But self-branding should not go uncriticized; rather, it needs to be analyzed on both an individual and community-based level. That analysis should include an understanding of how the social becomes economic and vice versa. It should question how people describe the fantasy of personal branding, and how market-centered practices fulfill or neglect self-branders' needs. We must understand the concrete effects of self-branding—a neoliberal technology of subjectivity—on the practitioners themselves.

Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, loc. 427