Yesterday, Morning Brew CEO Alex Lieberman released a statement:
“Essay 3. Turn Employees into Creators”
“Every employee at Morning Brew should be a “digital personality” (if they choose).”
Before assessing the implications of Lieberman’s new direction, we can acknowledge the cultural moment within which this proclamation exists. Of course, there’s a reason why Lieberman decided to write this manifesto and why it’s being celebrated. The creator economy is booming. The physical status symbols of yesterday equate to the Twitter presence, Substack newsletter, and Spotify podcast of today.
As Lieberman writes, urging employees to build their online personas “turns a company into its own PR agency” and “It’s an amazing vehicle for recruiting.”
Yet an irony looms large:
In implicitly directing employees to transform into “digital personalities,” he extinguishes the authenticity he clearly longs for in Morning Brew’s marketing efforts.
If employees wanted to be creators, they would be. Now, they’ll be professionally measured by it — whether or not it was in their original job description.
Hidden in wanting to “empower the employee to become a creator” is a reframing of the spaces employees may have cherished as private— places to share personal interests, videos with friends, connections with old relatives. Instead, these spaces are becoming increasingly distorted into vehicles to achieve internal and external professional recognition.
In its most generous interpretation, Lieberman’s memo is an opportunity for employees to share their honest thoughts online and be themselves without fear of repercussion. At worst, it is an exploitation of an employee’s individualized personal identity to maximize public relations and marketing dollars under the guise of self-betterment and personal branding. It is likely neither entirely one nor the other.
We will undoubtedly see this trend continue. Yet strongly encouraging employees to amplify their digital personalities through the lens of their employer conflates three distinct facets of human relationships: professional, personal, and social.
Another irony presents itself:
Modern companies and startups sermonize on work-life balance. Yet when it comes to the most intimate element of it all —personal identity — the lines suddenly blur.
When success is measured by your number of followers
So what then becomes the measure of success for employees at Morning Brew? Will employees with otherwise different job descriptions be promoted for having more followers? For posting more content? For getting more likes and retweets?
What about employees who don’t want an online presence? When was the assumption made that everyone secretly wants to be public in service of their employer?
The “brand-building” Lieberman hails as a personal benefit to employees is anything but personal. In fact, in his words, “Status on social platforms is a new form of professional achievement.”
Up until this point, the decision to become a micro-influencer or more explicitly to use personal accounts for professional gains remained an opt-in side-hustle. Inherent in its name “social media,” platforms seem entirely distinct from the workday. Hence, “views are my own, not that of my [insert employer].
In his memo, Lieberman writes that all employees should be digital personalities and in brief parentheses “(if they choose).” The fleeting “out” signal given is rendered irrelevant by the two paragraphs of three bullet points depicting why it would be significantly beneficial not just to the company but to employees as well.
Alas, some might say it is time to recognize Twitter as a platform for carefully curated authenticity in search of professional validation. They may be right. What then are the social platforms designed for intimate dialogue free of career angst?
