Importance of Being Earnest…or Ethics & Self-Marketing: Sh!t Gets Real
So, let’s just be honest here…nine times out of ten when you read “Jolie is –insert whatever ‘she’s awesome you should hire her also make her president’ verbiage–” on my site, I wrote it. Yes, I wrote it in third-person because it’s awkward to say directly, “I’m the shit and you know this, also I want your money so I don’t starve on the street or start selling meth.” Very few professional entertainers have the money to hire someone to write bios for them, so we cheat. It looks better, helps us not feel like total arrogant shitheads, and gives us complete control in how we market ourselves. That being said, lately I’ve come across more and more bios from entertainers and entertainment businesses that are flat-out misleading, and it makes me very uncomfortable.
Here’s where shit gets interesting. When self-marketing, you definitely have to tread a line. You can say “performs nationally” if you have performed in more than one state without lying; besides, it would be kind of lame to say “I’ve performed in my home-state of New York and this one time I performed in New Jersey and it was super rad.” The goal of your marketing material is to make you look sought-after, popular, like a potential client would be a fool to not hire you. I start to take issue with tarting up the truth when, despite the fact that you may have only taken a gig in New Jersey that one time, you say that you regularly tour nationwide at the biggest venues.
Another word-choice I find distasteful if used incorrectly is “premiere”. You cannot use the word “premiere” unless you were absolutely the first to be doing whatever the hell it is that you are doing. I will not budge on this point. If you know, for a fact, that someone else started the game in your town, don’t do them the disservice of pretending they don’t exist. It doesn’t serve the community and it makes you look like you don’t know what you’re talking about to fellow members of said community. I take the same issue with saying you are your town’s “favorite”, “most popular”, “best”, or “most sought-after” if you know that there are other members of the community working in the same capacity. You may be one of the best squid fishermen in the tri-state area, but when you say you are “the best”, you sound like an arrogant ass. Don’t do that to yourself. Be better than that.
I think, to a large degree, the people who market themselves with a modicum of humility tend to have the most to offer. I find people who overstate their position in their field to be overcompensating for a lack of knowledge or talent. We, as entertainers, should never feel like we’ve learned everything there is to learn. There are new levels to hit at every turn and that’s a beautiful thing. As much as we can call ourselves professional or experts in our fields, we should always seek to be better than we were last year. Art is ever evolving and new techniques as well as fresh points of view from even the newest students are invaluable to developing yourself as an artist.
That being said, my friend Max once told me “a successful rapper is basically a sorcerer,” meaning he or she will rap about the rich lifestyle before they have it, so it’s like they will it into existence. Part of me wonders if it’s actually beneficial to create and believe your own hype. I’m not proud of this, but I have watched and read “The Secret”. I think, to a large degree, it’s a lot of bullshit, but I do find solace in actively imagining myself living the life I’d like and I do see the benefit of creating vision boards. Those kinds of things keep you focused and alert to possibilities around you. If I’m going to play devil’s advocate in this paragraph, maybe these entertainers are willing their own success into existence, but at what cost? Anyone who is in their community looks at the bio and rolls their eyes, possibly even speaking out against them to potential clients. It’s better to nurture the community as a whole rather than lifting yourself above people who might be in a position to support you or offer you opportunities later on.
What are your thoughts on this?
