Spiritually stable, financially feral.
Like every other perfectly average thirty-something woman in Los Angeles, I was in a group chat named "Hot Girls With Anxiety," narrating my day to other women doing the same thing. Boyfriend problems, bad matchas, thrifted cowboy boots, UTIs. True journalism stuff, really.
As we were getting ready to grace the bar with our presence, one of my friends asked something that quietly exposed herself.
She asked, "What is my brand?"
I replied, "Brand of what?"
She answered as if I was the stupid one. "Ya know, my BRAND."
I still didn't know what she meant. "Brand of what?!"
"My brand. My aesthetic."
And that's when I realized we weren't getting ready to go out. We were staging the soft launch of our summer identities, LLC.
Blue bubbles started popping up one after the other.
"You're like… whimsical goth but approachable."
"No, she's studious 'I'm smarter than you' post-grad vibes."
"Okay, but also, 'I have good taste in books and jackets.'"
The blue bubbles kept popping up, and with each one, the group chat started to reek of curated nonsense and performative enthusiasm. It wasn't about finding the vibe. It was about confirming she had one.
After about the fourth tagline was sent, it stopped feeling like a group chat and started feeling like a pitch meeting for a rebrand no one asked for. She was the CEO of Vibes Inc., sipping an adaptogen latte, and we were the underpaid marketing interns tossing out phrases like "ethereal librarian chic" and "depressed coquette with a skincare routine," hoping something would stick before we started getting ready to go out.
As if being a person wasn't hard enough, we, as a society, went ahead and turned it into a business. Social media used to be about staying in touch. But now it feels more like we're all running personal PR campaigns. We spend our days gathering a nation of meaningful things that we hope represent who we are. People don't just “post" anymore. No. They build brand loyalty. And I, for my life, didn't understand who my friend was building this loyalty for, considering the fact that, for the past three years, we've only spoken to the same six people.
I didn’t mean to get annoyed, but I did. I couldn’t help it. It felt a little insulting. That she was outsourcing something as personal as identity to us, like we were a Pinterest board she could crowdsource. Maybe she just wanted reassurance. Maybe we all do. But how many versions of herself did she need us to come up with before one finally made her feel real?
I finally replied, “Effortless, but in a way that takes a near-militarized level of planning…. And always asking for my cigarettes.”
Here’s the thing, it’s contagious to be around someone who is always hyper-curating their life. Suddenly you’re wondering if your digital footprint gives “mysterious but approachable” or just “chronically online.” It starts to seep into friendships too. Suddenly, it’s not just about catching up. It’s about being seen catching up.We used to have memories. Now we have content strategies. And maybe that’s why my friend’s question hit me so hard. “What’s my brand?” It wasn’t insecurity. It was a business empire in the making one that felt every bit as capitalistic as the girl who’d spent the last seven years lecturing me on Marxism.
I felt completely duped. All the personality I thought was real, all her talk about authenticity, was just another trend she was trying on. Now she was widening her audience, but nothing was real. She was, in fact, the very capitalist she claimed to despise. In her effort to expand, she lost the very loyal customers who once believed in her.
A few more messages flew back and forth. Half compliments, half identity crisis until I finally said, “I’m the wrong person to ask. I’ve been wearing the same skirt and shirt for ten years. You have a master’s degree and no student debt and you’re out here acting confused. Like, come on.” It wasn’t meant to be dramatic, just honest.
She replied, “It’s giving spiritually stable, financially feral.”
Needless to say, I didn’t go out that night.