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It makes me uncomfortable how people have adopted corporate language when talking about themselves on the internet. You are not a corporation or a persona. You are a whole person.
You don't have a "brand" – you have passions and interests. You don't "create content" – you share thoughts, words, ideas, knowledge, and a whole galaxy of other things.
There are plenty of people out there who want to categorise you and put you in a box. Don't help them to do this.
You're so much more than that. 
See, I wanna make things that I like. I don't wanna make things to earn metrics I don't care about.
@Roxxie_Riot
Which is exactly the way it should be, amiright?
@InvaderXan
I agree, but I know so many illustrators who have opted for a branded persona and output, because its what makes them big bucks. Creatively they're holding themselves back, but I also can't pretend its not something I think about doing a lot, just moneybags. (Though, I also lack the attention span to not just draw whatever I want to)
@InvaderXan I definitely have a presentation which is not exclusively my passions and interests and thoughts nor is it the whole of them; it's a carefully curated collection of postings and interactions designed to depict a version of me that I feel good about and that I think people will enjoy.
"Brand" is a pretty concise metaphor for that.
@kelbesque
IMO “persona” or “alter ego” are better ones, unless you’re trying to sell something.
@InvaderXan neither of those accurately captures that what I'm projecting is meant to exude a particular image that I want associated with me. 
@kelbesque
That’s literally what both of those things mean though.
@InvaderXan they're certainly not in common usage with that connotation.
@kelbesque
I think you'll find most journalists would disagree with you on this. And then correct you that "brand" refers to something manufactured with the intent to sell something.
But if you really like corporate language, then please yourself, I guess.
@InvaderXan It used to be that the Internet was a place for the curation of your interests and self-expression un-tied to popularity.
What's happened is the erosion of barriers between the IRL self and the online self as well as the boundary between leisure, recreation, self-edification and the workplace.
@Brightlady_Lise
That’s what the internet really should be IMO. It’s certainly how I still try to use it.
I think perhaps what happened is subtler though. At some point the focus shifted from expression and curation, and started to be more about getting reactions and attention. In a small step, people’s self worth on the internet became tied not to what they were saying, but to who was listening.
@InvaderXan Might have to do with the ease of making an instant reaction. When you replied to a forum post in the late 90's/early 2000s, you had to go through the many steps of loading into another webpage, formatting, and sometimes running it by moderation. You didn't really respond unless you had something more substantial than just liking what someone said.
Early internet didn't really have follower counts or profiles. You had tags and page hit counts more than follower numbers or amount of "likes"
@Brightlady_Lise
Oh, there were still follower counts. Livejournal had those decades ago. The big difference seems to be likes. Suddenly, as well as a list of people who were watching, everyone had a set of numbers determining the “popularity” of every single thing they did...
@InvaderXan Are you familiar with the term "Detournement" by the avant garde art/radical left group the Situationist International? The Situationists believed that it was useful to take the terminology of capitalism and use it against capitalism, to subvert marketing images and capitalist claims on space and attention. I don't always know if I agree with that strategy's utility, and certainly there are people here who aren't doing that, just succumbing to pressure. But it's an interesting possibility, no?
@MordecaiPinhas
I’m not familiar with it, no. An interesting possibility, certainly. Though I think it seems to run into the same problem as saying shitty things ironically. You’re still saying those shitty things, and not everyone will recognise the irony.
@InvaderXan Yeah, that's where I come down on it most days.
@MordecaiPinhas
Understandably so.
@InvaderXan This is something that really bothers me in the contemporary art community. We're all so used to using this language in funding applications etc that we habitually frame our own practice in those terms even in informal situations.
@tobinalex
I guess that’s a trouble when you have to spend too much of your life applying for funding. 
I can sympathise, honestly.
@InvaderXan
I like the optics of your spin! 
@heeks
If you’re literally building a brand (i.e. the face of your own business) then that’s understandable. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about random people using those things to describe themselves and who they are.
I for one am too magnificent to be put into a box.