So You Think You’re a Brand
Have you ever caught yourself saying “do it for the vine” — but completely ironically? How about spending hours pondering the best caption for the selfie that you’re about to post — something catchy that doesn’t scream “I’m a narcissist!” and still grabs all of the likes? Are your tweets relatable? Do you find yourself saying “same” or “tag yourself” in response to seeing a series of inanimate objects? If you’ve answered yes to any of the above, you may be suffering from Borderline Brand Disorder.
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BORDERLINE BRAND DISORDER
DEFINITION
Not to be confused with Borderline Personality Disorder, Borderline Brand Disorder is characterized by the loss of individual dignity to one’s personal ‘brand’. Now, you may be asking, “What is a personal brand?”. By definition, it is the process of establishing a certain representation or concept in the mind of an audience about an individual, group, or organization. In the case of individuals, ‘branding’ is the process of creating an online persona, usually involving the application of various products, photo-editing filters, and inspirational quotes to get ‘likes’ on social media.
With Borderline Brand Disorder, you have intense FOMO (fear of missing out), and may find difficulty feeling happy unless your online persona appears to be happy. If affected, it is likely that you feel more motivated to participate in activities for the benefit of posting about it on social media rather than actually enjoying yourself.
With the rise in social media allowing individuals to engage with celebrities, companies, and other influencers online, it appears as though BBD is becoming an epidemic.
SYMPTOMS
BBD affects the way you, as an individual, identify and express your personality.
Signs and symptoms may include:
- Being addicted to social media
- Having an ‘aesthetic’
- Going to a concert, but seeing most of the concert through your phone screen because you were taking videos and pictures to post about it online
- “Tagging” yourself and/or friends in photos, commenting with any variation of “same”, “relatable”, “this is so me”, “this is us”, etc to further your brand
- Buying and posting images of products that promote another brand or aesthetic to further define your own personal brand (i.e. ‘minimalist’, ‘lumbersexual’, ‘hipster’, ‘foodie’, etc)
- Engaging in any way, shape or form with ‘memes’
- Posting, then deleting said post, and reposting it when you realize one or more factors (i.e. time of day it was posted, bad caption, wrong filter, etc) of the post could interfere with the amount of likes it will receive the first time you posted it
- Provoking or promoting fights on Twitter to publicly victimize others
- Making excuses such as “do it for the vine” or “YOLO” (you only live once) before participating in potentially hazardous activities
- Feeling as though your only source of happiness is getting interacted with online due to the interest in content you produce
- General insecurity or body image issues due to constant comparison of yourself to others you see online
- Participating in activities that you likely wouldn’t pursue on your own because of FOMO (fear of missing out), especially when the activities will be documented and posted about online
CAUSES
Although the causes of BBD are not yet fully understood, it is well known that the more frequently an individual engages with social media, the more likely they are to have insecurities that motivate the symptoms mentioned above.
According to Leslie Becker-Phelps Ph.D with Psychology Today, being exposed to the edited version of people’s lives is “a trap for many people”. When social interaction with others online are more frequent than those in person, individuals are more prone to wanting to put themselves out there online to compete for attention with others.
Likewise, in the study, “More Information than You Ever Wanted: Does Facebook Bring Out the Green-Eyed Monster of Jealousy?”, it was found that “increased Facebook use significantly predicts Facebook-related jealousy”. Again, jealousy of attention that others are getting makes one more likely to produce content that competes for others’ likes.
Thus it appears as though jealousy generated from social media use, in this case, Facebook use, is another predecessor of BBD.
TREATMENT
Although there is no cure for BBD, doctors recommend limiting online and social media engagement to mitigate the insecurities and jealousy that induce the symptoms of this disorder.
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So now you know a little bit more about Borderline Brand Disorder, and maybe you’re realizing that you’re experiencing some of the signs and symptoms with which it is associated. Although it is not a serious condition, suffering from BBD can make life more miserable than it necessarily needs to be. What is important to remember is that we are all human. Every single person has strengths and weaknesses, and feelings of sadness, loneliness and other emotions that put them in vulnerable places. Although people don’t tend to highlight their struggles online, it doesn’t mean their struggles are nonexistent. Think of your social media as a way to celebrate all of your highs in life rather than a place of competition.
