A beautiful, dazzling, devastating dissection of the commodified self. You’ve articulated something I’ve long felt, that “What do you do?” is no longer an inquiry but an audit. A veiled demand for ROI. It’s not a question of vocation but of justification. And the moment we answer, we unconsciously reach for our most monetisable attribute, as if the soul’s worth must pass through a payment gateway before it can be witnessed.
You describe, with unnerving precision, the peculiar psychosis of self-commodification, voluntary, enthusiastic, even gleeful. We’ve become our own brand managers, marketing interns, publicists, and product lines. We don’t have identities, we curate them. And increasingly, we only engage in activities that can be uploaded, monetised, or turned into content. We do not journal, we post journaling aesthetics. We don’t rest, we “honour rest as résistance”. The politics of leisure have been swallowed whole by the algorithms of attention.
But here’s the unsettling addition I’d offer, if you allow me… this is more than performance, it’s about prophylaxis. We are doing more than selling ourselves, we are hiding behind the sale, by presenting a clean, clickable version of ourselves, we immunise against intimacy. It’s easier to be perceived than to be known. Vulnerability is too risky when everyone’s watching…. and rating. We ghost authenticity because we are both cynical and terrified.
We post the cappuccino, ahhh the ere is something more important than the visible foam, we need proof of personhood. We live as if we were going to one long audition, every gesture becomes a résumé, every meal a mission statement. The self is no longer lived, it’s pitched, right?!
The crazy irony is that our résistance to this culture now is packaged as content, disillusionment is another niche now. You can monetise your exit from the matrix, you can rebrand burnout as a spiritual awakening and sell it as a course on “Intentional Invisibility.” I’m waiting for the first influencer to sell “How to Stop Being an Influencer” for $499 in six digestible modules.
What a world to live in…..
P.S. As a side note (but maybe the truest note), I wrote an essay in January that revolved entirely around this question — What do you do? Spoiler: it’s not a question. It’s a currency check.
What you describe is hedonism. Pleasure seekers need the constant fix of more pleasure. Indulging in too much pleasure-seeking will make One miserable.
i just adore this. i am so grateful to have found it at a weird, transitory time in which the commodification of my hobbies and interests could be a financial lifeline, and yet a death sentence to my enjoyment of them - some things i want to keep sacred, private, and safe from the prowl of toxic productivity! may we all find peace in the whirlwind...thanks again for providing that peace for me here:)
lovely piece. couldn’t stop myself from reading it holding my breath almost, because it doesn’t put a neat packaging over how we behave and think in the digital age. everything we do has to be profitable or it’s not worth it. hobbies get left behind. being has become performative.
I always feel so redundant bringing this up in my own writing, but the unfortunate true is that it defines so much about the current human state that it would be amiss to not include it in all analysis about society. Once you see it it’s hard to not be disturbed or fatigued by it. It’s a defining feature of the 21st century, the age of the simulacrum, and isn’t that uncanny valley feeling the exact thing that made homo sapiens the hard wire survivalist we are. We’re caught in the digital ouroboros, gluttonous consumer to producer just to be consumed endlessly. All that perfect packaging in order to be the right type of delicious, neat bows and artificially flavored. So I’m with you, it’s better when we allow things to marinate. I watched Call Me By Your Name for the first time last year and any time I hold off on instant gratification I never regret it. Except I’m sure if I watched it in theaters in 2017 I could’ve made a YouTube video about it and covered half my university debts. And even if I didn’t, at least I’d be playing the game “right”, a high achiever, a go getter that doesn’t “let life pass her by”. Success should mean the feeling of completeness/wholeness/self satisfaction yet in practice it’s nearly defined as the opposite. Which means it’s only permitted to the greedy.
Loved the piece! You should definitely watch more movies! Do you know what type of genre your interested in?
Cinema has been an obsession as of recently for me. I just turned 30 last year and my mother was such a big cinephile. I guess the bug finally has made it's way to me. But I got a list of films I think you might like, if your interested in falling down the rabbit hole.
akif with every piece you write i feel a mirror is being held up to my internalised thoughts, ones that i have always found so difficult to put in to words. yet you have here so eloquently.
i think particularly for my generation we don’t even know a world without creating value from everything. the pressure is crushing, sometimes i sit and ask myself what is it i enjoy. is there anything i enjoy in private or has life become purely a performance.
i wasn’t on social media for two years, and now i return to find there’s no such thing as a true representation of ourselves on a social platform. it’s impossible to put together all of our complexities as a human into a few photos, quotes and marketable self help courses
alhamdulillah for Islam in this regard for myself because it allows me to make dua for sincere intentions and for something good for me and my faith to come from my return. even if that is meeting a few people perhaps that are good for my soul.
as always akif, i look forward to what it is you wrote next InshaAllah!
A beautiful, dazzling, devastating dissection of the commodified self. You’ve articulated something I’ve long felt, that “What do you do?” is no longer an inquiry but an audit. A veiled demand for ROI. It’s not a question of vocation but of justification. And the moment we answer, we unconsciously reach for our most monetisable attribute, as if the soul’s worth must pass through a payment gateway before it can be witnessed.
You describe, with unnerving precision, the peculiar psychosis of self-commodification, voluntary, enthusiastic, even gleeful. We’ve become our own brand managers, marketing interns, publicists, and product lines. We don’t have identities, we curate them. And increasingly, we only engage in activities that can be uploaded, monetised, or turned into content. We do not journal, we post journaling aesthetics. We don’t rest, we “honour rest as résistance”. The politics of leisure have been swallowed whole by the algorithms of attention.
But here’s the unsettling addition I’d offer, if you allow me… this is more than performance, it’s about prophylaxis. We are doing more than selling ourselves, we are hiding behind the sale, by presenting a clean, clickable version of ourselves, we immunise against intimacy. It’s easier to be perceived than to be known. Vulnerability is too risky when everyone’s watching…. and rating. We ghost authenticity because we are both cynical and terrified.
We post the cappuccino, ahhh the ere is something more important than the visible foam, we need proof of personhood. We live as if we were going to one long audition, every gesture becomes a résumé, every meal a mission statement. The self is no longer lived, it’s pitched, right?!
The crazy irony is that our résistance to this culture now is packaged as content, disillusionment is another niche now. You can monetise your exit from the matrix, you can rebrand burnout as a spiritual awakening and sell it as a course on “Intentional Invisibility.” I’m waiting for the first influencer to sell “How to Stop Being an Influencer” for $499 in six digestible modules.
What a world to live in…..
P.S. As a side note (but maybe the truest note), I wrote an essay in January that revolved entirely around this question — What do you do? Spoiler: it’s not a question. It’s a currency check.
What you describe is hedonism. Pleasure seekers need the constant fix of more pleasure. Indulging in too much pleasure-seeking will make One miserable.
The soul ruler of an empty palace? Cheers!
i just adore this. i am so grateful to have found it at a weird, transitory time in which the commodification of my hobbies and interests could be a financial lifeline, and yet a death sentence to my enjoyment of them - some things i want to keep sacred, private, and safe from the prowl of toxic productivity! may we all find peace in the whirlwind...thanks again for providing that peace for me here:)
lovely piece. couldn’t stop myself from reading it holding my breath almost, because it doesn’t put a neat packaging over how we behave and think in the digital age. everything we do has to be profitable or it’s not worth it. hobbies get left behind. being has become performative.
I always feel so redundant bringing this up in my own writing, but the unfortunate true is that it defines so much about the current human state that it would be amiss to not include it in all analysis about society. Once you see it it’s hard to not be disturbed or fatigued by it. It’s a defining feature of the 21st century, the age of the simulacrum, and isn’t that uncanny valley feeling the exact thing that made homo sapiens the hard wire survivalist we are. We’re caught in the digital ouroboros, gluttonous consumer to producer just to be consumed endlessly. All that perfect packaging in order to be the right type of delicious, neat bows and artificially flavored. So I’m with you, it’s better when we allow things to marinate. I watched Call Me By Your Name for the first time last year and any time I hold off on instant gratification I never regret it. Except I’m sure if I watched it in theaters in 2017 I could’ve made a YouTube video about it and covered half my university debts. And even if I didn’t, at least I’d be playing the game “right”, a high achiever, a go getter that doesn’t “let life pass her by”. Success should mean the feeling of completeness/wholeness/self satisfaction yet in practice it’s nearly defined as the opposite. Which means it’s only permitted to the greedy.
https://open.substack.com/pub/keithnewman/p/gtm-it-doesnt-mean-what-you-think?r=3d4ef&utm_medium=ios
Loved the piece! You should definitely watch more movies! Do you know what type of genre your interested in?
Cinema has been an obsession as of recently for me. I just turned 30 last year and my mother was such a big cinephile. I guess the bug finally has made it's way to me. But I got a list of films I think you might like, if your interested in falling down the rabbit hole.
akif with every piece you write i feel a mirror is being held up to my internalised thoughts, ones that i have always found so difficult to put in to words. yet you have here so eloquently.
i think particularly for my generation we don’t even know a world without creating value from everything. the pressure is crushing, sometimes i sit and ask myself what is it i enjoy. is there anything i enjoy in private or has life become purely a performance.
i wasn’t on social media for two years, and now i return to find there’s no such thing as a true representation of ourselves on a social platform. it’s impossible to put together all of our complexities as a human into a few photos, quotes and marketable self help courses
alhamdulillah for Islam in this regard for myself because it allows me to make dua for sincere intentions and for something good for me and my faith to come from my return. even if that is meeting a few people perhaps that are good for my soul.
as always akif, i look forward to what it is you wrote next InshaAllah!