Column | Face of the moment: when every single minute is spent in self-promotion and personal brand building

Hello readers. Due to unforeseen technical reasons, namely, I forgot to send my column in time to the newspaper, I was unable to partake in our usual japes last fortnight. Please excuse this tardiness. It will not happen again. I think.

I hope all of you were able to cope with my absence somehow.

So, onwards and upwards.

These last few days, I have been reminded of an unforgettable incident from my childhood. This story goes back some 35 years. When I temporarily relocated to Kerala from Abu Dhabi, I spent those two years in a school near Irinjalakuda. Have you been there? Very handsome place.

Once every few months, a photographer would visit the school. And we would all assemble in various formations for official photographs. You know the drill. Class photo. House photo. Class monitor photo. Karate club photo. NCC photo. Scouts photo. Photography club photo. Et cetera.

The first time I was part of this jamboree, I noticed that one of my teachers posed in every photo in a particular way. For the sake of anonymity, let us call him Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Johnson would pose normally like everyone else. And then just before the camera clicked, he would move his left arm up and hold his chin as if he was deep in thought. And then he did it again. And then again. I noticed this. But thought no more of it.

Then a few months later, during another photography session, he did it again. So I asked some of the other students.

“Oh you don’t know?” they asked in surprise.

“No!” I said. “Please explain. I am deeply intrigued.”

“Please don’t use words like ‘intrigued’ just because you are an NRI.”

“Never again. Please accept my penitence,” I said.

Then they took me to one of the corridors in the school and showed me a row of photographs along the wall. “Look at Mr. Johnson. What do you see?”

In every single photo, he was standing in exactly the same way. Like a Steve Jobs of the Malabar.

“He is showing off his watch,” they said. “He has a brother in the Gulf who sends him new watches.”

Turns out, dear readers, that Mr. Johnson’s greatest passion in life was getting photographed with his watch collection. Every time a camera passed within 10 metres of his body, he immediately found a way to shove his arm into the photo.

A few weeks ago, I was reminded of dear old Mr. Johnson. Not once, but over and over again.

So there I was on X (formerly Twitter), keeping abreast of the latest updates from the most mentally stable people in the world, when suddenly I saw a long post by someone. They were analysing latest developments in the field of India’s Goods and Service Tax. And accompanying the analysis was a picture of someone dressed in impeccable formal clothing standing in front of a window and looking into the distance.

Was that someone the Prime Minister? No. The Finance Minister? No. Anybody involved with GST? No.

It was a picture of the author himself.

There was no need for this photo whatsoever.

Then a few days later, I was on LinkedIn, once again consuming updates from absolutely normal people, when I saw a very long and heartfelt post about the ongoing inhumanity in Gaza. And attached to this post was a photo of the author sitting at her desk in the office intensely typing something into her computer. There was a cup of coffee at her elbow. The photo was clearly taken by a professional.

Once again, there was absolutely no need for this photo whatsoever. This is an extremely irritating trend. And we need a word for it. I call this tendency: boretrait.

Example sentence: “Amrita’s heartfelt LinkedIn post about unemployment statistics was completely undermined by her ‘boretrait’ showing her enigmatically flipping through a copy of Plato’s Republic while sipping a Matcha latte.”

Friends, I am afraid many people are no longer capable of doing anything without including a boretrait. Every single minute of every single day must be spent in self-promotion and personal brand building. Not even the abandoned multitudes of Palestine will be spared.