whether it be through the way i dress or the music i listen to - a “personal style” usually comes down to a catalog of things, picked out from the inspiration of others, Pinterest moodboards and Spotify playlists that i can view through the strange third-person interpretation of myself and think, “yes, this is who I want people to see me as.”

in her substack article, “standing on the shoulders of complex female characters,” Rayne Fisher-Quann writes about how she has realized this profound phenomenon, “i am making sure to eat a square of dark chocolate during my depressive episodes so they’ll sound sexy in my memoirs. even when i am ostensibly at my lowest, i am still filtering my experiences through the eyes of a consumer.”

capitalism has made its way onto the internet, and the unintended consequences (or, maybe they were foreseen all along), have somehow shifted the regular person’s role from consumer to product, in the sense that to be seen as different, your first step is to market yourself as such.

Time is money, but why should anyone pay attention to you?

In their Substack article, “against the cult of personal style,” SJ, a prominent fashion influencer, argues that, “personal style has become less about your inner reflections and more about the gaze of this invisible audience that you always carry in your head. It is no longer a private language, but a public announcement.”