Escaping marketing's insatiable appetite
What if the solution to your problems doesn't lie in gaining so much attention, you land on some mythical easy street?
I think there are a LOT of people at this time who are realising that while marketing is beneficial, creating an identity out of it, and making it seem like some noble purpose is a furphy.
Capitalism in the "me as a brand" age requires us to have a devotion that smacks of religiosity. It says we're all capable of greatness as long as we show slaveish devotion to following the plan.
Even the language of followers, marketing commandments, gurus with their tribes, taking the leap, conversion, trusting/faith in the process, following the road to success - it is about devotion, exclusivity, enlightenment, and transformation.
If you strip it back, it simply isn't healthy or fulfilling. There is this reality star-esque chasing of visibility in the hope we're proving that our lives are meaningful. That we ourselves are something to covert.
Why are we personifying happiness and making it saleable?
Money and Making It.
Once you've done that, allegedly, life becomes plain sailing. Escape from the grueling work, the 'no guts, no glory' motifs that normalise hustling and burnout, that one day, you'll do enough, utopia awaits.
Sound even more familiar?
But happiness, wellbeing, and contentment isn't about finally climbing up Enough Cash Hill and passively seeing the streams come in. It isn't atomisation, specialisation, and revering work.
Haven't we seen enough people who are by definition successful still externalising their validation, still needing more, unsatisfied, and even falling into addiction and chaos to let us know this is far too simplistic?
Marketing is a skill. Branding is an art. And we can use the super powers we've honed over time in to do cool things, hard things, and explore other territories.
They have their value.
But let's stop confusing them for a central reason for being.
Life is meaningful. Without having everyone to like, share, and comment. It is beautiful as you have described in the spaces in between where we connect with ourselves, each other, and in some quieter place with deeper things.
You are meaningful. With or without the marketing campaign or the publicity.
Image: Is it time to escape marketing's insatiable appetite?