Identity in the Marketplace

10:30 Thursday, 26 February 2026
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Words: 1144

A long time ago, in a blogosphere far, far away there was a rag-tag group of internet triumphalists who proclaimed that the internet changed everything.

They were right, just not in the way that they thought.

These internet triumphalists, "small pieces, loosely joined," were not the first to make the claim that a particular piece of technology "changed everything." Personal computers were supposed to "change everything."

They did. Just not in the way those visionaries and prophets predicted.

The MacOSX Guru [sic] laments,

It occurs to me that I was the sucker. I imputed values on to the company which were not real. Apple was never different. It was a marketing ploy. Microsoft/IBM were the big bad ogres while Apple was the caring, design-focused revolutionaries who were fighting the ogres. That was great positioning strategy. That protected Apple from getting their ass kicked by faster, cheaper, alternatives. When the market situation changed and Apple became the behemoth, the masks fell off.

The guru is in good company. We were all suckers. It's the water we swim in, the air that we breathe.

There was a video/podcast recently from the Bulwark, which I did not bookmark at the time, where Sarah Longwell mentioned something interesting she observed in a focus group she conducted. I don't recall the specific question/issue she was investigating, but it had something to do with Christianity and politics. What she observed, and found noteworthy, was that Christian voters on the right often made statements beginning, "I am...", while those on the left often made statements beginning "I believe..."

Perhaps it's an artifact, or an illusion, but if it's real, I think it's profoundly interesting. I'll see if I can find the video somewhere.

As consumers, because that is our primary role in our economy, we often identify with our product choices. "I'm a Ford guy." Or, "I'm a Mac user." (Exhibit A: See the entire collection of Apple ads here.) Marketing convinced us that our product choices were a way of signifying something about our identity, often our superiority over others who made a different choice.

I'm reminded of Jon Gruber's frequent reference to taste, with regard to the differences between Apple products and other, inferior, products. If not in technical terms, at least in terms of aesthetic sophistication, which is the hallmark of the refined individual, or so I've heard.

Back in the day, a group of marketers led by Doc Searls, put together something called The Cluetrain Manifesto. I never embraced it, and many of the things I wrote about in my old Groundhog Day blog were pushing back and mocking the manifesto. I glanced at it just now, and while I haven't made an exhaustive study, I suspect it has not aged well:

31. Networked markets can change suppliers overnight. Networked knowledge workers can change employers over lunch. Your own "downsizing initiatives" taught us to ask the question: "Loyalty? What's that?"

How's that working out?

But the one I despised most was the first one, "Markets are conversations."

I don't know that I ever convinced anyone of what a pernicious lie that was (More generously, what a profound category error it represented.), but I hammered away it relentlessly.

Fundamentally, the assertion conflates the social with the commercial. These two human activities, or fields of activity, are orthogonal to one another. That what takes place in the social sphere has little nothing to do with what takes place in the commercial sphere.

And when we try to understand activities in one sphere in the context of the other sphere, we fundamentally misunderstand both.

But what do I know? I'm just a guy who went to a trade school with zero experience in commerce, marketing and who probably isn't so adept in the social sphere either.

The misconception is understandable. It arose from people saturated in the concepts of branding, which probably informed their conception of identity. The notion that identity is located in signification, because that is what marketing has taught our society.

Indeed, even the "counter-culture," was probably at least 75% signifying — hair and clothing styles, vernacular and idiom, performative lifestyle choices.

Because we inhabit a world that has become an attention marketplace. Our visual landscape is filled with signifiers. Virtually all forms of media, to include the people who extol the virtues of "plain text," and make an elaborate display of their embrace of markdown.

Irony. It's the fifth fundamental force of the universe. I'm still waiting for my call from the Nobel committee.

Markets are NOT conversations!

Conversations are the mutual exchange of attention between two individuals. To the extent that signifying intrudes into the content of conversations is merely a symptom of our sick society, infected as it is by the disease of capitalism and commerce.

Anyway, the guru is in good company. The marketers won. Even the whole Cluetrain™ bullshit manifesto was a branding exercise, because it has no meaning in a social context.

Blogs can be conversations. The mutual exchange of attention between two individuals for the inherent social reward of receiving attention. I'm not trying to sell you anything. I'm just here sharing what's on my mind, hoping that some of you may find it interesting from time to time.

And given the recent veritable deluge of email I've received, I guess some of you do. And that's very gratifying. Seriously. Won't make me rich, but I'm rich enough I guess. More than I deserve probably.

But identity isn't something you can buy, and I'm pretty sure it isn't even something you can signify. Sure, I can wear an old Navy ball cap and you might reasonably infer that I'm a navy veteran. But I'm more than that. And I sometimes choose to wear that signifier because I know how some people will react to it.

Conservatives are often surprised and disappointed that I'm not on their "team," often sharing an odious opinion believing that I would be receptive and validating. I don't find this particularly amusing; but it can serve to let me hear or observe someone's candid views and behavior as they're less guarded in the moment.

The irony of Sarah's observation, in case it didn't hit you over the head, is that those on the right often criticize or object to "identity politics." They bought what the right was selling, paid for with their endless attention, and they've embraced it as their identity. Because we have no real idea of what identity is anymore. It's something the government gives you on a card, or a document. It gives you permission to be welcome in certain circles, or on certain platforms. That's not what identity is, but it is what it has become, if that's not too much of a contradiction.

I think, therefore I am.

Connect the dots.

The beat goes on...

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