Well, exactly: normal humans don't have ad budgets, which is why the whole concept seemed absurd to our 1990s brains. This was, remember, well before Facebook, let alone TikTok or Substack. Even reality television wasn't yet up and running to pick wannabe celebrities out of obscurity. In short, the idea of personal branding began as a ruse—a transparent sop being pitched in lieu of actual jobs or a stable income by companies and their management consultants, drunk on the cost savings and stock-price inflation born of sweeping downsizing and outsourcing.

QUESTION: How did personal branding evolve from a downsizing consolation prize into the default professional advice of today's creator economy? SEED: Angle for an essay tracing how a cost-cutting corporate frame became internalized as individual responsibility.

Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, loc. 158