I no haz Brand, I haz a presence

The concept of "brand" to me conjures up many things, none of which I would like to apply to me as a person. I have an online presence, an online space. Whilst I understand the concept of having a stable "brand identity" across all platforms used, I can't say that I feel it is necessary.

We are all people who have at least two sides to our personalities: our professional self and our personal self. Some of us are mothers or fathers, we are all someone's son or daughter, we could be a Brown Owl or a hockey coach. We all have different interests and different obsessions. We watch television programmes, we consider ourselves to have a political position, we read books, we travel to different places, we like different colours - I could go on. The point is that we are all different multi-faceted people who cannot be reduced down to a brand which attempts to encapsulate our entire personalities in two or three concepts. And I do not want to be. Of course we have to be careful and mindful when we post anything online. We can do this whilst retaining our complex individuality.

I have an online presence, yes. But a brand? I don't think I have got a brand. My blog's template represents my love of inky colours, however it also represents the fact that only these colours were available in this template on Blogger. My twitter name was chosen because I really like the name Lottie although no one calls me that in the "real" world despite my attempts to encourage people to use it a few years ago. It never caught on - it just sounded odd in reality. My various professional profiles all tend to say the same things about my professional interests. My Facebook is my only truly personal space online where I shed my professional skin and communicate solely with friends. My cat however is mentioned everywhere as it is impossible for me to separate any facet of myself from his presence (he would get grumpy and pull a LoL-cat pose...)

So essentially these are my feelings about brands. In theory, I can see why it is a helpful idea. Yet the reduction of the complex individual to a couple of specific traits troubles me. I'll stick with my online presence.