I can’t think of anyone, other than the weird lifestyle entrepreneurs that keep following my Instagram, that proactively advocate the importance of expanding their “brand.” Then again, I’m an English major. When I am with other English majors, we talk about writers and books, not how we can improve our online presence. So, perhaps it is only in certain circles where “personal branding” is a phrase said aloud, and there’s a nagging pressure to maintain it. But this does not make the concept particular to any group of people.
When I was in junior high, I started watching the news every morning before I left to school. Good Morning America (GMA) would start at seven a.m., and after Diane Sawyer and Robin Roberts would relay the day’s headlines, then-GMA’s meteorologist Sam Champion would begin the national weather report.
“Let’s get to the boards.”
He was always dressed in tailored suits with beautiful ties, whenever he was in the studio, at least. He never stumbled on a word, or awkwardly tripped over a wire as he moved back and forth between the panel shot. Sam Champion had a predictable, consistent presentation.
“That’s the weather around the nation. Here’s what you can expect this morning.”
Then began the dumpster fire of my local news station’s weather report, with a meteorologist whose name I can’t remember, and who is likely no longer there. I started impersonating GMA’s weatherman at school whenever someone asked me, with sweat still beading on my forehead after my midday track practice, what the weather was like (always hot; South Texas, go figure). It made an interesting lunch hour, and I can probably still do the routine from beginning to end.
Maybe lesser known now, and definitely was not on my radar as a high school student, Joan Didion is the journalist every anchor and correspondent currently on major news networks wishes to but never be. I read every essay in The White Album my sophomore year at UTSA, and I haven’t looked at anything the same since. I can’t provide any catch phrases, nor can I do an impersonation. I can only say that her eyes see past you, and go in through the out door.
There is a hardly a photograph or video of Joan Didion where she is not holding a cigarette, or giving the same stare like in the photo above. Joan Didion’s writing is objective, visceral, and entirely real, in the most honest sense of the word. It is hard to try and materialize a voice like that into something physical, but her stare comes close.
Sam Champion’s career depends on his image. Though he may never advocate expanding a personal brand, he does so every time he gets to the boards. His brand was so effective that when I was doing those impersonations, everyone knew who I was parodying. I don’t think Joan Didion could care any less about her acquired brand, but she has one, and it certainly impacted how my writing. If her writing is her brand, then it’s kept a consistent readership.
Neither of these figures have ever explicitly promoted themselves on their name alone. Through their work, Sam Champion and Joan Didion, living in two different forms of news media, have achieved a distinguishable persona. It’s the unspoken rule of writers that promotion based on name solely (James Patterson) is forbidden. Brand anything isn’t respected in the arts. It’s too mainstream. Yet, every writer, journalist, broadcaster, anyone, in one form or another, has a brand. They do not want to admit this, and they do not admit this, but the better their brand, the better their exposure.
I participate in this paradox. But the more I learn how to write, the more I accept that I’m simultaneously developing a professional brand. I may not be aware at the time, but with every article I write, every hand that I shake, and every lecture I give, my name is being thrown out there. So, I’ll continue this doublethink as a means to keep myself in check, and never become store-brand.
On Writing (Professionally) 