I also wished to test the theory that social media was providing new, meritocratic opportunities for visibility and success. There certainly are people who can attribute much of their professional success to tools like blogs and Twitter. In September 2008, I was squeezing through a crowded party for the social media blog Mashable when I met Stowe Boyd. Boyd, wearing a Kangol hat and a white beard, was a Silicon Valley veteran and blogger. In the first five minutes I met him, he told me that he had been blogging for ten years; had invented the term “social tool” and was the top Google result for the phrase; and had 90,000 visitors a month on his three blogs. Boyd, a consummate self-promoter and connector, despises the term “self-branding.” Yet he’s good at it. He exemplifies the entrepreneurial self, one who harnesses social media’s broadcasting ability to its fullest extent. Boyd knew everyone in the scene, and during our interview gave me lengthy, detailed descriptions, and critiques, of its movers and shakers. His blog contains thoughtful commentary and analysis of social software; in another life, he might have been an academic. Yet his professional accomplishments did not include starting a company, garnering funding, or writing popular software. Boyd, through sheer force of will, successful networking, and strategic use of social media, had positioned himself as an expert and tech scene heavyweight, and those around him seemed happy to accept his take on things.

Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, loc. 718