Digital Reflections That Can Never Come To Be
The Dream Job
A study from 2019 found that in the US and UK, the most popular dream job was to become a content creator/influencer. The study compared this to China, where the rate was down significantly, but still sat around 10%, taking fifth place. These studies are not alone, with another one two years earlier in the UK showing a rate of over 50%. This comes as a shock to many people. Older people grew up with dream jobs like becoming an astronaut. A job of heroes, made up of only the best and highest achieving who get to live out a magical imagination of exploration beyond Earth. The astronaut dream works for parents of those dreaming children too. The job that these childish magical imaginations with the societal reality that they must pursue high grades to work towards their goals.
Many classic dream jobs blend these two factors of childhood dreams and adult real-world work. Think of judges, police officers, nurses, doctors, and garbagemen. A job created by a motivational figure for a child. A job that gives them a goal they can turn into adulthood reality. A job that their parents and other supportive figures can help them achieve. A job that exists in the world that demands credentials and a journey to achieve. A job that helps people. A job that gives a role in society for you to aspire to fulfill. A job that gives you a sense of belonging in the world around you. A real job.
Influencer is not quite like these jobs. It is a job that exists purely in the digital realm. A reflection of someone that they have specifically created to drive consumption of an image. It isn't them, it is a likeness commodity they have created: selected snapshots that together create a new persona with a curated aesthetic. If enough online consumers identify with the aesthetic, the commodity stands a chance of making it in the digital marketplace. To achieve that, the persona must be tailored specifically for success in that extremely competitive marketplace. It does not produce something or help societal function, a commodity with some form of advertisement price but no use-value.
Reflections of Ourselves
Lacan theorized that we exist with two versions of ourselves. The first version is the real version. This self exists in the now, our current person. The second is a mirror image we craft of ourselves. This mirror image is what we see when we create our goals and desires. When someone wants to become an astronaut, they don't think of an astronaut. They think of themselves as an astronaut. They imagine what it could be like to go to space. They picture the reality of what it could be, the emotion of how those around them would react, and the journey they need to take to get there. From here, they create an image of themselves working to get there, attempt to become that working image, and then hopefully become the image of that final goal. The second version of ourselves is who we want to be and how we mature and create good habits. They are us in the future, helping us grow up and become better.
For the old dream jobs, this image was that of the childhood hero. The child would decide who their hero was, envision themselves as that person, envision the path there, and then partake in that journey. The job of an influencer changes this. The mirror image is no longer a person that exists, but a commodity curated out of a person's likeness. Similarly, the path to becoming a successful influencer is not necessarily a personal journey to the actualization or realization of a mirror image. It is a path of ensuring that the digital image of yourself is market-successful in its own actualization. It doesn't produce anything or provide a meaningful service, it is just creating a digital self-designed for constant consumption from strangers who will never be evenly interacted with.
The path to becoming that digital image is obfuscated. Simply put, it means posting everything as favourably as possible to increase chances of success. Even if one becomes a “successful” influencer, one must keep on the journey permanently, reinventing themselves constantly, for fear of falling off. Similarly, there is no real metric as to what it means to be successful. How many impressions count as successful? Is constant growth successful? Is an enjoyable community successful? Is an income level successful? There is no real answer, and thus, only a grey area as to whether or not there is a true goal to achieve.
Influencers and hosts of online shows also constantly talk about how they fake having other jobs when talking to others because their current money source is not a real job. There is no real societal value or standing that comes with it. It does not provide a ground function to society and does not grant a solid role in society. It simply shouts out others for their real roles in society, advertising products, or platforming those who are working on something real. Thus, there is no real mirror image. At best, the mirror image is just an imagination of a snapshot of some specific point of the process, like a post.
To become an influencer is to make the mirror image of yourself a digital image. We exist in the real world, and as such, we are unable to become this new mirror image. It means that the personal goal of who they want to be is fundamentally unachievable. Those who wish to be an influencer will never achieve their goals because their goal image is not a real image for them to become. Their life goal and societal role is merely a montage of carefully crafted moments selected for looking the best. As their lives are inevitably real, their lives will never be a montage of high-emotion moments, and they will constantly feel like they are falling short of the dream they once had.
This is not to say it is impossible to be a creator but to say that the reality of being a creator is not the same as the mirror image imaginary of a creator based on experiencing their end likeness-product. Almost none of them will be able to make it anywhere, and if they do, the job is not as the job presents. The journey of creation is the job, and then it is luck (alongside some optimizations) from there on. The end goal is never actually achieved.
The Realization Grift
This influencer existence is perpetually in the now. As it is unable to truly be achieved, it is constantly in the achieving process. As the digital image exists in a montage state, it exists as a time-atomized snapshot version of the real self. The goal mirror image is not a real image of a person, and thus, the real person effectively lives as if having already become their mirror image, creating a disassociation between their lived life and their perceived life. To be marketable, they must appear as an actualized self-image for others to aspire to become to draw consumption. One must not aspire to become better, one must simply curate their image to make it as if they already are.
In this way, it is like a Ponzi scheme. Influencers create perceptions of themselves for others to present themselves as actualized, which others engage with and wish to become. If the consumers work towards that goal, they will have to start by convincing others that they are also achieving despite not having yet achieved. The grift only works if the kayfabe holds strong, their actualized digital image never breaking, which goes on to influence others. To view but not engage is to live vicariously through others having a life having achieved their mirror image, despite the real person behind it having not, still creating a digital influencer mirror image but resigning to never attempting to actualize. It is to burn out before even beginning to attempt. Either way, the mirror image created can never truly be worked towards.
Influencers no longer need to aspire to be someone else, they are perfect and should no longer worry. Just present the perfect parts, and the digital image of you being perfect will form itself.
We have let children interact with digital networks and social media, outsourcing much of the parental strain to the digital matrix. Without any thought, we have reached a point where the most popular goal that children aim to aspire towards does not exist in the real. It is anti-societal structure, anti-social, and atomizing to the point where real existence exists in time-compressed montages instead of real life. These kids have only lived under digital-exposed capitalist realism. I believe that means we can see in them what grows from this form of capitalist realism. Capitalist concepts of value have completely degraded. Everything solid has melted away into aesthetics. The goal now is to become an aesthetic.
It needs, it seeks affection Hungry, it fiends attention Look at me, look at me, you lookin'?
Oncle Spencer