self-promotion
promoting other people is the same as promoting yourself, except that when you are promoting yourself you have more information, you know exactly what it is you are promoting
if i promote salman rushdie and salman rushdie promotes tao lin we are both promoted, but less effectively if we had promoted ourselves, yet we are both viewed as 'good' people (or less 'disgusting' people) for promoting others and not ourselves
here is what promotion is
wanting more power and influence and money for _____
if i get more power and influence and money i'm going to use it for things that i think are 'good'
if you feel bad about promoting yourself you either have an error in thinking (you think not with facts but by received ideas and peer pressure) or you should begin to exist less and do the opposite of promoting yourself, if you want to not be a contradiction
if you feel shame or disgust at self-promotion that means you either aren't able to view yourself without preconception, as just a 'tool,' or you are ashamed and feel guilty of your own existence, of what you do with the power, influence, and money that you already have
you are a body that can be used to influence other bodies and the world
someone like dave eggers who believes that he is doing good things in the world would be more effective (in terms of doing good things in the world) if he promoted himself constantly, i think he realizes that
for dave eggers to promote himself is the same as for dave eggers to promote independent venues and charity for africa and free tutoring to students, since he himself is an independent venue and charity for africa and free tutoring to students
he is detached, free of 'peer pressure,' or 'societal taboos'
he is able to use himself, as if he were using anything, in order to accomplish things
if you are a completely existential writer and live existentially, as if everything was arbitrary, then you could honestly and un-contradictingly say that self-promotion is bad (though you would never say it, since that would render your worldview not 'everything is arbitrary')
but no one lives as if everything is arbitary, if you are walking and a car comes at you and you walk backwards to avoid being hit then you are not living as if everything is arbitrary
not promoting yourself is only 'in line' with your philosophy if you are 'insane'
if you make choices each day you can deduce from those choices what your rhetoric or philosophy is; anyone who uses value words like 'good' 'dumbass,' etc. has rhetoric; also anyone who makes choices that have to do with other people, which is everyone except really insane people
only people without rhetoric, only 'really insane people,' could 'do what they say' by not promoting themselves
self-promotion is a form of 'existing' (if you are not 'killing yourself,' or are not doing things that are in service of decreasing your life span, then you are promoting yourself, to some degree) to stop promoting oneself due to 'societal rules,' 'peer pressure,' or things like that is like anything else influenced by 'peer pressure'
it means your action aren't based on concrete reality
most people are okay with that, i think
i don't know, i just typed all this
there are many other things to consider about self-promotion that i didn't include here
if i promote salman rushdie and salman rushdie promotes tao lin we are both promoted, but less effectively if we had promoted ourselves, yet we are both viewed as 'good' people (or less 'disgusting' people) for promoting others and not ourselves
here is what promotion is
wanting more power and influence and money for _____
if i get more power and influence and money i'm going to use it for things that i think are 'good'
if you feel bad about promoting yourself you either have an error in thinking (you think not with facts but by received ideas and peer pressure) or you should begin to exist less and do the opposite of promoting yourself, if you want to not be a contradiction
if you feel shame or disgust at self-promotion that means you either aren't able to view yourself without preconception, as just a 'tool,' or you are ashamed and feel guilty of your own existence, of what you do with the power, influence, and money that you already have
you are a body that can be used to influence other bodies and the world
someone like dave eggers who believes that he is doing good things in the world would be more effective (in terms of doing good things in the world) if he promoted himself constantly, i think he realizes that
for dave eggers to promote himself is the same as for dave eggers to promote independent venues and charity for africa and free tutoring to students, since he himself is an independent venue and charity for africa and free tutoring to students
he is detached, free of 'peer pressure,' or 'societal taboos'
he is able to use himself, as if he were using anything, in order to accomplish things
if you are a completely existential writer and live existentially, as if everything was arbitrary, then you could honestly and un-contradictingly say that self-promotion is bad (though you would never say it, since that would render your worldview not 'everything is arbitrary')
but no one lives as if everything is arbitary, if you are walking and a car comes at you and you walk backwards to avoid being hit then you are not living as if everything is arbitrary
not promoting yourself is only 'in line' with your philosophy if you are 'insane'
if you make choices each day you can deduce from those choices what your rhetoric or philosophy is; anyone who uses value words like 'good' 'dumbass,' etc. has rhetoric; also anyone who makes choices that have to do with other people, which is everyone except really insane people
only people without rhetoric, only 'really insane people,' could 'do what they say' by not promoting themselves
self-promotion is a form of 'existing' (if you are not 'killing yourself,' or are not doing things that are in service of decreasing your life span, then you are promoting yourself, to some degree) to stop promoting oneself due to 'societal rules,' 'peer pressure,' or things like that is like anything else influenced by 'peer pressure'
it means your action aren't based on concrete reality
most people are okay with that, i think
i don't know, i just typed all this
there are many other things to consider about self-promotion that i didn't include here
14 Comments:
i don't know why you posted this because i am not you but i do think that self promotion is a good thing and maybe the most reliable thing ever and i think you're good at it, that is one of the things i like about your blog
self promotion is like an other action or non-action, which is the act of not-acting. To act or not act is equally absurd.
Self-promotion supports ambition. You have ambition, other people do not have ambition, but you cannot fathom not having ambition, because you have it.
Someone with more influence and power then you would be more effective of a promoter of you, Tao-Lin, if you are really you, than you self-promoting your self and your ambition and your work.
~Frank Sauce
Dave Eggers is a sort of an exception though.
For the most part people, and especially people with a reason to self-promote, are not "independent venues for charity."
I would agree with Frank that self-promotion and ambition are very connected. You may use your power and influence and money to write literature that makes people happy. But donald trump uses his to build high-income housing and give himself a platform to call women ugly.
There is good self-promotion, but i think also something could be said for a person who wishes not to self-promote, because he doubts how much actual good he could or would produce with his power, which i think is an authentic doubt.
ashley, thanks
frank sauce, 'ambition' is meaningless, what does that mean?
i think i was clear when i said that self-promotion is in the service of getting more money, more power, and influence
you are right, if salman rushdie promoted me it would bring me more power than if i promoted me
but salman rushdie would not know exactly what he is promoting
colin bones, you are right, probably most people won't do what you think is 'good' but this post assumes the position of one person
if that one person wants to do what he or she him or herself thinks is good then they should promote themselves
the person who doubts what good it can produce has choices
it will a while for me to list the choices, i think i did it in the other post already
this post doesn't consider whether someone is 'good' or 'not'
it applies to donald trump and gandhi the same
good job
i have no problem self-promoting myself. in fact, i'm doin' it now by postin' on your blog. everyone, look at me.
Just a quick not-so-knot:
I dig your shit, Tao Lin. In fact, I read a bit of it last night at a book release for a friend of mine.
But just to clarify or coagulate for you and myself and perhaps others reading this comments section of your blog: there's nothing wrong nor right about self-promotion or non-self-promotion. It is an act. You brought in Existentialism to this post and I thought I would clarify the Existentialists stance: to revel in the absurd.
Salman Rushdie, if he were promoting you, may not know exactly what he was promoting, but your readership would grow exponetially. If you're goal is more power, money and influence, Salman Rushdie might get you there a lot quicker then you simply promoting yourself and your work, if getting as much power, influence and money as Salman Rushdie is your goal.
Ambition may be meaningless to you, but it is a word and it has several definitions:
am·bi·tion /æmˈbɪʃən/ [am-bish-uhn]
–noun
1. an earnest desire for some type of achievement or distinction, as power, honor, fame, or wealth, and the willingness to strive for its attainment: Too much ambition caused him to be disliked by his colleagues.
2. the object, state, or result desired or sought after: The crown was his ambition.
3. desire for work or activity; energy: I awoke feeling tired and utterly lacking in ambition.
–verb (used with object)
4. to seek after earnestly; aspire to.
[Origin: 1300–50; ME ambicio(u)n (< MF) < L ambitiōn- (s. of ambitiō), equiv. to amb- ambi- + -i- go + -t- ptp. suffix + -iōn- -ion]
The first definition mentions 'power' and 'wealth' and wealth is money and you already stated that you want power and money and we all know that fame begets power and that power can beget money and fame and power and money will bestow influence and the more influence one has the more power they have and the more money they will have, more than likely.
How's that, ambitious Tao Lin?
frank sauce,
your comment is true, about salman rushdie; my post is also true though, it says that salman rushdie if he had the exact same goals with power and money as i do would be more effective promoting himself than promoting me
no wait, my post says that everyone has their own goals, so if i promote someone else i don't know what i'm promoting, if i promote myself i know what i'm promoting
the other things you typed were true also i guess, the post is true also though, they are talking about different things
thank you for reading my writing to people
"but salman rushdie would not know exactly what he is promoting"
neither do you know exactly what you are promoting when you self-promote. if salmon rushdie read tao lin, he might know just as much if not more about your writing than you do. that, to me, is why it is, in fact, interesting and worthwhile to promote other people. we've all had the experience of someone telling us something about our work that's "truer" than what we might have said.
that having been said, I like this post very much and of course the self-promotion is a large part of what's entertaining about your blog, when I read it. and tho your desire to self-promote is of course sincere, it also serves as a useful comment on the whole literary enterprise... both those who refuse to openly self-promote, and those who do openly self-promote but in an unexamined way, or a way that conforms to an orthodoxy of self-promotion.
Also, I wrote a poem about how I'm better than you. oh yeah and I think I wrote the line about deleting a line before I read your poem where you write about deleting lines, but I'm not sure. In any case, I think the important thing is that the line I deleted is better than the line or lines you deleted.
I'm going to link to your post b/c it's something I wanted to say but now I don't have to b/c you've said it well enough. with the time I save, I will wash dishes.
thank you ryan, your salman rushdie thing doesn't make sense though, i'm talking about promoting in real life, not the fiction, like promoting things by way of money, where i spend my money
i read your post and your poem, thank you
yes, I know you're talking about promoting things in real life, but you're talking about promoting your books in real life, no? those are the things. and much of promotion is just people writing reviews about other people, or people blogging about themselves, etc. so there is usually a content/criticism component to promotion. and people can sometimes do more interesting criticism of others than they can of themselves... not always but sometimes. so unless I'm misreading your post, it seems wrong to say that you know exactly what your writing is, and other people do not.
i think i mean promoting my books only as a way to get more money
i know where i will spend my money
the book itself in this post isn't considered, it's just a tool to get more power and influence which are tools to get more money
i hope i answered your question
'not promoting yourself is only 'in line' with your philosophy if you are 'insane''
my philosophy is tolerant of self promotion and non promotion and sanity and insanity and anything written by tao lin
I think feeling disgusted with the necessary act of self-promotion indicates good taste.
People who are always talking about themselves are boring and unattractive. I think most of us can agree on that.
Therefore, since most of us want to be attractive and interesting - to *ourselves* as well as to others - it makes sense that we would not want to be one of those boring assheads yammering on constantly about themselves and their career.
However, we want to get somewhere.
So we self-promote anyway, and we feel a little grossed out about it. Much like we work our crappy 40-hour-a week jobs because we have to, but we feel a little grossed out by it.
And we look forward to quitting.
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