Maybe this has always been the case and I'm only just noticing but it seems to me that there's a huge marketing fad going on now. People are branding themselves. There appears to be a segment of the world's population who think it's really important to become a product that they can market.
What's more they have no interest in interacting with other people who are not so conveniently packaged. The belief is that if you aren't branding yourself then you're missing the boat and aren't on the ball enough to talk to.
Well I'll save them the time of bothering with me. I'M NOT A PRODUCT. I'm a person and I like it that way. I don't fit in a package with a hip, eye-catching label. What's more I am not interested in becoming any such object.
It's like personality anorexia or something. One must have to shave off, ignore or disown all sorts of facets of one's psyche to become a marketable product. It takes a lot of effort but if one keeps focused on one's brand one is free to ignore one's more inconvenient traits. This allows one to see oneself more simply and with fewer misgivings. One would concentrate on refining the product - the marketable aspects of oneself - and present to the world this unified object, free of human shortcomings.
That sounds like a disorder to me.
I am a person. You have to spend time with me to begin to understand what I am. It takes time and effort and you won't know until you've spent it whether it was worth it or not. I can't be encapsulated. I will not curl up into a ball so that someone may consume me more easily. To be honest I don't believe I'm capable of it. Maybe that's why this is all so frustrating to me. Maybe I would if I could.
I want attention too. I want people to think I'm interesting. I can't invent a short cut to that end though. I'm difficult and I will be difficult.
There it is. I'll just let all those speeding balls of product roll on by me into the glittering future and do what I do in the dowdy backwater of now.
2 comments:
I changed the title of this post from "The Trade In Flesh" to "A Trade in Flesh." There is a difference between the two.
What I am talking about in this post is a person choosing to commodify him/herself. In doing so they risk becoming dehumanized by their own hand.
The Trade In Flesh is far more serious and troubling. It is about a person commodifying someone else against his or her will. This forces dehumanization on another person.
I needed to make that distinction.
On a side note, the use of the word "brand" as applied to a person is helpful. Helpful in identifying the speaker as an *sshole, so you know to tune them out.
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