“The Commodification Of the Self”

According to post-modern thinking, appearance is representation, and sociality is advertising, and both are based on a dream, expressing self-expression of one’s own identity. This is how a modern synthetic (cyborg) identity develops, with most of its thinking and self-image occurring in digital surroundings.

The patrons of our identities are both known and unknown, but largely, it’s just ourselves.¹

This cybernetic circuit’s values are capitalist. The modern cyborg identity may be built via the consumption of the virtualized self; the construction of the real self’ is encouraged by virtual settings.

Consumption of products and images impacts awareness of the self.  In this sense, self-definition is dependent on the appropriation of commodity characteristics. We know who we are, the quality of our inner experiences are defined by the material objects we own.
The act of self commodification has become even more evident in audiences since the pandemic. Traffic on online shopping websites is at an all-time high and since the age of digitalization and Web 2.0, the generation is becoming brand conscious by the second. At this rate, a hypothetical Web 3.0 which will be here sooner than you think, or maybe it already is, may bring about the beginning of the dark ages of the digital world. With the high-selling worth of NFTs and the announcement of the Metaverse, one can only imagine the chaotic digital materialism this generation would have to go through to be satisfied. The groundbreaking advancements we see in digital tech every day simply makes my avatar wonder if the society we’ve created is more dystopian than utopian.