00:03:20.960and together they make a podcast celebrating Black storytelling in all of its forms called On Theme,
00:03:25.700which you should definitely listen to.
00:03:27.440Because what is personal branding if not a form of selective storytelling about who we are?
00:03:37.240So I have a lot of feelings about social media and about what branding means,
00:03:42.000And I definitely rub up against some friction a lot of the time when I'm thinking about what branding means and kind of feeling compelled to come up with the brand and do the active branding.
00:03:53.420But I am wondering, since you're very in tune with social media and digital media strategy, what exactly does personal branding mean to you?
00:04:05.020To me, personal branding is very powerful. It's a necessary way to show up online.
00:04:12.000It is a necessary way to make sure that the people that you want to be in conversation with, the people that you want to give you money to make things, that they think of you when they think of whatever it is that you specialize in.
00:04:26.220However, I would also say personal branding is really exhausting.
00:04:31.220I think that it's something that we are forced to do because we live in a capitalistic white supremacy society that kind of forces us to be not just making the thing and excited about making the thing, but selling how we make the thing.
00:04:47.280And yeah, I just don't, I think that any conversation about personal branding also has to be rooted with the fact that sometimes it feels like we are forced to do that kind of work in addition to the work that we want to be doing.
00:04:59.940So given your stance on personal branding, give us your personal branded bio.
00:05:36.740So if I was in an elevator with a big shot media professional, I would say that along with my amazing team with folks like Tari Harrison and Joey Pat, I make conversations about technology and the policy and the people that run it.0.91
00:05:56.100I make those accessible and I make those in ways that highlight the reality that it is traditionally marginalized people who make technology what it is.
00:06:04.380And so we're fostering and curating conversations that really deepen the perspective of Black folks, queer folks, Black women, trans folks, working people, all the kinds of people that are often left out of conversations about technology, the Internet, social media, what it means and the policy that shapes it.
00:06:53.100I'm like, I'm nosy and I want to know those things.
00:06:54.820But I feel like you personally, like, purposely don't put those out there.
00:06:58.080So, like, what story are you focused on telling and what story are you like, no, that's a distraction from what I'm trying to get at?
00:07:04.380Katie, you're good with your internet sleuthing because you would have to dig pretty deep, I think, to find out personal information about me, and that is very much with intention and by design.
00:07:17.780And I think it goes back to what I personally have found about my branding is that because I find personal branding and sort of storytelling about myself online, I find it kind of exhausting and I don't really like participating in it that much these days.
00:07:34.380I but I know I kind of have to because of the career that I'm in. I am very intentional about it. I almost would use the phrase like, you know, kind of neutrally manipulative. I don't want any I only want someone to be able to say like, oh, well, she does X, Y, Z kind of work. She's interested in X, Y, Z kind of projects.
00:07:52.820And part of it is because, you know, I care quite a bit about my work and my professional identity, but my real identity, the people that I love, my community, my values, all of that, I kind of hold that a bit closer to my chest because I don't want that to be something that is an exhaustive personal branding exercise, right?
00:08:14.280Like, when I'm spending time with my family, I don't want to feel that I have to be digitally curating a story about that time.
00:08:38.740Well, I'm curious, like, how is it showing up for, like, how do you two as creatives and hosts and people who have platforms and make things, like, how have you found that dynamic?
00:08:50.020I think we approach it very differently.
00:09:08.740like and it's like so silly to say but it's like you actually don't have to tell people things
00:09:12.900just because they ask you that like oh guy Ross is asking me about my grandpa I have to tell him
00:09:17.340and I'm just like oh no you don't so like I've tapered off of that I feel like I've grown into
00:09:21.240like because like in my personal life I'm very um like to myself like I don't even be telling my
00:09:27.640friends like every single thing so I'm like why am I telling the internet every single thing and
00:09:31.880I think I got to that very quickly it's like oh actually I don't like this like I feel like I
00:09:36.700don't really have a curated personal brand maybe my personal brand is like not having one like
00:09:42.200being mysterious i would like to think i was like i don't know mystery yeah my agent was like you
00:09:48.900need to have a website and you need to do this and i'm just like i hear you but i'm not gonna do that
00:09:53.460so yeah they try to do the same thing to me like back in um like years ago when i first started
00:09:58.620hosting podcasts they were like you should probably set up a twitter i mean and look how that's gone
00:10:03.780today, you know, but I mean, I have felt compelled to be to have a public presence, but that
00:10:10.340that feeling of being compelled has never actually led me to do anything that I'm
00:10:14.400uncomfortable with, because at the end of the day, I know that I have control over what I choose to
00:10:19.300share with people and how I choose to share it. So I have found myself telling myself that I want
00:10:24.580to share more. But if that doesn't show up right in my body, then I don't do it. So I have shared
00:10:30.480more in the places where I feel most comfortable, which for me, oftentimes, that is, if it's on
00:10:36.020social media, then that's in the Instagram space. But if that's outside on the internet, like,
00:10:41.260you know, just the articles that I write and the podcasts that I produce, those are spaces where
00:10:47.180I know that I have creative, more creative control, and they're subject to scrutiny in
00:10:53.160different ways, or at least more measured scrutiny. I don't think I have a personal brand either,
00:10:57.640But I think maybe one has been constructed for me in my chosen interests.
00:11:02.580Actually, speaking of this, Bridget, we've talked about this before in the title of public intellectual and how that's something that is like I would be labeled as regardless of whether or not I would choose to call myself that.
00:11:22.020You publicly opine and have good takes and good opinions and you're part of the public conversation.
00:11:26.960And people look to you, the people who are listening to On Theme, they listen to the both of you to help them understand, you know, what they should be, to help shape their own opinions.
00:11:35.760And so, yeah, I think you are a public intellectual, even if you don't feel like you would ever call yourself one.
00:11:44.040I feel like I'm getting a therapy session right now, Bridget, helping me work through some things.
00:11:50.040Well, also think about all the kinds of people who wouldn't feel, like, I just know a lot of people who are like,0.52
00:11:56.760oh, I'm a XYZ expert. And I'm like, oh, I feel like expert is the kind of thing that0.55
00:12:00.760other people have to call you. You're calling yourself one. That's interesting.
00:12:05.620And I think more people who have actual good things to offer the world should take
00:12:09.820ownership of those labels that mean so much. So what would you say you're an expert in?
00:12:14.980oh god nothing no that's not true um i am an expert in oh what this is a good question um
00:12:28.100i am an expert in curiosity i know that's kind of a cop-out answer but
00:12:33.480you know like that's one of the reasons why i love podcasting is that you really just get to
00:12:39.360poke and prod at people and you know katie you said something earlier and eve was like oh tell
00:12:43.740me more about that. If there was a question that animates my entire existence in this world is
00:12:48.900probably tell me more about that because I am just genuinely very curious about who people are,
00:12:55.940what motivates them, their values, where they see themselves, how they see the world. So I think I'm
00:13:00.600an expert in curiosity. So you have your own personal experience with personal branding,
00:13:06.120but when you see other people and the ways that they choose to personal brand in public,
00:13:11.940What are your feelings about that? Like, do you have any sort of initial emotions that come up when you think of the ways that people have to personal brand on the Internet?
00:13:21.040I don't know if anybody can relate to this feeling, but lately I have made a lot of intentional efforts to sort of step back and be a little more selective about how my own brand shows up online.
00:13:30.160And also, I've made the choice to care a little bit less about it and say, like, if I want to be a kick-ass podcaster, I'm going to lean into podcasting and the personal branding stuff can come second and that's okay.
00:13:42.960However, lately I have felt like when I scroll social media, I'm just constantly being bombarded with the ways that I'm getting it wrong.
00:13:51.680The ways that I'm like, oh, you're not making reels.
00:13:54.680You should be making TikToks like this.
00:13:56.440You should be offering your audience this.
00:13:59.240If you want to grow, do that. And I think part of that is just the nature of social media algorithms.
00:14:04.580It seems like every other month, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, will be like, oh, well, last month we told creators that they wanted to use Instagram to the best of their ability.
00:14:16.720And I realized that I just have no interest in being on this hamster wheel where I have to be, you know, responding to the whims of billionaires who run tech platforms who I will never meet, right?
00:14:31.720And so I've made that decision for myself, but I don't feel like it's very easy to sit in that choice all the time because constantly I'm bombarded by people who are doing it right or have the answer or want to sell me the answer.
00:14:45.680I often find other people's personal branding a little bit exhausting.
00:14:51.100And it's so just like me projecting my own insecurities and anxiety around it onto them.
00:14:57.080Like they're not doing anything wrong.
00:14:58.580But sometimes it seems hard to just exist online without constantly branding yourself and constantly selling people on who you are.
00:15:06.840Like, whatever happened to kicking it online or having fun online or finding community online in a way that wasn't, like, just intentionally branding yourself as some sort of expert in your field?
00:15:17.720Yeah, but that also makes me think about how corporations and commercial institutions, how their anxieties and their issues have been projected onto us and how we've kind of had to co-opt them in our own efforts to, like, survive and live in this world.
00:15:38.240And I'm wondering if you see any differences in the way that Black people have had to operate in that space of being forced to personal brand to live and how people of other races have operated in that space.
00:16:45.840And I actually really do believe that.
00:16:47.380I think that if I were to take a year off of social media or a year off of making my
00:16:54.600podcast, I think that it would be that much harder for me to come back because people
00:16:59.560would be like, oh, like in that year, I didn't see you constantly posting what awards you
00:17:03.600were winning or constantly posting what content you were making. So I guess you didn't exist,
00:17:08.040right? And so I think that because of the way that historically we have been shut out of that
00:17:13.800kind of access, I think it creates this kind of need to be doing something that luckily we're
00:17:18.920quite good at, which is building our own platforms. And I just want to make sure that when we talk
00:17:25.300about that, we're talking about it in a way that both honors how great that is, but also is tuned
00:17:32.880into how tough that can be, that feeling can be to be like, oh, I can't even take a break for a
00:17:36.840moment. I always have to be branding. Yeah. If we're already, Black people is the we I'm talking
00:17:42.800about, already subject to so much scrutiny because even when we're visible in the very smallest of
00:17:48.060ways. So what do you think that kind of loop of visibility of having to be present at all times
00:17:55.300just by nature of the internet, but also because we're Black, how does that affect, like, how we
00:18:02.380are treated in terms of our visibility and hyper-visibility? Hyper-visibility is a good
00:18:07.940word for it because it's like, as Black folks who show up online, we're both hyper-visible,
00:18:13.700but in a lot of ways erased or overlooked. And it's just very interesting to me how you can sort
00:18:18.160of be both. I've had accomplishments in my life or things happen in my life that I don't put on
00:18:23.920social media and people act like they don't exist. And so I'm really challenging myself to sort of
00:18:29.100resist that internally. And I really think about this quote from Michaela Cole when I think she
00:18:35.280won an Emmy and she said, in a world that entices us to browse through the lives of others to help
00:18:40.720us better determine how we feel about ourselves and to in turn feel the need to be constantly
00:18:45.600visible for visibility these days seems to somehow equate to success. Do not be afraid to disappear
00:18:51.280from it, from us for a while and see what comes to you in the silence. And I have always found
00:18:56.620so much power in that quote, because when you have that silence and that space where there
00:19:03.980aren't eyes on you, for me, that has equated to really making something I'm proud of or really
00:19:09.500being able to lean into something. And so I think that in a world that tells us that visibility is
00:19:15.400success, not being afraid to step back and go invisible, go dark for a little bit. I think
00:19:22.680It's really powerful to be able to do that and understand the power in that in a world that tells you you always have to be showing yourself and branding yourself.
00:22:15.820Like, if you didn't play a certain game for a month, do you think that you would feel the need to, like, announce that to the world?
00:22:21.960I just think that that really, to me, illustrates how we're so caught up in this idea that everybody has to be on social media all the time.
00:22:32.800Like, you can dip in, dip out, do it as it feels comfortable and right to you, and truly nothing will happen.
00:22:39.360I think that also goes to the difference between personal branding online versus personal branding, like IRL. Because I don't think people pay that much more. People pay more attention to the online presence than like their in-person presence. So like you're going to think about like what outfit you're posting when you're posting online and you're going to craft your caption really well and you're going to like have all this thought.
00:23:02.480But when you're out in the streets, you're looking a mess.
00:23:04.700You've got a bonnet on and you're talking crazy to the people at American Deli.
00:23:08.180Like, you're not really thinking too much about your personal brand.
00:23:12.200And when people apologize for that, they do it online.
00:23:15.400Like, when they apologize for their public presence.
00:23:17.480I've seen people say, I had to wear, I couldn't go outside today because I wasn't.
00:23:22.820They'll say things about, like, wearing makeup or wearing a bonnet out or not being dressed to the nines, you know, not having their faces beat.
00:23:28.880and apologize for that because they know that might show up online in a certain way,
00:23:33.200but not necessarily because they care about how that personal interaction in real life went.
00:23:55.360Yeah, like the obsession with it doesn't really, for I think for most people, it doesn't show up outside unless you're like on a panel or at a conference.
00:24:04.820But like just how you move every day, I don't see that as much.
00:24:08.920There is this weird kind of collapse that I see between in real life and online, Eves, where it's like, yeah, somebody might have an interaction offline that is in some ways authentically them because they're not branding it.
00:24:24.520It's just happening, you know, off the cuff or whatever.
00:24:27.120And then go online to talk about that interaction in a way that is part of the brand.
00:24:33.120It's so interesting how these online and offline realities have kind of collapsed.
00:24:37.260And I do think that if something like in a lot of ways, the digital realm has become more real than reality in some ways, where it only sort of matters how it shows up online or how it's branded online and how it shows up in reality is a lot, in a lot of cases, a lot less important to folks, I think.
00:24:56.980Yeah, for sure. Are you familiar with the Google for faces, Pym Eyes?
00:25:03.940Yes. So I just learned about that, I think, last week. Are you familiar with the E's?
00:25:09.520So it's basically like if, say, I have a picture of you and you can have a mask on, you can have your eyes closed, you can be, like, looking a different way.
00:25:17.880I can put that into that and it would show every instance where your face appears online, whether you posted it, whether you're just, like, in the background of somebody else's picture, just everything.
00:25:27.520and like learning about that really just like made me want to just go further away from not
00:25:33.800branding myself like I was like I want to remove every picture of myself from online just because
00:25:39.260like I think when we first started doing this I would say like for us maybe like the early 2010s
00:25:45.660we had no idea like what the internet was going to be and so like now in 2024 I feel like we still
00:25:52.820don't have a true idea, but we see a little bit more. And to me, it's like very scary what the
00:25:58.080internet is about to be. Yeah, I completely agree. You know, I think I might be a little older than
00:26:04.640both of you, but I remember when I first got Facebook, I was an undergrad in college and I
00:26:08.980graduated college in 2007. And this was when the main thing was like, you are connecting with your
00:26:17.800friends. You are going out to a nightclub. You are taking a thousand pictures from that single
00:26:24.220outing. You're posting all of them. Pit stains at all of them. For sure, pit stains. Yeah, like
00:26:29.280albums, right? And so I think that was sort of the heyday when we really, really kind of,
00:26:35.580it was easy to think of this as something that was about connection. Here in 2024, I don't think
00:26:40.280that anybody feels like social media platforms are offering us genuine connection anymore. I think
00:26:44.860what they're offering us is exploitation. I think what they're offering us is anxiety. I think what
00:26:49.320they're offering us is surveillance, criminalization, all kinds of things. And I think that, you know,
00:26:56.400that idea of connecting with your friends, even if you look at your, if you open Instagram right
00:27:01.640now and scroll your, you know, whatever their version of their feed, a lot of the stuff that
00:27:06.860you're being shown isn't from your friends or people that you've opted to follow. It's
00:27:10.500algorithmically generated content that they want you to see that they think that you might like,
00:27:14.280And so I think we should be asking what that means for our role in all of this, how we fit into that, if social media platforms are going to go to a place where it's more about surfacing you content than connection.
00:27:28.980So if you're no longer connecting with your friends, are we all, like Katie, Eves, and Bridget, are we all now de facto content creators or what?
00:27:37.960I think that we really need to have a more refined role in how we fit into this because the 2006, 2007, 2008 days are like way behind us in terms of how this is all working.
00:27:49.880We're living in unprecedented times, but we've like been doing so for a while now.
00:27:56.100It's not like, oh, we have like one event that happens.
00:27:59.720It's like, oh, that was unprecedented.
00:28:33.900Well, as a company girl, I have to shout out the good folks at iHeartRadio who definitely own my brand and all of the things that come with it.
00:28:42.020I mean, I think your question is like a really good one.
00:28:45.680I am – I might be a weird person to ask because I'm particular about ownership, right?
00:28:53.580And if you ever watch that show Breaking Bad and Walter White, one of the reasons it's like revealed by one of the reasons why he's so weird about his meth recipe is that he was cut out of a cut out of a deal when he was a scientist and he didn't have ownership over a product that he made.
00:29:08.360And it like stuck with him. I kind of feel like that's a little bit of my origin story, too, where I am a I am very particular about ownership.
00:29:15.880I would rather get screwed on the money and have more ownership of something.
00:29:21.560I don't know if that's, like, the best choice, but part of it is because of that discomfort around who owns what.
00:29:27.840I just hate the idea that something that I create, right, something that I conceptualized, that I put my heart and soul into,
00:29:36.900that came from me, that was colored by all of the experiences that I've brought with me to this world,
00:35:15.720I think it goes beyond just sharing information, honestly.
00:35:18.480like I can speak to it from the book publishing side of it and I'm getting like less than 15% of
00:35:27.320list price and I have done all the work on this book I thought of the idea I've gotten all the
00:35:32.860people together I'm designing it and I'm not a designer but I'm like showing the designer
00:35:36.620everything that I want to do I've written everything I travel you know all these things
00:35:40.440and I'm getting less than 15% of list price so like even if I told somebody that coming in like
00:35:45.760if i said ease i'm getting this much like okay like maybe you can get like one more percent but
00:35:49.760like i don't know i don't think like that's truly going to make a change and like a lot of people's
00:35:54.940books are very personal like um i don't know if y'all read the memoir heavy by kiese lehman but
00:36:00.800it's like a very personal um book and um the books you've written before it's like got one thousand
00:36:06.240dollars total for those books and it's like this is the publishing industry like this is what they
00:36:10.820do like even if you're going to be a really big name so i think it goes beyond sharing information
00:36:14.960And, like, actually, like you said, like, making our own thing and, like, having it cooperatively owned and not, like, wanting to, like, cozy up with these, like, big companies, which I know is, like, so, like, hard to not think is really cool.0.92
00:36:26.580But I feel like every time I think something's really cool, I'm like, fuck, this isn't cool.0.98
00:36:37.820Like, it's such a weird, it's such a, you're so right.
00:36:41.220It's such a hard thing to turn off that being associated with XYZ big brand or big company or big publisher or big network or whatever, that is going to make me feel successful.
00:36:52.380And it's like half the time those deals don't look as shiny as they appear on the outside on Instagram, right?
00:36:58.520And you're so right that I think it's not just information sharing.
00:37:02.720It goes beyond that of like, here's the reality of what it looks like for me to work with this company so that you can decide if it's worth it for you to work with this company to only get X, Y, Z of the price, right?
00:37:13.300I think it really has to go back to building more abundant models for us to put our stories and ideas out there that don't involve having to cozy up with companies just because they have a big name but a terrible reputation about how they treat people.
00:37:27.320Yeah. And I also think it goes back to the personal branding because I will be the first one to say, like, I'm like, hey, I like making an announcement about my book.
00:37:34.520Like, I have a book deal with the biggest publisher in the world.
00:37:37.800And it's just like, well, I'm not going to be like, and I'm getting like shitty royalties and like all this stuff.
00:37:42.260Like, I ain't saying all that, you know, because I want to get my Instagram likes off and for people to buy the book to tell me congratulations.
00:37:48.380So I think it goes back to like the personal branding.
00:37:49.940And that makes me think about just going back to our initial ideas around this, about how personal branding is a form of storytelling.
00:37:59.280We craft a certain story about ourselves when we're telling our personal brands.
00:38:06.560And I pulled a definition from personalbrand.com, which I had no idea existed before this episode.
00:38:13.960But they specifically say a personal brand is a widely recognized and largely uniform perception or impression of an individual based on their experience, expertise, competencies, actions, yada, yada, yada, all the rest of that definition.
00:38:29.100But the point is, is that it's clearly a crafted thing.
00:38:32.860It is when we create our personal brands, we are thinking, we're being intentional about what we choose to share and what we don't based on how we want to be seen.
00:38:40.220So I know that we've used the word authentic a couple of times in this conversation.
00:38:44.840I was wondering, Bridget, if you think it's even possible for us to be authentic and maintain a sense of self and how we express ourselves when we are doing this personal branding.
00:38:57.740I mean, I think based on the definition that you just read that I agree with and our conversation here, I think it's, I mean, I don't think it's a lie.
00:39:08.860You know, when Katie says like, oh, I have this great book deal with this great publisher and all of that, leaving out the bit about the parts that maybe aren't so exciting that she's not thrilled about, that's not a lie.
00:43:09.000Yeah, but that there's a dissonance between my brand and like how I do show up in some ways.
00:43:14.700Not necessarily because I am cutting off parts of myself, just because I'm multiple people.
00:43:21.520Like, I'm different ways in different places.
00:43:24.220So, also, speaking of being multiple people and showing up in different ways, I would have never expected you, Bridget, to align yourself with Walter White.
00:43:33.420So that's something I wasn't expecting you to say.
00:43:38.200Just that I think we would be remiss or I would be remiss not to say that you were part of that information sharing for us, Bridget, as we were doing this podcast, like you shared your contract with us.
00:43:48.200So when y'all hear Bridget say that, know that she's telling the truth.
00:43:58.740I don't I don't know intellectual property law.
00:44:01.180You know, there are other people who will need to be on your support team, but I would be happy to be of whatever kind of assistance I would like to be.
00:44:09.480Oh, my gosh. This is my favorite topic. Like, I will tell you how much money I make down to the penny.
00:44:14.800I will like, like, I'm curious about other creatives, how much money they make.
00:44:19.500There's so much smoke and mirrors. So, like, I want to know how much your house costs.
00:44:23.360I will ask the question and I'm happy to give that information back to others.