I need us to be honest about something.
“Personal brand” is a phrase invented by someone who has never felt shame.
It’s one of those terms that makes you picture a LinkedIn man holding a microphone, saying “build your authority” while his profile photo is him leaning against a beige wall like he’s about to be sold on a realtor sign.
And yet. Annoyingly. The phrase is pointing at something real.
Not the “pick three content pillars” part. Not the “post daily and the algorithm will reward your courage” part. Not the part where you pretend your morning routine is a thought leadership product.
The real issue is much more boring, and much more sinister:
being a person is now work.
the new expectation is do your job, and also be your own PR team
There was a period of time (people older than 27 will remember this) when you could be good at your job and that was basically the whole job.
You had a resume. You got hired. You did the work. If you were competent and normal to be around, you progressed. You didn’t have to be a public figure. You didn’t have to “build an audience.” You didn’t have to convert your personality into a strategy.
Now, even if you’re not looking for a job, you’re still being evaluated in a way that feels like a background check, but vibes-based.
Someone hears your name, or gets your email, or sees you mentioned in a group chat, and before you’ve even had a chance to speak, there’s a step that happens:
they look you up.
They want to know, quickly:
are you real
are you coherent
are you safe
do you have a “thing”
can you be placed in a category without needing an hour-long conversation
That’s the real job of a “personal brand,” if we strip the cringe out of it.
It’s not about becoming famous. It’s about being legible in a world that won’t slow down long enough to understand you.
And the part that makes me itchy is this:
we’ve normalised the idea that you should do this work, for free, forever, in public, on top of your actual job.
We’ve taken what institutions used to provide, credibility, structure, evaluation, development, and we’ve outsourced it onto individuals. You’re meant to supply your own proof. Your own story. Your own reputation management. Your own “signal.”
It’s like you’ve been handed a second job and everyone’s acting like it’s self-care.
women are told to “put themselves out there,” then punished for it
Men get to be seen as ambitious. Women get to be seen as performing.
That’s the double-bind running underneath all of this.
Women are pushed to be visible in order to compete, and then shamed for the way visibility looks on them.
If you don’t speak up, you’re invisible. If you do speak up, you’re annoying.
If you’re confident, you’re intimidating. If you’re modest, you’re forgettable.
If you post online, you’re “trying too hard.” If you don’t post online, you’re “not taking your career seriously.”
It’s exhausting because it’s not a game you can win. It’s a treadmill with a ring light.
And it’s especially brutal for women in their early twenties, because you’re trying to learn the actual skills of adulthood at the same time as you’re being asked to market yourself like a product.
You’re not just learning how to work.
You’re learning how to be perceived while you work.
That’s a different kind of pressure. It makes you second-guess everything. It makes you scan yourself from the outside. It makes you think your “edge” is your brand rather than your ability.
And it creates a very specific flavour of anxiety I see everywhere, the fear that you are falling behind because you’re not performing your life publicly enough.
why everyone is obsessed with “social proof” now
Here’s the thing: I spend a lot of my time around high-status environments. Not because I’m the richest person in the room (I’m not), but because my life and work have put me adjacent to people who are.
Founders. Operators. People with money, power, influence, visibility. People who can make something happen quickly if they trust you. People who treat opportunity like something that is readily available.
And what I’ve noticed is that in these rooms, nobody has time to deeply evaluate you from scratch.
They don’t go, “hmm, let me take six weeks to understand her essence.”
They go: is she safe? is she competent? has someone else already vetted her?
And the fastest shortcut is social proof.
Who follows you. Who likes your stuff. Who’s tagged you. Where you’ve been published. Who’s interacted with you. Whether your online presence looks coherent. Whether other people already seem to trust you.
This isn’t always fair. And it’s often lazy. But it’s normal human behaviour under overload.
When the world is crowded, people use shortcuts.
That’s why the pressure to “build a personal brand” has exploded. It’s not because everyone secretly wants to be an influencer. It’s because we’re all trying to survive in an economy where credibility has become a DIY project.
why the personal brand discourse feels so gross
It’s not career advice. It’s creator advice pretending to be universal.
Most “personal brand” content is built on an assumption that your job is to be visible. That your output is content. That attention is the goal. That being perceived is the same thing as being valuable.
And it turns everything into a performance.
“Build in public” becomes “perform in public.”
“Authenticity” becomes a tactic.
“Niching down” becomes a personality.
And suddenly you’re not a person with a job, you’re a tiny company called You, and your hobbies are just brand assets you haven’t monetised yet.
Bleak.
Also, the idea that everyone must be a creator is one of the most quietly classed things happening online.
Not everyone can afford to be public.
Not everyone wants strangers having access to them.
Not everyone’s life is meant to be broadcast.
It is not a moral failure to be private.
It is not “playing small” to not want an audience.
And we need the internet to stop acting like your choices only count if strangers clap.
so what do you do if you don’t want to be a “personal brand person”
You don’t need a personal brand.
You need legibility.
Legibility is not “content.” It’s not “posting.” It’s not turning your life into a public diary. It’s just making it easy for the right people to understand you.
That might look like:
a LinkedIn profile that doesn’t read like it was written by a robot trying to get promoted
a clear one-liner about what you do (not what you’re “passionate about”)
a small proof trail: a portfolio, a pinned piece of writing, a project page, a podcast episode you were on, a case study, literally one thing that shows your brain
being referable in private (people know what to introduce you as)
Legibility is quiet. Legibility is not thirsty. Legibility is you deciding what story gets told about you before the world invents one.
And crucially, legibility can be private
two paths that don’t require you to become an influencer
path one: the private-signal career
This is for the women who want a big life but not a public one.
You build credibility through:
being excellent at your work
having one or two people who will vouch for you strongly
building relationships instead of an audience
keeping a “receipts” file of your actual achievements (so you stop forgetting your own value)
having a tight, simple story ready when opportunities appear
You don’t need posts. You need people who know what you do and trust you.
path two: light public signal (for people who actually enjoy it)
If you like writing, if you like sharing, if you want a public voice, amazing. But don’t treat it like a moral obligation.
You can do:
one post a month
three thoughtful comments a week
one recurring point of view (your “thing”)
a small newsletter or page that houses your ideas
The goal is not volume. The goal is coherence.
The goal is that if someone searches your name, they don’t get nothing. Or worse, a dead profile and a vague job title that could mean anything.
the personal brand obsession is a symptom
Institutions are weaker, ladders are shakier, jobs are less stable, and trust is harder to earn.
So people are doing what people do in unstable systems:
they try to control what they can.
They try to become undeniable. They try to be seen. They try to create proof that they exist and matter and will be chosen.
I get it. I don’t even think it’s embarrassing. I think it’s rational.
What I do think is embarrassing is how aggressively the internet has packaged this survival response as empowerment.
Because telling young women they must become brands in order to succeed is not liberation. It’s a tax.
It’s asking you to do extra labour to be taken seriously in the first place.
It’s telling you to do your job, and also market yourself, and also be pretty about it, and also be relatable, and also don’t be cringe, and also don’t be too much, and also don’t be too quiet.
No wonder everyone’s tired.
You do not need to be a creator to be powerful.
You do not need to be an influencer to have influence.
You do not need an audience to be valuable.
You’re allowed to build skills in private. You’re allowed to be unknown while you learn. You’re allowed to have a normal job and a private life and still be ambitious.
If you want to write, write. If you want to post, post. If you want to stay quiet, stay quiet.
Just don’t let the internet trick you into thinking your life only counts if it’s visible.
You’re not a product.
You’re a person.
And it’s actually insane we need to say that now.
I am so glad you wrote this article, and are shining the light on this! We get so carried away sometimes by what society is telling us to do, this article felt like a pause and an opportunity to choose differently- to choose for yourself!
this came at the perfect time, I just had to attend a “corporate personal brand workshop” and this article articulated everything I’ve been feeling perfectly!