Do you want to make a living as a creative? Then you must be fucking crazy. In the face of what can only be considered all reasonable logic, actual human beings try to become filmmakers, musicians, artists, and perhaps worst of all, writers.
It’s true. In fact, here I am, writing a blog post that no one is ever going to read in the hope that it might one day get me published. I don’t think it’s by coincidence that the line between creative genius and insanity is very, very fine.
So, now that you have decided to throw all caution to the wind and embark upon a journey of self-discovery that will, one way or another, culminate in self-annihilation, only one question remains: how do you actually make a go of it?
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The term “personal brand” has been thrown around now and again. I don’t even know what this is supposed to mean, only that I should somehow be able to patent my personality, encapsulating all of my idiosyncrasies into some bankable brand that will somehow make me money.
Now, I don’t exactly want to market myself in order to entice people to consume my work, but it seems that the personal brand is not only necessary to make it in the creative world, it is also far from something new.
When French-Polish film director Roman Polanski won the French film award known as the Césard for his film J’accuse, admirers and critics alike launched a debate about the separation of the art from the artist.
Similar debates have taken place around the work of painters such as Pablo Picasso or Paul Gauguin, known for being manipulative if not outright abusive to many of their female subjects (and yes I am sticking with the word subject). Put otherwise, being prolific doesn’t spare you from being an asshole, quite the contrary.
My sarcasm aside, my point is that these controversies, if anything, have only added to such artists’ public appeal, bringing renewed attention to their body of work (“All publicity is good publicity” as the saying goes). In fact, I don’t think it’s by accident that many if not most of the artists who have remained in the public’s imagination are now considered controversial.
Ironically, this is exactly the opposite of what many of their critics hope to achieve, with the spotlight once again being thrust upon them rather than those who might have suffered at their hands. It almost feels like the artistic equivalent of convicted (male) murderers who, nevertheless, end up with their own (female) groupies.
Now, I am not here to speak about the morals of such or to answer the question of whether we can really separate the art from the artist (although I’ll try to tackle this question a little later on). What I am interested in is everything that happens “outside” of the art, which I think, in modern times, we might be able to consider a kind of personal brand.
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Let’s start with a definition. Businesses clearly use brands to distinguish themselves from their competitors, in addition to the actual products they make. Taking a more sociological approach, we can think of a brand as any characteristic that comes to define the company’s (or its owner’s) image and, by extension, its commercial value.
Similarly, the personal brand reflects upon a person’s commercial value, especially in the age of the influencer. Obviously we cannot directly “consume“ people—however hard the groupies might try—but we can buy a musician’s next album or see a director’s latest film (or buy a model’s current affiliate product).
It is precisely for this reason that public image professionals play such an important role in creative industries. PR managers, social media managers and the like work to ensure that we, the public, associate good qualities with the artists they represent so that we are more likely to want to buy their next product (with art, again, being a commodity like any other).
Everything that goes into an artist’s public image or personal brand—their personal life and background, their looks, their sense of humor, their beliefs, their devotion to social causes, their ability to stir controversy or their overall charisma—matters just as much (if not more!) than an artist’s actual talent.
Even bad qualities such as the exploitation of others, as we saw in the art versus the artist debate, might have a certain public appeal for those wishing to reject “woke culture” for example. (This is also why, given their lack of personality, I am skeptical about AI’s potential to fully replace flesh-and-blood artists).
The professionalization of an artist’s image tends to translate more and more of these intangible qualities into something of monetary value. And so arises a kind of dialogue between the art itself and the way it is presented through an artist’s marketing or personal brand. (This is also why I don’t believe we can ever really separate the art from the artist).
As artists achieve more commercial success, they are often forced to stay within the niche—this dialogue between their art and their personal brand—that allowed them to achieve notoriety in the first place. This might mean doing what has worked for them in the past or putting on a certain public persona in interviews.
As those working in the digital space know, much of the attention artists receive online is subject to the ebb and flow of Youtube or Instagram algorithms. The latter tends to reward personal brands based on uniformity and consistency (rather than, say, sporadic ingenuity) that are easier to sell.
But with every layer of professionalism, with every additional attempt at optimization for the algorithm comes another layer of creative distance that tends to separate artists from what drove them to make art in the first place. And so many are forced to walk a tightrope.
In order to build and maintain an audience or client base, artists must rely on some kind of personal brand. But a successful personal brand often comes at the expense of authenticity or the freedom to pursue one’s interests beyond some niche, regardless of whether it is seen as too avant-garde or controversial.
Even high-profile artists with a loyal fan base may not be able to create what they want without restriction. They might struggle to get “their” movie made or fail to get a book or album published in its rawest version, even if they manage to secure enough funding.
In any case, there is always the risk of alienating one’s following or client base (and with it, one’s income), which is why so many artists feel forced to prioritize their personal brand over all else. And this is also why I, like so many others, have often tried to resist the personal brand and the feeling of resignation that comes with it.
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I originally titled this piece “I’m Not a Fucking Brand” in an attempt to express some of my frustrations of having to brand myself in order to make a living from my writing and other creative pursuits.
Up until now I have somehow managed to avoid the word capitalism, which, as a student of political science, economics and now art, is somewhat impressive. Unfortunately, the reality is that the personal brand—and everything that comes with it—is simply the cost of making art under capitalism.
As soon as art enters the private market, it predominantly follows the logic of profitability rather than, say, the human experience (although the two can and sometimes do overlap). Rather than (just) being an expression of the raw or intimate, an invitation into the absurd or unsettling, it tends to be reduced to a game of numbers.
How many likes does my latest Instagram post have? How many Youtube subscribers did I gain this month? How many galleries did I exhibit in last year? How many fellowships have I been offered for next year? Or—in much simpler terms—how much money am I making? (Or, in even simpler terms, how much money am I making for somebody else?).
This market logic often stands in contradiction to the very reason many artists are called to pick up a pen or a pencil or a guitar pick in the first place: to challenge the conformism and complacency that our socio-economic system demands. And yet, artists that are too outspoken will often struggle to find their next client or secure enough funding for a new project.
This is because artists have long depended on wealthy patrons in order to exercise their profession. They have thus not only needed to convince members of the upper class—the royal family, aristocrats, and later, industrialist capitalists—of their talent, but also of their work’s social or cultural capital.
Artists’ paintings or sculptures have historically been used to depict patrons as “wise” or “enlightened”—or in the case of a king—“heroic” or “godly”. Whatever the theme, such commissions were often used to legitimize their patrons’ place in the social hierarchy (as well as being a means through which to store wealth).
In more modern times, art is still used to signal cultural literacy or social engagement or the philanthropy of both patrons and buyers, especially in wealthy, well-connected circles. In simple terms, art like everything else must sell us something beyond just the artwork itself.
And this, once again, is why artists often feel that they must “sell out”, catering to what the algorithm, agents or wider socio-economic trends dictate through something like a personal brand.
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Now, as the life-long political science student that I am, I am here to tell you that one way or another, we are all selling ourselves (although this is perhaps more obvious through something like a personal brand as compared to, say, wage labor). Even a rejection of the personal brand is a kind of brand in and of itself: it is the “anti-brand”.
So, what is my conclusion here after almost 2,000 words of rambling? Although the personal brand—or one’s public image or persona or whatever you wish to call it—may be somewhat of a financial necessity, it need not (and should not) come at the expense of the craft itself.
Much like in business, good branding cannot save a product that is ultimately shit (or, at the very least, it can’t save it forever). Although artists that cater to trends in pop culture may achieve a certain public status, their success will often be fleeting, typically lasting as long as the trend itself.
This, for me, is what makes the difference between a “true” artist and an “influencer”. While the latter seem to “create” for trends purely out of financial interest—using their personal brand in this way—the former see their personal brand as a means to an end.
For artists, it becomes a means to support themselves financially as they pursue their artistic vision. It is a means to make money as they listen to that voice inside of them that tells them to—or in my case, dictates that they—create (even if they must occasionally succumb to the demands of the market).
Art may be a game of numbers, but more importantly, it is a long game, played over the course of years and decades, rather than days and weeks. Ultimately, it is not measured by the metrics we might deem important at any one time—social media followers or the one-off whims of agents or investors—but how much our work can be stacked up against long-term changes in society.
Yes, I know that that line of thinking doesn’t exactly pay the bills— and indeed, maybe this entire essay is just an exercise in futility— but looking beyond the social or economic or political particulars that we may find ourselves in, we are still human beings living an absurd, shared existence on a planet that we will one day depart (however hard cryonics companies might try to convince you otherwise).
Art in all of its forms—painting, animation, music, film, writing and so on—is an attempt to make sense of that fact. I cannot tell you where creativity “comes” from—if it is a kind of tether to God as some believe—all I know is that I have always had an inner voice telling me to create, a voice that started out as a whisper before it grew into a bellow the more I ignored it.
Many popular artists have found a way to remain “free” in their artistic pursuit while also making a living out of it, outsmarting others through a combination of talent, dedication to craft and unique artistic vision (and, let’s be honest, a healthy dose of good luck).
Although creating from some “inner place” may not satisfy algorithms or fill concert halls or bring in crowds to art galleries, it will satisfy another desire, that of making the most of the time we are given on this Earth. And that, in the end, doesn’t have a price.