Fill The Floor with My Sequin Tears
Optimisation of self - be that girl, start a side-hustle and act as your own PR team.
The internet, and the technology that comes with it, encourages us to treat ourselves in a way usually reserved for athletes and movie stars. It provides us with an onslaught of instructions and platforms in which we can indulge in main character energy.
Everything is accessible, yet very few attain what we are modelling ourselves on.
In 1997, Tom Peters began using the phrase ‘personal brand’. To find out what was happening in 1997, I did the most thorough of research in a quick google which revealed that this was the year Princess Diana died, The Lion King made its debut on Broadway, and Mike Tyson bit off someone’s ear. When it comes to technology however, Microsoft was named the most valuable company, MP3 became a thing, and Steve Jobs returned to Apple. A year later Google began and the year after that, Apple launched the iBook. The first in a whole suite of products to put us at the centre via the ‘i’ whilst giving us all the same thing.
Personal branding is no longer a foreign, or even an icky concept. I say this because every year I teach social media, and how we can use online tools to create a worthy digital footprint, with each passing year, students are more and more attuned to this as a concept. And yet their concern for their digital footprint becomes less and less, it is created by action, not by any conscious decisions around what this action may be.
Some of the tools available are LinkedIn, a platform which has convinced us that an online resume and visible network are necessary, and of course Instagram and TikTok.
As you are probably privy too. We are encouraged to use both the technology available to us, as well as these platforms to craft a persona which exists in both online and offline spaces. Allowing us to be at once the novice media maker and professional consumer. Sometimes we switch and create professional content on our phone cameras which are also used to film the news and participate as an audience member within an ecosystem we know very little about but behaves as if we are in its best interest.
Whenever I write about media, and especially the internet in this way, I feel the need to add a caveat to say, I love the media! I love the internet! These discussions are never new technology and young generations bad, old technology and previous generations good. They are, however, an attempt to unpick what is a very intuitive and sometimes mindless relationship we all have with the media, regardless of our age. Often an audience’s reason for rejecting something is because it doesn’t serve them, and on one level, I think that’s fantastic, but it never really gets to why something is or isn’t working. And whether it’s working more for us (the audience) or them (the media).
Lately, a lot of YouTuber’s have been creating content sponsored by Notion. In fact, The Anna Edit video I linked in Wednesday’s post wasn’t even sponsored, Anna’s just really into Notion (let’s watch this space for upcoming sponsored content). Notion, for those of us who didn’t know, is a self-described ‘freemium productivity app’ that seeks to keep everything in one place. So, you can have your work stuff, but also your yoga stuff, gratitude stuff etc. People sell their Notion templates, but you can make your own, and make it as aesthetically pleasing as you like, which is something we will come back to.
Sites like Notion encourage us to organise and optimise all elements of our life in the way we do work. The physical pieces of technology, and platforms which are used across both aspects of life, allow for a blurring of these elements of our lives. It makes sense, right? For years I had a separate work and personal diary. Now I have the one. Workplaces are allowing us to show more of our personality and we often capitalise on our work personas via memes, social media content etc.
Further to platforms like Notion, apps like Good Reads and even Letterboxd allow us to keep track of our media consumption ‘liking’ each other’s review or progress. So once again, our habits are monitored in the same way our daily water intake can be via a habit tracker, or our exercise is via Fitness Apps. I adore reading, but since using Good Reads, my focus has been on logging books when I finish, as opposed to basking in what I’ve just read. This then reduces our preferences to data which we can then be used to show us more of what we’ll like, ensuring we finish more books and log even more.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. In 2006, Time Magazine’s Person of the Year was ‘You’ as in me, as in you. Not because we were all going to be famous in the way that Andy Warhol stated we would be, but because of the way in which we control information that exists online. By participating in online spaces, we create a flow of information. We all like something, that something is presented to more people. The cover of the issue was a desktop computer with the word ‘You.’ Printed on the screen. Nine years later, here in Australia, Elle magazine created a reflective cover, the idea being, it was a mirror. The phrase #BeTheCover printed underneath. It was quite blurry but also quite something. The idea was that it was related to the women featured in the magazine whilst encouraging us to be the star.
Seeing ourselves reflected on to platforms that were once reserved for celebrities is a part of being online these days. For eons radio stations and TV shows have relied on people calling in and audience participation to create content. Now, the way it occurs is under the guise that it’s in the hand of said audience member. For example, when you buy a top and you’re encouraged to share how you wear it via a hashtag. Or to participate in some viral challenge.
YouTube, TikTok and the rest of the social media platforms are filled with banal yet aesthetically pleasing content which we try to emulate via stickers on water bottles and pictures of prosecco at sunset. Emma Chamberlain is an excellent example of this. I have watched several of her 10-to-12-minute videos. Nothing particularly happens in any of them. She’s walking around LA. She’s eating muesli. She’s having a coffee. Whenever I speak to anyone about her appeal, they tell me she’s so real. And I guess she is. I eat muesli, I walk around yet for some reason millions of people want to watch her do it, and then want to do it too. Even though you can do those things without them being packaged up and rebranded as anything other than living your life.
Such is the case with the numerous ‘that girl’ videos. As far as I can tell, the #ThatGirl trend started in 2021. It’s also worth noting there is a delightful show from the 60s with the same name. This trend perfectly encapsulates our desire to be an optimised self. The trend which is said to have started on TikTok has transcended platforms and is flourishing on YouTube, where I first heard about it. YouTube is filled with videos that are ‘guide(s) to being that girl’ ‘ultimate guide to being that girl’, ‘that girl morning routine’, ‘that girl evening routine’, you get the idea.
As you can see from the thumbnails below, ideas of being ‘that girl’ are convoluted with ideas of health (physical and mental) which is confused with ideas of aesthetics and smoothies. Makeovers feature heavily as does colour coordination and avocados (may every famous person have a publicist who works as hard). Even the phrase ‘that girl’ acts as if we are in the school yard and being referred to by an external party, one that is aware of how we present ourselves and even dare I say, jealous. Whilst all seem to implore it’s about being the best version of you, the name implies that everyone else must acknowledge it to be the case.
These videos are often on channels that also have thumbnails with purple lighting and people who fill out gratitude journals. Again, I don’t have a problem with either of these things, but if we were to follow the habits suggested to us, we probably wouldn’t have the time to do anything else in our day. And again, we hit the roadblock of influencers commodifying elements of their lives, which we, the audience, try to fit in to optimise our lives, to hopefully live a life as successful as these portrayed to us seem.
Another important thing to realise is that content creators will often highlight the ‘one man band’ element of their operation when they may have assistants, technical support or are in fact entering paid partnerships for said content.
Interestingly we all have a desire to be unique, yet we still seek to categorise ourselves as a way of understanding who we are. We want to be ‘that girl’ or ‘cottage core’ or whatever else we can type into a search bar because this provides understanding and connection. We can also emulate the lives of celebrities and influencers through using their skincare, buying the same giant water bottle, or getting our nails done to look like donuts. This in turn allows us to create content in our own little fiefdoms. Professionally, we can generate our own press releases on LinkedIn about changes in our job status the same way a magazine does for the Royal family.
If I knew more about it, I could link this use of online spaces to whether we live in an individual or collective society. I’m sure there is heaps in this.
I adore the ways in which online culture encourages us to engage with others, and really allows us to construct our ideas of self. But these ideas must be rooted in offline spaces, and have claws in our own priorities, not those decided for us because its trending.