#love when characters are messy and hypocritical and self contradicting

[wlwaerith]

i may be alone here but i kind of like the datamined halsin and minthara ultimatum dialogue. i completely understand why that’s an unpopular opinion though, do not get me wrong. but i like the knee-jerk anger/defensiveness reaction, because i do feel it makes sense (even if it makes him look hypocritical, but i also really love when characters are hypocritical and self-contradicting) considering minthara’s role in what could have been the grove’s slaughter. back on the subject of hypocrisy, it also highlights bias; kagha is punished, yes, but it feels like a slap on the wrist compared to what he wants you to allow minthara to subject herself to. but i think it shows how, even though halsin tries to do right by everyone, it’s so much easier for him to cast judgement in anger & defensiveness on someone that he doesn’t know than someone he does, both of whom posed a massive threat to his grove.

[ddarker-dreams]

Lock, what DO you love and like so much about Dostoevsky's work? I don't think you've ever talked about that. Please, I want to know !!!

^o^

(christianity mention jump scare below proceed with caution)

i thought this would be an easy to answer but figuring out how to put my feelings into words proved difficult .

the beginning is always a good place to start, so let's go with that. by chance, i happened upon this video on youtube and gave it a watch. about halfway in i decided i had to read notes from underground for myself. i struggled to understand what the narrator was trying to get across. the unique writing style, where the reader is addressed directly, as if in challenge, helped me preserve.

i think part of what makes his work special to me is his depiction of people. and they really do feel like people more than characters, even if some of their characteristics are unique to the era dostoevsky wrote in. everything else about them transcends time. i can see myself in some of them. whether it be the titular idiot, prince myshkin in his naivety; alyosha, who goes from devout to doubting; and ivan, whose bitterness toward religion masks his disappointment at the state of the world. 

that's why the brothers karamazov touched me in particular. for some context, i grew up in a christian household and was heavily involved in the church (american northeast white baptist strand of church). around when i was 11 or so, the introduction of left-wing politics through social media had me undergo a looooong identity crisis. these new ideas felt at odds with what i'd spent my entire life believing. what i grappled with the most relates to ivan's anecdote, the grand inquisitor, where the goodness of god is called into question. the bitterness, the disappointment from crushed expectations, all those sensations resonated strongly with me. reading it as an adult who (supposedly) 'healed' from that time period in my life was like opening pandora's box. i'd never seen my thoughts and struggles so accurately described, or treated with more than a 'his ways are higher than our ways' type platitude. i stuffed these concerns of mine away because they only ever served to make me feel worse.

i won't delve deep into the Depressing Lore. the only reason i mention it is to stress how profound an impact the work had on me. throughout the remainder of TBK (and in most of dostoevsky's discography), the best and worst of humanity is shown. our hypocritical nature, capacity for evil; nothing is shied away from or made more palatable. and yet, throughout it all, our potential for good is shown too. whether it be in the little acts or monumental self-sacrifice. sometimes those acts are honored, or ‘worth it,’ sometimes they aren’t. it’s cheesy but whatever i’ll say it — choosing to love and serve others is my greatest joy. i don’t really need a definitive answer to those problems i struggled with. that’s the takeaway i’ve had from his work. it might not seem like a big deal, but not feeling guilty for having certain doubts or anxious over those doubts never fully being resolved was. very significant for me. and healing (for real this time). 

so that’s the sentimental perspective GJSDLKFJS from my writer’s perspective, i can only describe him as brilliant. his grasp on the human psyche is incredible. he can accurately describe so many emotions, worldviews, and give the context necessary for each one to feel organic and real. it’s vivid, too, in a way i can’t properly get across. everyone’s unfiltered and messy. characters contradict themselves in the same sentence. they’ll murmur, go off on tangents, tell stories, misquote the bible (or many other significant works), and just be overall disasters. aka how people actually are. 

the man’s also funny as hell. the protagonist from crime and punishment has a mental breakdown spanning multiple pages over a sock. yes, there’s context, but that’s still the gist of things. then there’s the issue of the hedgehog in the idiot. hedgehog drama. 

ultimately, his work is so very human. there’s commentary on issues that are prevalent to this day, multiple centuries later. the topics he touches on tend to align with what i care about most. whether i agree or disagree with what i’m reading, there’s always something i glean from it. something meaningful that sits with me long after i close the book. i’ll mull over it and bother people in my vicinity until they mull over it too. no one is safe. whether it be a co-worker or my dad who drives noticeably faster to reach our destination and be free of my many questions.

i could keep going but this ended up being long enough GJSKDF i hope at least something here makes sense?>?? i apologize for the incoherent ramblings. it's what the dude does to me.

[positivelybeastly]

Hi, new here, but very interested in what you've got going on-- I don't know a lot of active X-Men readers I can discuss things with, let alone any who are actually interested in Beast, so I wanted to ask, how do you feel about the writing for him over the last decade, taking into account the awkward situation X-Men as a whole has been in over that time (Schism+) but particularly, I suppose, how his character's been treated from then through Krakoa, and this "fresh start" we've got with From the Ashes not having memory of... really this entire time period highlighted?

Hello there, welcome! Hope you enjoy the experience, because it's liable to be a rambly one.

So . . . man, this is gonna be a long one, because I actually have to dial it back a little further and talk about Beast on Utopia if I'm going to talk about Schism and everything that came after.

I don't like Matt Fraction's X-Men run. Aside from the Greg Land art, which is an obvious problem, I'm not massively in love with what I kind of end up reading as a justification for black ops kill teams and militant, isolationist statehood, to say nothing of just. Poor pacing and messy storytelling and a lot of really confused storylines that just feel weird and jarring and full of really strange character choices.

I think that Fraction did mean for his run to be more critical, that when you read Hank and Scott arguing about preserving the soul of the X-Men vs. saving mutant lives, you're meant to come away conflicted, but I think that Fraction's Hank just kinda sucks and that he comes across as very whiney and self-centred.

Like, in the end, I don't think that a lot of what Cyclops did in this era, a lot of morally repugnant shit, actually really cost him anything, because history validated him and he was elevated to whatever the big general position was on Krakoa.

It wasn't a great feeling to see the guy who literally, textually abandoned members of his teams to torture, used bioweapons as a first resort, and basically told a kid to just kill people to solve the problem, have all of his actions be whitewashed and ignored post-Schism.

Like, Bendis' Uncanny and All-New act like the only bad thing Scott ever did was kill Charles Xavier while under the influence of the Phoenix, and I'm just over here like, nnnnnno he did a lot of bad things before that, very much in his right mind, and he never paid for any of that. He got to be the black ops kill team leader and the saintly revolutionary, and I don't think that the narrative really interrogated that contradiction all that much, it was just #CyclopsWasRight.

With that context . . .

I don't have a problem with Hank being a conscientious objector and leaving the X-Men. He's done it before, and I think he was right to do it, and it fits his character.

That being said, he was then pushed straight on to the Secret Avengers, which was, while not a kill team, very much a black ops, deniable operations organisation with team members who did kill people, and while I like some of the stories from his time with the Secret Avengers, overall, I think it was an intensely stupid move that made him look like a massive hypocrite and damaged his credibility, making it look less like he was taking a moral stand and more like he just didn't like Scott.

Which is a bad thing!!! Hank loves Scott! They've been best friends since fucking forever! Not only do you damage Hank's character by doing that, but you also reduce what was a moral conflict with nuance and dimension down to petty bullshit! It's a disservice to both characters! God!! It frustrates me SO MUCH when this conflict is boiled down to that!

God forbid that these characters actually stand for something and have actual intellectual, moral problems with one another that they can have compelling conversations about, why not let's just make them petty assholes who snipe at each other for drama?

You can do this conflict and make it good! It's possible! I promise!

This is what Schism should have really been about! And Hank was, at least before the dumb move to push him to the Secret Avengers, a character with moral legitimacy who could have made Schism work! I think there's a lot of mileage to the idea that Wolverine has progressed to the point where he wants to protect people from violence, where he wants to save kids from being turned into weapons like he was, but that's a personal motivation, and it's really, really, really hard for him to have the moral high ground.

But, in the end, Wolverine sells comics, not Beast, so Wolverine became the figurehead of the less militant side of the X-Men comics. Fine. Okay, we'll deal with it.

Wolverine and the X-Men is . . . good. It has problems, but on the whole, I like it more than a lot of what came after. I especially like Jason Aaron's moves to keep Hank and Abigail together, as well as fold Broo into a growing family unit. That's a good progression for his character, and it makes sense.

Then there's Avengers vs. X-Men, and it's. Like. Garbage, but. Whatever. I do appreciate that Hank is at least occasionally in character during it.

But then we come to All-New X-Men, and I just . . . ughhhhh.

UGHHHHHHH.

I hate it, man. I hate it. I hate Bendis' bullshit garbage characterisation of Hank McCoy, and I hold it directly responsible for everything that came after it, because it functionally replaced his prior characterisation.

Hank is a character obsessed with consequences in the 00s, he's obsessed with making the right choice, he's already learned that there's only so much that he can do to fix the world. Endangered Species (which I think is an amazing Hank story) shows us that Hank will only go so far, and that, honestly, in the grand scheme of things, he will stop himself.

And then Bendis was just like, well, fuck all that bullshit, Hank blew up the space-time continuum because he doesn't like Scott Summers.

And I hate it.

It would be one thing, if Bendis were actually interested in Hank as a character, if he was willing to examine his character and his choices and his reasons and his personality, but he isn't. He flits in and out of All-New as and when required, to be castigated for a decision made while he was dying, depressed, and dealing with multiple brain aneurysms. Ostensibly, we're meant to buy that Xavier's death was the tipping point, but we don't even see Hank react to it. It's not considered important.

Hank's grief, Hank's isolation, Hank's horror, all of it is just ignored.

There's no real emotional dimension here, there's no 'what is Beast thinking, why is he doing this, let's have him talk with characters that are his friends and try to work out where he's at mentally,' because Bendis doesn't care. "Why is Beast like this? He just is. He's just a morally hypocritical asshole who judges other people and does things without thinking." He just makes Hank look like a goddamn lunatic, and it all culminates in this.

I just. I fucking hate this issue, man. It's a long, excruciating character assassination that casually wrecks Hank's long running relationship with Abigail Brand, torches his legitimacy as an intellectual or moral individual, and portrays him as a sad, lonely old man who might as well just leave because no-one actually wants him around. It's fucking galling.

Hank just straight up would not wreck the space-time continuum to teach Scott Summers a lesson. He just wouldn't. I fundamentally reject the premise. I reject it just as much as I reject the shitty attempts to make Hank/Jean Grey a pairing.

I reject the idea that Hank is a loose cannon with no regard for rules or others, who just believes in his own moral authority and says fuck everyone else, I do what I want. That is NOT who he is, and I really do just have to wonder what everyone was smoking that no-one looked at this and went, wait, when did Hank change into this? Everyone just accepted it.

It really does just feel like people got tired of Hank complaining on Utopia, so when it came time to pile on the blame for all the problems that happened after it, no-one really cared when it all became Hank's fault. No-one was willing to point out that Bendis' characterisation of Hank doesn't make sense.

Does Hank hate Scott? Why? "He's going to cause a mutant genocide" = based on what? "He killed Charles Xavier" = under the influence of a cosmic force. I don't understand these characterisation choices. Hank knows Scott better than this.

Bendis just. Does not like Hank McCoy. I really can't come up with another explanation for why he went out of his way to do two bumper issues, All-New X-Men #25 and Uncanny X-Men #600, that are just a round robin of everyone telling him that they hate him and that he sucks and he should go die.

There are glimmers of better characterisation during this period.

Jonathan Hickman's New Avengers is - complex, and you'll often hear people gesture to that as the point at which Hank became full on amoral, but I reject that hypothesis entirely. It's a conclusion come to by people who haven't actually read it.

Hank spends most of that series being wracked with guilt, trying desperately to find another way to solve the problem that doesn't involve blowing up planets, and refusing to take a life. Which tracks with Hickman's characterisation of Beast.

"Broken him." Implying that it's not his natural state, and that there are other factors are at play. This is important to keep in mind.

For most of this time period, Hank is in a very rocky state. He's not quite with the X-Men, he's not quite with the Avengers, he's got a reputation for being a chronic screw-up, people regard him as unstable, and yet they'll still call on him to fix their problems for them.

Like, the amount of times that the X-Men call on him to help them, despite the fact that he left after their failed, garbage intervention, and he still goes back to them, is just so very tiring. Either the X-Men should stop relying on someone that they seem not to like or trust, or Hank should stop going back to a 'family' that seems not to value him or have his best intentions in mind. The halfway house they settle into is just weird and inconsistent.

Like, which is it? Do you guys actually want him around or not? Because you're kind of being massive assholes to a guy who primarily wants to help. And we're meant to be knee deep in his turn towards moral ambiguity by now, but he's still just kinda being a good dude!

Anyone who tells you that Beast's moral downfall has been a consistent slide since Threnody is a fraud, because there is nothing consistent about this period of history for Beast.

If these panels show you anything, it's that there are two Beasts running around - a guy who makes problems for other people to solve because he's an idiot, and actual Beast, who occasionally makes mistakes, but who has pure intentions, a good heart, a joke at the ready, and he's fundamentally a nice person. It's getting to be impossible to tell which one is going to turn up to your story.

The only really good writing comes in fits and spurts, and usually when he's under the care of a writer who seems to have some affection for him. Especially if Simon Williams is around.

Whenever I write this version of Hank, his tag is getting by, because it feels like his life is just perpetually on the skids and there's no real rhyme or reason as to why. He just oscillates between two extremes as and when the story wants him to be an asshole or not. Even he seems confused as to what's going on.

And then we get to Krakoa, and . . .

It's just fundamentally not the same character. It's not even the same as Dark Beast, it's just Mr. Sinister in blue fur with less jokes. Benjamin Percy just expects you to accept that Hank woke up one day and was like, y'know what? I think killing countries is fine, actually. I want to head up an intelligence agency. I should cut off Wolverine's head. Maybe torture some innocent aliens for fun.

Why?

Eh, he's just evil.

Why are you bothering to question it?

And people don't question it, because Hank is a horrible hypocrite who will do anything that falls within his narrow view of morally acceptable actions, and he's an awful person who people barely tolerate being around.

Except. He isn't that. Or is he? Because Bendis said he was like that. And as everyone knows, Bendis is the true arbiter of characterisation and continuity. Just ask a fan of Wanda Maximoff, and they'll tell you how happy they are with his definitive version of the character.

Like, I just don't buy it. Not for one bit. You can't make this character this and pass a spot check. The only reason people are fine with it is because they never particularly cared for Beast to begin with, and so this new, more 'interesting' characterisation is better. It's 'truer.' Meanwhile, people who actually have been following the character for years remember when other X-Men were saying stuff like this.

Which is it? Has every single nice thing an X-Man said about Hank McCoy been a horrible, hilariously off base misjudgement, or is Benjamin Percy a hack who can't write? Iunno, man. Jury's out.

And then we come to From the Ashes, which is . . . a little too early, to make a judgement? I'm tentatively optimistic, now that we have a Beast who isn't just. The worst. I don't love the fact that he's missing 40 years of memories, even if the storytelling opportunities of such a character beat are interesting.

I'm also on the fence about this.

Idk, I'm hoping that it'll be born out by the rest of the issue, and that Hank's characterisation here makes more sense with context, but I don't love the idea of bringing back the single most heroic version of Hank McCoy that ever existed, then side-jumping him straight into a redux of the Legacy Virus 'I can't leave the lab/I have to make moral compromises' storyline from the 90s.

I have faith in Jed MacKay, and I'm willing to give it a shot, but I'm just so used to being disappointed by Marvel and X-Men by this point.

To come back to how I feel about it all? This isn't what I would have wanted for Hank. Not even close. Bendis threw out everything I liked about Hank back in 2013, and it set us down a path that has even a hint of Hank being anything less than perfect seeing comments sections explode, saying that he's well on his way to becoming evil again.

His name is dirt in the fandom, and the reason it isn't considered more of a problem is because he never had that big of a fan base to begin with, which is mostly a result of the fact that he's not a character who gets big flashy 'I'm so cool' moments - he's a character whose storylines are often sad, morose, dark, and unhappy. People like Beast, but they won't generally go to bat for him.

The revisionist history bugs me, a lot. No, he wasn't always evil, and no, it's not been a consistent slide to villainy ever since 1993. He's just as liable to be written badly as any other character, and frankly, I think he's been a victim of it a lot more than a lot of other characters during the same time period, but whereas other characters will have that bad writing forgiven by both fandom and the writers (Emma Frost), it just. Hangs, over Hank's head, like Damocles' sword.

It's been disheartening, honestly. I left the fandom in 2015, after Bendis' runs, because I just didn't want to deal with it anymore, and when I came back a year ago, I found out it had only gotten worse. Everyone else got to enjoy Krakoa, with its big mutant pride storylines and their stories of redemption and deepening bonds and political machinations, and my character got stuck in the shitty black ops corner, acting like a James Bond villain with none of the charm. It really didn't make me feel welcome.

If it hadn't been for a good few other fans who have stuck by me since then, I probably would have left the fandom again, and while things are looking up a bit more now, I don't know if I'm ever quite going to be at a point where I'm not jaded, expecting another heel turn from Marvel.

It sucks, because Hank has always meant a lot to me. He's a character about ethical science, about body dysmorphia, about mental illness, about triumph through adversity, about second chances, about maturity, about nuance and conflict and complexity, and he just got bulldozed into being the war crimes guy.

I got invited to join an O5 X-Men Reddit the other day, and the only posts that even mentioned him both were like 'lol war crimes lol Beast killed someone,' and it just made me think, why in god's name would I want to be part of that?

Like, I have stuff to contribute. I have a lot of thoughts about Hank, and his friendships and relationships and his meaning as a character, stuff that people often haven't considered because they don't think about Beast as deeply as I do, stuff that could elevate and deepen people's enjoyment of stories they've read a hundred times before - and I just.

Why would I share it? Why would I go into a space where I don't feel welcome? Why would I share my thoughts on the deeper meaning of Hank's tendency towards performance and how it changes over 60 years of comic books, when I know that the first comment is gonna be some variation of 'lol war crimes'?

It'd be one thing if the story we got was any good, then I could at least say it was worth it, but it wasn't. That's the thing that bugs me the most. The story of Hank's heel turn could have been amazing, but the lack of care and thought to consistency extended so far that even his villain turn was bad. We sacrificed this

for this.

And it's just a straight up downgrade. There's none of what Hickman or Morrison talked about being the point or the appeal of Beast. There's no sweet man, there's no heart, there's no humanity. It's just edgy. It's just the ends justifies the means, and that's it. That's the final thesis. There's nothing more to it than that. It's just so. Simple. Undercooked, really. It feels like a disservice to the complex character that Hank McCoy is meant to be.

Final thoughts? Uh. It mostly all kinda sucks, go buy a copy of S.W.O.R.D volume 1 instead, it's really good.

[lcsbicarchive]

[ kaya scodelario, twenty-seven, cis female, she/her ] ━ hey, I just saw [ hazel mendes ] walking down the streets of crownsville. they’ve lived in town for [ a year ], and you can catch them around town working as a [ tattoo artist ]. I hear they’re known to be [ kind-hearted & courageous ] and [ secretive & hypocritical ]. if asked, they would say their aesthetic would be [ coffee stains, sea salty hair, intricate dotwork tattoos, restless hands, smudged eyeliner, lipstick on a plastic fork, paint ridden fingertips, whispered secrets, and beaming smiles ]

i’m jujubee, i like long walks on the beach, bi--- maybe not. hi hello, i’m meg ( she/her ) i dwell in the good ol’ gmt, and i’m not great with introducing myself, but i am gonna admit that i’m typing this up way in advance because i’m excited, so hopefully something decent comes out of it ! but i’mma get to talking about miss gayzel, since she’s probably the more interesting between the two of us, and definitely the more relevant, so introduction to my favourite messy goblin in three,,,two,,,, fun,,, [ edit: yO i so i typed this up a while back bc ya girl got excited, but i just reread it and i have nO idea how helpful it is but i’m currently running around with my head on fire BUT I WANTED TO GET MY INTRO UP ANYWAY AND MEET Y’ALL so tldr: i might edit this later but hi hello nice to meetcha i’ll be on properly in a bit ! ]

honestly when it comes to hazel, i legit always have to no idea where to begin. but she’s an old ass muse for me, and tbh i know her like the back of my hand because of it, and if i can be a honest a lil sappy, i just want a nice rp home to settle in and i’m hoping crownsville will be that for me !

so although hazel has only been in crownsville for a year, georgia is actually her home ! she grew up in atlanta, but moved to new york when she was nineteen after a rough year, and she really just needed a fresh start and to start getting her life together. 

and she was in new york between the ages of nineteen and twenty five ( well, technically twenty six, since she literally turned twenty six a week after moving ) and in those years hazel trained to be and later became a fully qualified tattoo artist ( specialising in dotwork ! ) at a well respected tattoo parlour in ny, called permanent record. in the years she worked there, the original pr began to slowly expand, opening three other shops around the country, and when her boss started talking about opening a fifth, it kinda came at the right time for hazel specifically. 

her last boyfriend ( and i mean last boyfriend; hazel may still be in the closet, but moving from ny to crownsville was the ending point of her burying the bullshit, and she’s fully accepted her flaming lesbianism ) was a fucking garbage can of a human being, so after that relationship finally ended she was kind of looking for an excuse to leave, and lowkey looking for an excuse to go home, the latter partly being because there are parts of herself that are kinda,, missing ? that she lost due to shit going down, and she’d quite like them back ? she doesn’t wanna completely be her old self, because she’s changed a lot for the better, but there are some aspects she’d quite like back. however, moving back to atlanta wouldn’t exactly be the best thing for her, but she would’ve if that’s where her work lead her. which brings me to: her boss kinda casually said that if he opened up another branch somewhere, he’d kinda want someone he knew and trusted to keep an eye on it, so without really thinking, hearing he was thinking of georgia, hazel kinda jumped at the chance and offered to do it.

so that’s how hazel lowkey got promoted whoops. she doesn’t see it that she’s managing pr5, but that’s basically what she’s doing. the deal was, hazel would just be the eyes and ears for Big Boss, as he couldn’t be in two places at once, all while doing her actual job. she’ll deny being the manager/anybody’s boss, but she’s w r o n g. she’s just kinda casual about it. despite her definitely wanting to move anyway but not yet seriously considering it, and the fact she didn’t hate the idea of returning to georgia, she’ll still say she’s back ‘for work’ because,, she’s a goblin. 

but honestly she fucking loves her job, and she owes a lot to her job and to her boss. she’s also living in the apartment above the shop amen god bless

as far as her personality goes, hazel’s a mess of contradictions. she’s kinda had a life that would make it understandable if she were,,,, ruder, i guess ? or just.....bitter ? she’s not exactly the happiest of people, but i think after having a rather eventful life that getting a lil sadness as well as a pretty messy personality is nothing to complain about, since it could be far worse. but she’s a good person ! or, she tries to be. she’s working on it. she’s kind and she’s good but she’s got a repertoire of mistakes in her back pocket that she’s still dealing with, and she thinks stop her from being the good person she’s trying to be. a rather important note and something to keep in mind is that she tends to give off like,,, generally chaotic vibes a lot of the time ? like if you’re meeting her somewhere she’ll arrive late and slightly out of breath, or she can just seem a little flustered, or like her mind’s kinda elsewhere, or like she’s stressed/hassled/has too much to do and not enough time to do it in even if she’s actually doing okay, or if you need a pen she’s sure she has one but by the time she’s emptied her bag and found the pen, you could’ve walked to the shop, bought your own, picked up a milkshake, got a donkey ride, paid for a kid who didn’t have enough money to have their own donkey ride, had a walk in the woods, saved a woman from being mugged by a guy with his finger in his hoodie pocket, walked back, realise you don’t have the pen, can’t remember where you left it, went back to the shop and bought a new pen, and gotten back to her.

but in good news !! she’s a kind person, so plotting is made easier by that ! she’s pretty smiley on a good day, chatty, good with people, and just,, pretty good at the person aspect of her job as well as the actual ,,, Job part of her job. speaking of plotting, i generally kinda tend to suck at it, but i try my best and i make up for my lack of ideas with enthusiasm ! plus i’m always open to whatever ideas y’all may have, but to make our lives easier, i have a little plotties page here ! 

uhhhhh random things bout gayzel: legit thinks piano man it the best song ever written ( closely followed by barracuda,,, ) she’s one of those heathens that likes pineapple on pizza, she has pet fishies called ernie and bert and she cannot tell them apart, loves back to the future but also loves singin in the rain because girlie is your least favourite thespian lesbian, and she’s currently got the cute lil like,, Almost Ombre hair that kaya had in like 2014 or w/e ?? see above for reference sake, and i’m p sure there’s a reference linked in her stats too, which can be found here ! but tldr: the ends are just a lil lighter and it’s cute.

she also has a full ass like 6k word bio but tbh, it’s old, and i’m really not happy with the way it’s written, and despite the fact i never actually finished it, i want to rewrite it, so we’ll consider her current one a placeholder lol. disclaimer: hazel’s general story and background is a little trigger heavy, but obviously everything will be tagged, and her biography has warnings on it, and also says when the warnings have passed so you can keep reading if you wanna. 

okaY so if you got this far, you’re some sort of Wizard whom i greatly appreciate ! as i mentioned, i’m really bad with plotting and ims tend to make me anxious as heckery but if you give this post a lil LIKE i’ll swim into your ims nonetheless in hopefully the least awkward way i can possibly manage, but i’m also just up for having characters interact and see if there’s anything that comes to mind and stuff, but i’m excited to meet your cherubs ! general heads up: i apologise for any typos in this post and in future threads; i proofread everything to hell and back but my brain fuckin hates me so that usually means nOTHING but pls,,, just bear with me, i try my darn best !

[lucyariablog]

Is Your Brand Really Who It Says It Is?

According to the famous 1993 New Yorker cartoon, “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Are any of us – brands and individuals alike – really who we say we are? Welcome to the quagmire that is authenticity in social media. Watch your step. It’s a minefield!

“Authenticity” has become one of those marketing buzzwords I love to hate, particularly when discussing social media marketing. Sure, authenticity inspires trust, and brands need to be trusted if their marketing is to be effective. But I do take a perverse pleasure in watching marketers tie themselves in knots trying to explain how authenticity is to be achieved.

I’ve read a number of articles arguing that authenticity must be at the heart of any marketing strategy… while also insisting authenticity isn’t about being strategic. Or that authenticity is not necessarily about being honest or transparent… but is absolutely about being genuine.

My favorite contradiction is that authenticity in marketing is about being more spontaneous, the clear opposite of calculated or strategic thinking. The moment you “plan” to be “spontaneous” is the moment the English language finally snaps under the weight of all that cognitive dissonance and retires to a remote island to reflect on where it all went so terribly wrong.

All of these discussions are really about how to appear authentic – how to create an artificial authenticity, if you will. (English language: “That’s it, I’m outta here!”)

To be truly authentic, your brand – and the people within it – would carry on without regard for whether its actions and messages are aligned with some stakeholder-approved, market-tested brand ideal. There would be no filter, no self-monitoring. Your social media team members would say what they really think, responding in the moment, instead of representing the brand’s more tempered, structured, and commercially sensitive views.

Of course, that’s impossible. It’s our job as marketers to guide perceptions, control the message, and create the best possible impression. So our approach to authenticity must sit somewhere between the genuine and the artificial, and that means first acknowledging the contradiction we’re struggling to resolve.

Strategy or no strategy, all social media is artifice and spin. I don’t just mean marketers and brands either. Every single one of us behaves inauthentically online.

Strategy or no strategy, all #socialmedia is artifice and spin, says @kimota. Click To Tweet

The curated self

“What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out?” said Alfred Hitchcock to The Observer in 1960. Today, the same could be said of social media, as it allows us to conveniently omit and keep private the dull or less flattering bits of our own lives so that our friends and followers only get to see a more dramatic, more sensational, more preferable version of us. From the news stories and opinions we share, to the photos we make public, we choose exactly what the world will see of us and what will be kept private.

Sometimes it can be quite intimidating to scroll through my feeds and see all of these smart, hardworking, talented, fit, and extremely photogenic people leading lives that always seem far more interesting and gosh-darned successful than my own.

When Terry proudly shares his beautifully presented dinner, with the obligatory glass of red held up just in shot and accompanied by a smug “bon appétit,” I’m forced to look down at my beans on toast and glass of milk, and berate myself for not making more of a culinary effort. When Angela shares her new personal best time from the morning run with stats uploaded from her Fitbit, she puts my daily fitness routine of walking to the mailbox to shame.

Yet we never get to see the chaos in Terry’s kitchen, including the three failed attempts to get that soufflé to rise, nor do we see Angela’s afternoon chocolate binge that undid all of her hard work.

(FYI: Terry and Angela are fictional but – be honest – we all know Terry and Angela.)

Of course they don’t share these other moments with us. Reality would completely undermine the impression they want to make. Just like brands, we all indulge in a bit of positive PR and reputation enhancement while concealing the duller, uglier, or less socially acceptable sides of ourselves.

Does that mean everyone in social media is a hypocrite? Well, yes, quite literally so. The word hypocrite is derived from the Ancient Greek for actor, “hypokrites,” from a time when all plays were performed with masks to conceal the true face behind that of the character. Increasingly used metaphorically – to imply someone is wearing a figurative mask that contradicts his or her genuine beliefs or actions – the word eventually gained its modern and more negative connotation.

Everyone in #socialmedia is quite literally a hypocrite, says @kimota. Click To Tweet

You might be uncomfortable with the thought of being a social media hypocrite (pesky Greeks). Maybe you prefer to think of your activities in social media as merely a persona, much more in keeping with current marketing terminology. Yet the etymology of “persona” also dates back to classical times – this time from the Latin for, you guessed it, a mask designed to conceal your real self while presenting a fictional character to an audience.

As Shakespeare later might have tweeted if he had but a smartphone and a reliable connection: “All the internet’s a stage, and all the men and women merely avatars.”

Fake it ’til you make it?

Since the arrival of social media, brands and organizations have (often begrudgingly) realized that their behavior is far more public and far more scrutinized than they would like or even acknowledge. That’s not to say their customers and the wider community weren’t always watching how a brand might behave and forming opinions, but the almost instantaneous feedback provided by social media – as well as the 24-hour news cycle – holds up an unforgiving mirror, making it much harder for brands to ignore or rationalize away how they are perceived.

Social media brings brands face to face (tweet to tweet?) with real people, not abstract viewer ratings or subscription numbers. And this has made marketers acutely aware of just how inauthentic brands can be. In the early days of social media marketing this was particularly true. Many brands entered new social environments like a guy wearing a tuxedo to a beach barbecue.

#Socialmedia brings brands face to face w/ real people, says @kimota. Click To Tweet

A brand also operates as a mask, designed to present a consistent and carefully constructed public face while concealing the complex and often messy workings underneath. Behind this mask there is usually another – an agency or marketing department operating to a pre-planned strategy. Strip that away and there are still more people underneath, each with their own curated persona.

Each person who contributes to this brand persona is first masquerading as his or her public self, then as an employee, then an agency, then as the brand. In an agency, this may mean switching brand masks many times a day. And each of these layers of persona comes with a different set of rules, different values, opinions, even language. The real people become buried and the result can be a public persona that feels more robotic – more contrived and less human.

No wonder “authenticity” became a thing.

Unfortunately, some marketers try to solve this problem by placing another mask on top: scripted authenticity.

In Australia, Airbnb and bank Westpac were widely ridiculed in 2015 for attempting some brand-on-brand banter. No one bought it. It didn’t read as spontaneous, natural and fun, and was almost universally criticized as brands pretending to be spontaneous with an obviously scripted exchange.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Social Media Mistakes: What Brands Should Do to Avoid Epic Fails

Unmasked!

You can’t create authenticity just like you can’t create darkness. Darkness is the absence of light; it only exists when you switch off the lamp or block out any other light source. Similarly, authenticity is only possible in the absence of the calculated or fake. So, instead of planning how to be more authentic, brands should switch off or block out as much of the inauthentic as possible.

Use fewer scripted responses, and trust the team to have the expertise to answer appropriately and naturally. People want to believe the person giving them the advice isn’t just parroting a set of pre-approved responses that might not always fit the individual situation. Your social media team isn’t a chatbot.

Use fewer scripted responses in #socialmedia. Trust team to answer appropriately & naturally, says @kimota. Click To Tweet

Simplify rules and guidelines so that employees don’t feel straightjacketed. Yes, this requires more trust, but social media is one of a brand’s best opportunities to demonstrate it is a business of individuals – while also highlighting their shared values and passions. They should be your advocates, not just your mouthpiece.

Stop overthinking things like tone of voice. Too often language becomes so formal and corporatized that the brand is detached from how your customers and employees really speak. Don’t be afraid of conversational language; ditch the jargon and allow a more human personality to emerge.

Don’t be afraid of conversational language; ditch jargon & allow more human personality to emerge. @kimota Click To Tweet

And if you can, remove or simplify some of the masks or personas that may be getting between you and the audience. Instead of an outsourced social media team, which may be less able to reflect what it’s like to be a part of your business because of its reliance on policy and strategy docs, work with your agency or marketing department to find ways to give a voice to more people from within the brand.

You won’t be able to eliminate or block out all of the inauthenticity. No one can. But it is possible to reduce and simplify the various masks until your brand’s public persona begins to resemble more closely the reality underneath.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Do You Operate in a Social Media Bubble? 3 Questions to Ask

A version of this article originally appeared in the June issue of Chief Content Officer. Sign up to receive your free subscription to our bimonthly, print magazine.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Is Your Brand Really Who It Says It Is? appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

from http://contentmarketinginstitute.com/2017/06/brand-who-says-it-is/

[hotspreadpage]

Is Your Brand Really Who It Says It Is?

According to the famous 1993 New Yorker cartoon, “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Are any of us – brands and individuals alike – really who we say we are? Welcome to the quagmire that is authenticity in social media. Watch your step. It’s a minefield!

“Authenticity” has become one of those marketing buzzwords I love to hate, particularly when discussing social media marketing. Sure, authenticity inspires trust, and brands need to be trusted if their marketing is to be effective. But I do take a perverse pleasure in watching marketers tie themselves in knots trying to explain how authenticity is to be achieved.

I’ve read a number of articles arguing that authenticity must be at the heart of any marketing strategy… while also insisting authenticity isn’t about being strategic. Or that authenticity is not necessarily about being honest or transparent… but is absolutely about being genuine.

My favorite contradiction is that authenticity in marketing is about being more spontaneous, the clear opposite of calculated or strategic thinking. The moment you “plan” to be “spontaneous” is the moment the English language finally snaps under the weight of all that cognitive dissonance and retires to a remote island to reflect on where it all went so terribly wrong.

All of these discussions are really about how to appear authentic – how to create an artificial authenticity, if you will. (English language: “That’s it, I’m outta here!”)

To be truly authentic, your brand – and the people within it – would carry on without regard for whether its actions and messages are aligned with some stakeholder-approved, market-tested brand ideal. There would be no filter, no self-monitoring. Your social media team members would say what they really think, responding in the moment, instead of representing the brand’s more tempered, structured, and commercially sensitive views.

Of course, that’s impossible. It’s our job as marketers to guide perceptions, control the message, and create the best possible impression. So our approach to authenticity must sit somewhere between the genuine and the artificial, and that means first acknowledging the contradiction we’re struggling to resolve.

Strategy or no strategy, all social media is artifice and spin. I don’t just mean marketers and brands either. Every single one of us behaves inauthentically online.

Strategy or no strategy, all #socialmedia is artifice and spin, says @kimota. Click To Tweet

The curated self

“What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out?” said Alfred Hitchcock to The Observer in 1960. Today, the same could be said of social media, as it allows us to conveniently omit and keep private the dull or less flattering bits of our own lives so that our friends and followers only get to see a more dramatic, more sensational, more preferable version of us. From the news stories and opinions we share, to the photos we make public, we choose exactly what the world will see of us and what will be kept private.

Sometimes it can be quite intimidating to scroll through my feeds and see all of these smart, hardworking, talented, fit, and extremely photogenic people leading lives that always seem far more interesting and gosh-darned successful than my own.

When Terry proudly shares his beautifully presented dinner, with the obligatory glass of red held up just in shot and accompanied by a smug “bon appétit,” I’m forced to look down at my beans on toast and glass of milk, and berate myself for not making more of a culinary effort. When Angela shares her new personal best time from the morning run with stats uploaded from her Fitbit, she puts my daily fitness routine of walking to the mailbox to shame.

Yet we never get to see the chaos in Terry’s kitchen, including the three failed attempts to get that soufflé to rise, nor do we see Angela’s afternoon chocolate binge that undid all of her hard work.

(FYI: Terry and Angela are fictional but – be honest – we all know Terry and Angela.)

Of course they don’t share these other moments with us. Reality would completely undermine the impression they want to make. Just like brands, we all indulge in a bit of positive PR and reputation enhancement while concealing the duller, uglier, or less socially acceptable sides of ourselves.

Does that mean everyone in social media is a hypocrite? Well, yes, quite literally so. The word hypocrite is derived from the Ancient Greek for actor, “hypokrites,” from a time when all plays were performed with masks to conceal the true face behind that of the character. Increasingly used metaphorically – to imply someone is wearing a figurative mask that contradicts his or her genuine beliefs or actions – the word eventually gained its modern and more negative connotation.

Everyone in #socialmedia is quite literally a hypocrite, says @kimota. Click To Tweet

You might be uncomfortable with the thought of being a social media hypocrite (pesky Greeks). Maybe you prefer to think of your activities in social media as merely a persona, much more in keeping with current marketing terminology. Yet the etymology of “persona” also dates back to classical times – this time from the Latin for, you guessed it, a mask designed to conceal your real self while presenting a fictional character to an audience.

As Shakespeare later might have tweeted if he had but a smartphone and a reliable connection: “All the internet’s a stage, and all the men and women merely avatars.”

Fake it ’til you make it?

Since the arrival of social media, brands and organizations have (often begrudgingly) realized that their behavior is far more public and far more scrutinized than they would like or even acknowledge. That’s not to say their customers and the wider community weren’t always watching how a brand might behave and forming opinions, but the almost instantaneous feedback provided by social media – as well as the 24-hour news cycle – holds up an unforgiving mirror, making it much harder for brands to ignore or rationalize away how they are perceived.

Social media brings brands face to face (tweet to tweet?) with real people, not abstract viewer ratings or subscription numbers. And this has made marketers acutely aware of just how inauthentic brands can be. In the early days of social media marketing this was particularly true. Many brands entered new social environments like a guy wearing a tuxedo to a beach barbecue.

#Socialmedia brings brands face to face w/ real people, says @kimota. Click To Tweet

A brand also operates as a mask, designed to present a consistent and carefully constructed public face while concealing the complex and often messy workings underneath. Behind this mask there is usually another – an agency or marketing department operating to a pre-planned strategy. Strip that away and there are still more people underneath, each with their own curated persona.

Each person who contributes to this brand persona is first masquerading as his or her public self, then as an employee, then an agency, then as the brand. In an agency, this may mean switching brand masks many times a day. And each of these layers of persona comes with a different set of rules, different values, opinions, even language. The real people become buried and the result can be a public persona that feels more robotic – more contrived and less human.

No wonder “authenticity” became a thing.

Unfortunately, some marketers try to solve this problem by placing another mask on top: scripted authenticity.

In Australia, Airbnb and bank Westpac were widely ridiculed in 2015 for attempting some brand-on-brand banter. No one bought it. It didn’t read as spontaneous, natural and fun, and was almost universally criticized as brands pretending to be spontaneous with an obviously scripted exchange.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Social Media Mistakes: What Brands Should Do to Avoid Epic Fails

Unmasked!

You can’t create authenticity just like you can’t create darkness. Darkness is the absence of light; it only exists when you switch off the lamp or block out any other light source. Similarly, authenticity is only possible in the absence of the calculated or fake. So, instead of planning how to be more authentic, brands should switch off or block out as much of the inauthentic as possible.

Use fewer scripted responses, and trust the team to have the expertise to answer appropriately and naturally. People want to believe the person giving them the advice isn’t just parroting a set of pre-approved responses that might not always fit the individual situation. Your social media team isn’t a chatbot.

Use fewer scripted responses in #socialmedia. Trust team to answer appropriately & naturally, says @kimota. Click To Tweet

Simplify rules and guidelines so that employees don’t feel straightjacketed. Yes, this requires more trust, but social media is one of a brand’s best opportunities to demonstrate it is a business of individuals – while also highlighting their shared values and passions. They should be your advocates, not just your mouthpiece.

Stop overthinking things like tone of voice. Too often language becomes so formal and corporatized that the brand is detached from how your customers and employees really speak. Don’t be afraid of conversational language; ditch the jargon and allow a more human personality to emerge.

Don’t be afraid of conversational language; ditch jargon & allow more human personality to emerge. @kimota Click To Tweet

And if you can, remove or simplify some of the masks or personas that may be getting between you and the audience. Instead of an outsourced social media team, which may be less able to reflect what it’s like to be a part of your business because of its reliance on policy and strategy docs, work with your agency or marketing department to find ways to give a voice to more people from within the brand.

You won’t be able to eliminate or block out all of the inauthenticity. No one can. But it is possible to reduce and simplify the various masks until your brand’s public persona begins to resemble more closely the reality underneath.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Do You Operate in a Social Media Bubble? 3 Questions to Ask

A version of this article originally appeared in the June issue of Chief Content Officer. Sign up to receive your free subscription to our bimonthly, print magazine.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Is Your Brand Really Who It Says It Is? appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.

Is Your Brand Really Who It Says It Is? syndicated from http://ift.tt/2maPRjm

[gabrielcollignon]

Is Your Brand Really Who It Says It Is?

Is Your Brand Really Who It Says It Is?

According to the famous 1993 New Yorker cartoon, “On the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.” Are any of us – brands and individuals alike – really who we say we are? Welcome to the quagmire that is authenticity in social media. Watch your step. It’s a minefield!

“Authenticity” has become one of those marketing buzzwords I love to hate, particularly when discussing social media marketing. Sure, authenticity inspires trust, and brands need to be trusted if their marketing is to be effective. But I do take a perverse pleasure in watching marketers tie themselves in knots trying to explain how authenticity is to be achieved.

I’ve read a number of articles arguing that authenticity must be at the heart of any marketing strategy… while also insisting authenticity isn’t about being strategic. Or that authenticity is not necessarily about being honest or transparent… but is absolutely about being genuine.

My favorite contradiction is that authenticity in marketing is about being more spontaneous, the clear opposite of calculated or strategic thinking. The moment you “plan” to be “spontaneous” is the moment the English language finally snaps under the weight of all that cognitive dissonance and retires to a remote island to reflect on where it all went so terribly wrong.

All of these discussions are really about how to appear authentic – how to create an artificial authenticity, if you will. (English language: “That’s it, I’m outta here!”)

To be truly authentic, your brand – and the people within it – would carry on without regard for whether its actions and messages are aligned with some stakeholder-approved, market-tested brand ideal. There would be no filter, no self-monitoring. Your social media team members would say what they really think, responding in the moment, instead of representing the brand’s more tempered, structured, and commercially sensitive views.

Of course, that’s impossible. It’s our job as marketers to guide perceptions, control the message, and create the best possible impression. So our approach to authenticity must sit somewhere between the genuine and the artificial, and that means first acknowledging the contradiction we’re struggling to resolve.

Strategy or no strategy, all social media is artifice and spin. I don’t just mean marketers and brands either. Every single one of us behaves inauthentically online.

Strategy or no strategy, all #socialmedia is artifice and spin, says @kimota. Click To Tweet

The curated self

“What is drama but life with the dull bits cut out?” said Alfred Hitchcock to The Observer in 1960. Today, the same could be said of social media, as it allows us to conveniently omit and keep private the dull or less flattering bits of our own lives so that our friends and followers only get to see a more dramatic, more sensational, more preferable version of us. From the news stories and opinions we share, to the photos we make public, we choose exactly what the world will see of us and what will be kept private.

Sometimes it can be quite intimidating to scroll through my feeds and see all of these smart, hardworking, talented, fit, and extremely photogenic people leading lives that always seem far more interesting and gosh-darned successful than my own.

When Terry proudly shares his beautifully presented dinner, with the obligatory glass of red held up just in shot and accompanied by a smug “bon appétit,” I’m forced to look down at my beans on toast and glass of milk, and berate myself for not making more of a culinary effort. When Angela shares her new personal best time from the morning run with stats uploaded from her Fitbit, she puts my daily fitness routine of walking to the mailbox to shame.

Yet we never get to see the chaos in Terry’s kitchen, including the three failed attempts to get that soufflé to rise, nor do we see Angela’s afternoon chocolate binge that undid all of her hard work.

(FYI: Terry and Angela are fictional but – be honest – we all know Terry and Angela.)

Of course they don’t share these other moments with us. Reality would completely undermine the impression they want to make. Just like brands, we all indulge in a bit of positive PR and reputation enhancement while concealing the duller, uglier, or less socially acceptable sides of ourselves.

Does that mean everyone in social media is a hypocrite? Well, yes, quite literally so. The word hypocrite is derived from the Ancient Greek for actor, “hypokrites,” from a time when all plays were performed with masks to conceal the true face behind that of the character. Increasingly used metaphorically – to imply someone is wearing a figurative mask that contradicts his or her genuine beliefs or actions – the word eventually gained its modern and more negative connotation.

Everyone in #socialmedia is quite literally a hypocrite, says @kimota. Click To Tweet

You might be uncomfortable with the thought of being a social media hypocrite (pesky Greeks). Maybe you prefer to think of your activities in social media as merely a persona, much more in keeping with current marketing terminology. Yet the etymology of “persona” also dates back to classical times – this time from the Latin for, you guessed it, a mask designed to conceal your real self while presenting a fictional character to an audience.

As Shakespeare later might have tweeted if he had but a smartphone and a reliable connection: “All the internet’s a stage, and all the men and women merely avatars.”

Fake it ’til you make it?

Since the arrival of social media, brands and organizations have (often begrudgingly) realized that their behavior is far more public and far more scrutinized than they would like or even acknowledge. That’s not to say their customers and the wider community weren’t always watching how a brand might behave and forming opinions, but the almost instantaneous feedback provided by social media – as well as the 24-hour news cycle – holds up an unforgiving mirror, making it much harder for brands to ignore or rationalize away how they are perceived.

Social media brings brands face to face (tweet to tweet?) with real people, not abstract viewer ratings or subscription numbers. And this has made marketers acutely aware of just how inauthentic brands can be. In the early days of social media marketing this was particularly true. Many brands entered new social environments like a guy wearing a tuxedo to a beach barbecue.

#Socialmedia brings brands face to face w/ real people, says @kimota. Click To Tweet

A brand also operates as a mask, designed to present a consistent and carefully constructed public face while concealing the complex and often messy workings underneath. Behind this mask there is usually another – an agency or marketing department operating to a pre-planned strategy. Strip that away and there are still more people underneath, each with their own curated persona.

Each person who contributes to this brand persona is first masquerading as his or her public self, then as an employee, then an agency, then as the brand. In an agency, this may mean switching brand masks many times a day. And each of these layers of persona comes with a different set of rules, different values, opinions, even language. The real people become buried and the result can be a public persona that feels more robotic – more contrived and less human.

No wonder “authenticity” became a thing.

Unfortunately, some marketers try to solve this problem by placing another mask on top: scripted authenticity.

In Australia, Airbnb and bank Westpac were widely ridiculed in 2015 for attempting some brand-on-brand banter. No one bought it. It didn’t read as spontaneous, natural and fun, and was almost universally criticized as brands pretending to be spontaneous with an obviously scripted exchange.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Social Media Mistakes: What Brands Should Do to Avoid Epic Fails

Unmasked!

You can’t create authenticity just like you can’t create darkness. Darkness is the absence of light; it only exists when you switch off the lamp or block out any other light source. Similarly, authenticity is only possible in the absence of the calculated or fake. So, instead of planning how to be more authentic, brands should switch off or block out as much of the inauthentic as possible.

Use fewer scripted responses, and trust the team to have the expertise to answer appropriately and naturally. People want to believe the person giving them the advice isn’t just parroting a set of pre-approved responses that might not always fit the individual situation. Your social media team isn’t a chatbot.

Use fewer scripted responses in #socialmedia. Trust team to answer appropriately & naturally, says @kimota. Click To Tweet

Simplify rules and guidelines so that employees don’t feel straightjacketed. Yes, this requires more trust, but social media is one of a brand’s best opportunities to demonstrate it is a business of individuals – while also highlighting their shared values and passions. They should be your advocates, not just your mouthpiece.

Stop overthinking things like tone of voice. Too often language becomes so formal and corporatized that the brand is detached from how your customers and employees really speak. Don’t be afraid of conversational language; ditch the jargon and allow a more human personality to emerge.

Don’t be afraid of conversational language; ditch jargon & allow more human personality to emerge. @kimota Click To Tweet

And if you can, remove or simplify some of the masks or personas that may be getting between you and the audience. Instead of an outsourced social media team, which may be less able to reflect what it’s like to be a part of your business because of its reliance on policy and strategy docs, work with your agency or marketing department to find ways to give a voice to more people from within the brand.

You won’t be able to eliminate or block out all of the inauthenticity. No one can. But it is possible to reduce and simplify the various masks until your brand’s public persona begins to resemble more closely the reality underneath.

HANDPICKED RELATED CONTENT: Do You Operate in a Social Media Bubble? 3 Questions to Ask

A version of this article originally appeared in the June issue of Chief Content Officer. Sign up to receive your free subscription to our bimonthly, print magazine.

Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

The post Is Your Brand Really Who It Says It Is? appeared first on Content Marketing Institute.