It’s not that I begrudge people wanting to create and curate their brands online, but rather the ambiguity around “is this account representing a person or their brand?” Maybe it’s just autism, but to me someone curating a personal brand is not a person seeking personal connections, but rather a business seeking contacts and opportunities.

I tend to have very different rules for a business trying to get my attention vs. a person looking to contribute to online discourse. Maybe by disclosing that I’ve got rules for interactions may underscore the “yep, autistic” part of my brain. What I mean is that I’ve no problem being brusque to those who want a piece of my time for their own interests, but I’m here for connection with people, not to be a member of an audience while someone’s flogging their wares. I have rules for that because I don’t like being rude to anyone, but in transactions one needs to protect oneself against people who would weaponize that tendency.

I’m just mostly uninterested in engaging with personal brands which is usually the same as large accounts with personality cults. Oddly, I don’t have issues with interacting with actual brands, because the expectations are clear: this is not meant to be a person but rather a business. If “corporations are people” is annoying, so too is “this person is a brand/business.”