather than persuasion and confrontation.

In short, we deny ourselves our own humanity and replace it with a logo that will undoubtedly look dated in 10 years, max.

So, I'm done with it. And you should be, too. Stop the branding, even if you're trying to become a successful entrepreneur (or whatever your thing is). You aren't a brand. You're a person. And the messiness, imperfection, and straight-up confusion that you feel aren't just normal, they're good. Because it means you're embracing what makes us human: our ability to recognize ourselves, in all the beautiful mess we encompass.