Personal brands - a cautionary tale

Why am I particularly concerned about our social media space, and so motivated to launch Selfie Reflective, the podcast presenting different perspectives on the status-update quo?

Two words: Monday Hustle. Here’s the full story.

In April of 2018, I dug up a photo, crafted a goodbye message to the thousands of people who followed Monday Hustle and hit publish. After nearly three years of running a personal brand, I could not get it offline fast enough. Here’s why.

Three years earlier, I’d just handed in a resignation letter. I was in my mid-20’s, and felt unfulfilled; like I was hurtling down a path that wasn’t suited to me. My CV said sales and advertising, but my aspirations were creativity and production and there didn’t seem to be a pivot in sight.

After resigning, I launched Monday Hustle, a personal brand that had the intention of keeping me accountable for my new chosen path. When my first blog post went viral, I was unprepared. Ok, the post didn’t go viral, but it did have over 1,400 views and 200+ shares in under 24 hours, and as someone who hadn’t shared any part of my life on social media before, I got hooked on that like-able feeling.

People who didn’t know me before Monday Hustle would have called me a luddite. I had a personal Facebook page, but I was the digital ghost-friend who would see your pregnancy post and not like or share, but pick up the phone and demand a conversation (old school, I know). I used Facebook for two things: to police photos I got tagged in - and stalk people (duh).

Popular rhetoric told me that the only way to make a huge, life-changing career pivot is to put yourself out there, take a risk and get uncomfortable, which is why I invented my online alter ego. Having cast a sceptical eye over social media my entire life, I thought I was going in with eyes wide open, that I would just be playing the game - but the game played me.

Monday Hustle was a blog, a Facebook page and an Instagram profile. For a solid and relentless year and a half, I churned out branded content like the worthiness of my life depended on it. From blogs to videos, relatable Instagram stories to Facebook polls, I went all in on the social media hustle. Most of my time was spent thinking about what to write, creating videos, picking filters for photos, replying to comments, crafting Instagram stories around mundane daily activities that got bonus lol’s if they included avocados.

With all this input, there were definitely some payoffs. I was paid to post on Instagram. I was invited to events. Packages would miraculously turn up on my doorstep. I was hired to work as an MC and presenter, roles that I later attributed to be the manifestation of the elusive dream I was chasing when I launched Monday Hustle in the first place.

On the other side of the screen, it might have looked fun. Appealing. Bold, inspiring, aspirational even. But in reality, the lifestyle that I’d committed to, the brand ethos that I felt social accountability to represent, was taking a massive toll. 

Somewhere along the way, the line had started to blur between my online self and my actual self. I’d become that friend who was anxious at social events because I had to find a good time to ask friends to get a snap of me by that cute pink wall (that’s great! But please just take a few more and make sure the monstera plant is in the frame). In many ways, my branded self felt most important, and I began making life decisions that prioritised Monday Hustle over other.. Basically everything else. My mental health, emotional health and financial health were suffering, but I persisted because I believed that it would just take one opportunity for it to all be worthwhile. And besides, these setbacks were - quote - all part of the hustle. Not only did I have #lawofattraction style faith, but I had an audience now. I had to keep posting, had to keep sharing or I’d let the people down! Did my sense of self importance also inflate because I had an Instagram profile...?

I began to harbour a genuine fear that if I left the space or slowed down on my posting, all my hard work would be undone. That any and all of my progress - would stop. Wasn’t I grateful for the opportunities I’d been afforded? And besides.. Who even was I without Monday Hustle? If I ever felt bad about the situation, it wasn’t running the brand that was the issue; it was obviously me. I just couldn’t handle the realities of what it took to be successful. I clearly needed more self development, more motivation, more confidence, more clarity, more commitment, more hustle. Having all of these existential crises, however, was good for something - content inspiration. Being demonstrably uncertain, or what some people (and brands) deem #authentic, was undeniably fantastic for audience engagement.

At the end of a year and a half, I was reaching some sort of influencer peak. In one week, I’d delivered a keynote speech, was liaising with Pandora Radio to conduct interviews at Rhythm and Vines, had been paid to MC an event and just been featured in The Guardian for my ‘street style’ - so what happens next? 

I snap my Achilles.

Being in a less than healthy mental state and now a less than healthy physical state should have made me slow down, take a breather, and focus on my next (literal) step, right? 

Wrong.

My snapped Achilles was the perfect way to demonstrate how one could keep hustling through any curveball life throws! A way to demonstrate how to not let circumstances get you down. Snapping my Achilles was not only just the biggest physical drawback I’d ever experienced - but the perfect branded opportunity.

A month later, I re-snap my Achilles, but remain undeterred. A month after that, I’m back in hospital with a gnarly post-surgical infection. I don’t necessarily believe in fate, that life presents you what you need, but it was only after a possible near-death life experience that gave me reason enough to shut up content-shop.

Despite not creating content, I was still consuming. During my hiatus I began to look - really look - at the advertising and influencer messaging and imagery that was being peppered across my feeds. I noticed how, everything that I was seeing and absorbing was making me feel like I deserved better; better health, better business, better sex, better face, better body, better mind, better job, better spa pool, and I didn’t even have a spa pool but the ads made it Very Clear that I deserved a better one.

I also started to look objectively at the content I’d been creating and the identity I’d been performing. Knowing the full story behind particular photos; like the time I’d had to promote a sponsored giveaway but had just been crying so didn’t face the camera; left me feeling like a fraud. Instead of thinking this was a problem, for a while, I thought I could.. Just. Be more myself. Show more ‘realness’. I could just do, be better, create better, because if my newsfeed was anything to map off, it was that the people deserved better!

For another year I tried to re-engage with Monday Hustle by repositioning the brand. In fact, I was trying to re-direct it towards the topics that the podcast will explore - but after some critical discussions, a questionnaire that elicited some harsh truths about how toxic Monday Hustle had become and some serious Selfie Reflection, I hung up the hashtag. After having the light shone on the pitfalls of our attention economy and unpacking a few of the layers, demanding the attention of others didn’t feel so good anymore.

In April 2018, nearly three years after launching Monday Hustle, it ended. THE Monday Hustler stopped hustling.

Since then, I continued to be an observer of the social media space but until recently haven’t been an active participant. After being fed a steady diet of likes, follows and instant feedback through running Monday Hustle, not being present on social media left me feeling sorta empty, like I was missing opportunities and getting left behind. The truth is, there is no replacement for the buzz I got from running my personal brand on social media. Maybe I’m still experiencing a type of withdrawal.

But, I hear you ask, do I think social media is all bad? No bloody way. When leveraged as a tool, the potential for connection, knowledge, awareness and information is unrivalled. But in saying this, there are a few uncomfortable truths that, I believe, need more exploration. Not least of which are the facts that these platforms are designed to be addictive. That the owners of these platforms have shot to riches as a result of mining and selling our personal data (which they won’t give back to us). That said personal data is harnessed by advertisers, marketers, creators and even our friends, who can manipulate our feeds and our psychology with the mandate of getting us to click, like and buy. That online we exist in an echo chamber of information that’s based on what these platforms think they know about us. That on social media, reputable media outlets and journalists have to fight in the same competition as sensationalist propaganda and misinformation. That the creators of these platforms abuse our privacy and evade responsibility to this day. That our online brand identities can seem more important than our real life identities. That kids are groomed for social media fame before they are even born.

So again, do I think social media is bad? No. But I think it’s important we unpack these not-so-Gram-worthy layers to ensure that we are the ones who are firmly in control of time, our focus, our data, our privacy - and our attention.

Social media isn’t going away anytime soon, so I believe it’s important that we focus on ways to use these tools that feel safe, progressive, useful, healthy and fun for all involved - and this starts with curiosity.