By Alex Morgan
“Your social footprint is the new portfolio,” says Dr. Imani Lee, a digital sociology professor at NYU. “For creative and knowledge workers, a blank social profile is almost as suspicious as a scandalous one. It suggests either a lack of curiosity or a lack of digital literacy. Both are career killers in 2025.” But there is a darker side to this symbiosis. The pressure to perform online is creating a new kind of professional exhaustion: Identity fatigue . OnlyFans.2023.Disciples.Of.Desire.Ariana.Van.X....
Consider Mark, a high school history teacher in Texas. He had a popular TikTok where he reviewed punk rock albums. It was harmless. But a parent found a video where he used the word “hell” in a song lyric review. The parent complained to the school board that he was “promoting Satanic imagery.” Mark wasn’t fired, but he was put on a performance improvement plan. He deleted his entire account. By Alex Morgan “Your social footprint is the
Meet Chloe Zhao (no relation to the director). Two years ago, she was a junior project manager at a logistics firm, bored out of her mind. On her lunch breaks, she started making sarcastic, hyper-edited videos about “corporate girlie life”—the tyranny of the ‘as per my last email,’ the existential dread of the beige cubicle, the art of looking busy. It suggests either a lack of curiosity or