You're Personal Branding Yourself As A Narcissistic A-Hole

Brace yourself because some of you are about to be offended by my brutal honesty. Lately when I started to hear everyone complaining about Personal Branding and Social Media, I fully agreed with their criticism. Everyone needs to stop the ass kissing and start being real. Honestly, I've been ODing on everyone PBing themselves for sometime now! Translation = I can't take the Personal Branding craze! Seriously, this shameless self-promotion stuff has got to stop! I feel like I'm back in high school watching the social misfit, who is desperate to fit in, try every trick in the book to gain attention. The only difference is we are no longer in high school. Instead this has graduated to Gen-Y's use of Social Media. It's nauseating to witness. If all the so-called Personal Branding experts would stand before Simon Cowell he would shake his head in disgust and in that smug, British accent say..."It’s dreadful, truly dreadful. I'm bored. I don't understand what you're trying to do. Tell me what the point is."

Maybe it's just that I don't understand how people can make a career out of Personal Branding, or maybe I just think it's an annoying career? Either way, I hate to be a hater, but it just feels like constant self-promotion. And essentially that's all Personal Branding is, which of course makes it slightly worse than a pushy salesman that is trying to sell you something. Because in the case of the self-proclaimed Personal Branding expert, they are trying to sell themselves! Wait...wouldn't that be similar to whoring?

We live in a society where status has become everything and image has leveraging value. We are constantly bombarded with branding, especially Personal Branding. You, Inc.! A Brand Called You! Brand Yourself! Inc. Yourself! Some would say go F yourself! Far too many people are concerned about how they "look" to other people when they should be focusing on who they REALLY are. Do you even know who you are anymore? You’ve turned your identity into a brand and in the process lost your true self. It’s sad really. And in a way, I feel sorry for them. I watch these people obnoxiously plug their blog posts countless times a day on Twitter and spend hours upon hours thinking of ways to promote themselves. One more follower. One more subscriber. One more fan. One more hit. Driving traffic to all their social media platforms has become their obsession, their drug of choice!

I feel like they are the type of people that buy into those "get rich quick" schemes that run on late night TV, that Personal Branding will bring them fame and fortune. For whatever reason, they seem to believe that if they name drop themselves and their web address enough that somehow they will be the next big brand! That people will remember me. People will like me. And they will know my name. Nope, sorry. Nike and Pepsi you are not and probably won’t ever be. All you're doing is irratating people and making them sick to death of you! I know, I know. The truth hurts, but someone had to say it.

The biggest problem with Personal Branding is there’s no sincerity. Because there’s no way in hell you absolutely LOVE every person you come across and think they are brilliant! We all know there are times when you disagree with them, but lack the balls to say so for fear of hurting your own "brand." It’s like your looking to be re-elected when you were never elected to begin with. Campaigning for office, but the office doesn’t exist! I’m just so sick of seeing Personal Branding experts handing out the equivalent of a virtual chocolate chip cookie to everyone they see who makes a nice poopie. It’s ridiculous! Being fake hurts a "brand" far more than being real. Even though everyone loves being complimented, insincere compliments can be seen a mile away, as can hollow connections and fake friendships. Sincerity and integrity go hand-in-hand. And I don’t see how anyone in Personal Branding could go very far without them. You've made yourself into a gimmick.

There is a big difference in how you appear to others, versus how you truly are. The difference is supposed to be in meaning, not in being. When you are authentic, you appear to others the way you truly are. When you aren’t authentic, your true face shows up in ways that are often shocking and unpleasant to others. Personal Branding is like a lot of hot air being pumped out at an amazing speed. Inflating one’s self is superficial, short lived, and often triggers some ugly demise that can create widespread harm. AKA, your peers hating you. And what could be worse to the high schooler, or in this case the Personal Branding expert, than your peers hating you? Bottom line, no one cares about your Personal Brand.

I enjoy mixing a small dose of hypocrisy in with a good old fashioned tongue lashing. So I will admit that I let TwitterFeed send out an auto Tweet on my behalf when I publish a new post to my blog, but other than that, I do my best not to PB myself. If people want to (note the hyperlinking) read my blog or follow me on Twitter - great! And if they don't, that's fine too. I just refuse to cram it down their throat. I don't need or want attention that bad. Being viewed negatively in order to see my name in (virtual) lights doesn't sound like a good trade-off. Honestly, I don’t even know what they are selling, or if anyone is even buying! I just know I hate how it’s packaged. So stop spoon feeding it to me. Please.

***NOTE***
If you feel me on this post, please ReTweet...because irony is beautiful like that.