Post 364133 by mardiroos@knzk.me
 (DIR) More posts by mardiroos@knzk.me
 (DIR) Post #363507 by pbandkate@knzk.me
       2018-10-04T14:58:06Z
       
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       brands aren’t inherently bad. brands are a set of visual and written work that are repeatedly used to create familiarity and often evoke an emotional reaction. they can be used for good or evil, and if you don’t think communism has a/multiple brand(s) then you’re kidding yourself/maybe don’t really understand what a brand is.
       
 (DIR) Post #363508 by mardiroos@knzk.me
       2018-10-04T15:05:13Z
       
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       @pbandkate agreed but I think there's a distinction between brand as like an ideograph/concept, and person as brand. the latter I think is... much more worrying.
       
 (DIR) Post #363569 by pbandkate@knzk.me
       2018-10-04T15:08:53Z
       
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       @mardiroos sincere question, not tryna be snarky, why do you think so? I think brands are bad when they’re used to manipulate, and i think there’s an argument to be made against elevating anyone to celebrity, but i think it would be impossible for a person to be a public figure without having a brand — which i think at its most basic is just an understandable, cohesive story we tell ourselves to understand something bigger.
       
 (DIR) Post #364128 by mardiroos@knzk.me
       2018-10-04T15:44:55Z
       
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       @pbandkate yeah I mean I think you're right about it being an inevitable result of being a public figure (particularly in the world as it is). Celebrity is branding. But I think the individual as a brand is a very insidious thing. I think a brand is definitionally not just a story we tell ourselves, it's a story we tell other people--or not just other people but a vaguely defined "public"--to stake a claim on the territory of public attention.
       
 (DIR) Post #364133 by mardiroos@knzk.me
       2018-10-04T15:45:20Z
       
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       @pbandkate I'm always cautious throwing the word neoliberal around, but I think the Person as Brand is a very straightforward kind of neoliberalism as Foucault would define it, where the human (homo economicus) becomes a commodity to be shaped and to shape themselves according to market pressures.
       
 (DIR) Post #364154 by eweish1@knzk.me
       2018-10-04T15:46:22Z
       
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       @pbandkate @mardiroos The self as brand is the worst.
       
 (DIR) Post #364204 by pbandkate@knzk.me
       2018-10-04T15:49:21Z
       
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       @mardiroos oh yeah, tell ourselves was not the right way to put that. i think you're right that the human becomes the commodity and that's dangerous and shitty and exploitative for a bunch of reasons, but i just think that brands used in that way is a symptom of capitalism and not something inherently evil about brands themselves, and i don't know that i think they would automatically go away without capitalism. but maybe they would!
       
 (DIR) Post #364243 by mardiroos@knzk.me
       2018-10-04T15:51:32Z
       
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       @pbandkate hmmm, I mean I think that's kind of a semantic question to some extent: is a brand a brand without marketization? like for me the ideas of ownership and competition are kind of central to the definition of the term.
       
 (DIR) Post #364267 by pbandkate@knzk.me
       2018-10-04T15:53:29Z
       
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       @mardiroos yeah ya know... i dont have an answer to that but im gunna think about it!!!