The (not so) subtle art of self promotion
It feels like everywhere I look, people seem to be shouting louder and louder about themselves; how good they are, how attractive they are, how influential they are.
Every time I open up LinkedIn, I am bombarded by video after video of:
- ‘Viral’ videos that feature the same inspirational speech by someone, overlaid by dramatic orchestral music and interspersed with random stock footage
- Business ’stars’ parading their experience and preaching to others how to be successful (sprinkled or perhaps more accurately doused with their own unique arrogance)
- People in your network filming themselves going for a run or getting a coffee and using this amazing opportunity to share great morsels of advice they want to spread into the world
On Instagram it looks like:
- ‘Influencers’ taking selfies in some new clothes or perhaps hardly any clothes at all in an effort to garner thousands of likes, free product or exotic trips
- The same ‘business stars’ from LinkedIn sharing pictures of themselves with some powerful sentence all in caps designed to make you take action (or feel like you can take on the entire f*cking world)
- More influencers posing
- Some other influencers posing walking on to private jets, luxury boats, swanky hotels, clubs.. etc etc etc
It makes you question the very fabric of human society. Are we this desperate? Are we really lacking some sort of meaning in our lives? Note: some sort of meaning, I’m not even talking about anything higher.
Are we so fragile that we need to spend hours watching these mass produced cheesy-ass videos to inspire ourselves? Or poring over photos of what life would be like travelling to all the cool festivals and having bodies that take years to cultivate and a packet of Maltesers to undo?
Perhaps this talks in a broader sense to the growing discontent around the world and the shifting tides we have seen in the various political parties that have come to power. From Brexit to Trump and everything else in between; globalism is taking a hit as we increasingly look inward.
And this increasingly inward focus is perhaps more depressing because at the heart of it all we are just inherently self-centred. The human species began as a tribe, evolved to become a global nation but now is morphing back to groups of tribes (and underneath it all, to being about oneself).
Ever watched an end-of-days genre movie where zombies begin to take over or the world’s crust begins to overheat and wipe out cities like blocks of lego? The common thing you always seem to see are scenes of looting and violence where people turn on each other, all in the aim of self preservation.
The world isn’t burning yet, but if our social feeds are anything to go by, we might well be on the way. And if you think that the above described apocalyptic scenario wouldn’t happen and we would all band together, look at the looting and violence that recently took place in Maracaibo, Venezuela. In that case they lost power for a week.
The irony of me writing this article is that some will think that I am inadvertently trying to seek attention. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t something deep inside my brain that wants to pick up my phone and see a thousand notifications telling me how popular I am. That’s how screwed we are, as our brains have adapted to seeking yet another hit of dopamine as we battle our addiction to technology.
All I truly know is that when my fingers hit the keyboard or when I post another stupid video making a fool of myself to my whopping 300 odd Instagram followers (I have a private account by the way and don’t accept anyone I don’t know), I feel a sense of calm. A way to try and work out what we are actually doing in this world. Or to question it at least.
So the next time you see one of these ‘inspirational’ videos on your LinkedIn feed and think you need to be more in this world, or find yourself longing to be partying it up at Coachella after seeing yet another selfie from overly attractive people, take a step back and think about what actually matters.
Because at the end of the day we didn’t evolve to exist as single beings. To thrive we need to think bigger than ourselves and bigger than the small circle we exist in. If we forget that and continue down a path of self-obsession and greed… well then we might be truly f*cked.
How’s that for inspiration? Oops I just did it didn’t I.
