In Status Update, Marwick talks about the idea of self-branding oneself which basically means turning yourself into the brand you are selling. You become the brand, you present the brand, and you make sure to always be projected as the brand. This is what Marwick calls the edited self. The idea of always editing how you look online to look a certain way. It can be whoever you want to be, the only catch is that you have to maintain that edited self all throughout your social media.
So what happens when someone slips up in portraying their edited self? When you gain enough of a following, portraying an edited self becomes much more important. When businesses are relying on you to sell their brand, they are expecting you to sell it through your edited self. For example if a brand targeting children goes to a famous celebrity, who then gets caught doing drugs chances are that brand deal is off. Here are some examples:
Kate Moss lost deals with H&M, Chanel and Burberry because a photograph surfaced of her doing drugs. (Segura, 2011)
Michael Phelps lost a deal with Kellogg's due to a photo of him smoking a bong. (Huffington Post, 2013)
Lance Armstrong also lost his deal with Nike due to drugs. (Huffington Post, 2013)
These are only a few examples but they show what an impact straying from your edited self can cause. Drugs wont always get you cut from a brand deal. We can look at Snoop Dogg who just signed a deal with the Canadian Marijuana company Tweed, as his self-brand includes smoking weed. (Posadzki, 2016)
It all depends on how you self-brand yourself. But the thing with self-branding is you cant change it up every week. You must grow your self-brand like an other brand and endorse products that go with your edited self and vice versa. This is why self-branding in todays world is so important as advertisements rely on it to get their products seen through social media.
Read the whole list of celebrity endorsements gone bad:
http://stylecaster.com/beauty/7-celebrities-who-lost-big-endorsements/slide3#autoplay
OR
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/celebrities-lost-endorsement-deals-paula-deen_n_3505534.html?slideshow=true
Snoop Dogg's deal with Tweed:
https://www.thestar.com/business/2016/02/11/snoop-dogg-and-ontario-marijuana-producer-tweed-strike-business-deal.html
I recall these endorsements with these celebrity figures and the heat in which they were centred was enormous. Branding oneself is so incredibly prominent in todays day and age, that it engorges our lives and makes a habit out of ourselves to feel the need to update or improve. I mean, truly, who doesn't enjoy a new filter that makes us look cooler, or different, or better yet, better looking. Aesthetics and its pleasing to our eyes falls short most likely 8/10 for several individuals. I think about the urgency to constantly update ourselves and our profiles online, because it is legitimate that before an employer even meets the prospective employee, they have already been analyzed, directing, and judged for what they are doing, who they know, and how they connect to people...not just their communicative skills. Sad, but true, Rachel, and I very much liked your examples, as well as your connections.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I agree with you that your edited self can create a huge impact on others. We are living in a world of promotional culture and what that entails is trying to show the world the best side of you. I agree when you say that “It can be whoever you want to be, the only catch is that you have to maintain that edited self all throughout your social media.” I find this to be true as many people, myself included, use the same username for all my accounts. It has become my identity and what I go by.
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