As my last entry makes clear, I’m a huge fan of Gary Vaynerchuk. Over at his vlog, a recent episode focuses on pigeonholing and identity—in G.V.’s case, how strange people find it that he is a Wine Guy as well as a Tech Guy. Gary says that we, as a society, feel that people “need to be one dimensional, [. . .] one trick ponies.” I take issue with this idea. We proceed as though most people have one specialty, because that’s what most interactions call for.
The better people know each other, the more robust their understanding of each other becomes—but it is never complete. So while people who only know Gary V. as an internet wine celebrity will be surprised by his active role in the web world, his friends (and even attentive fans) will expect it. This isn’t a fault on the part of those who have only a casual knowledge of Gary. It’s how identity works.
Identity is performative1. It is also interactive. What this means, briefly, is that there is no essential self that transcends the world around us. Our selves are defined by the actions we take, the things we say and think, -and- the way that people perceive and interact with those actions, words, and thoughts. This is not necessarily a conscious or controllable phenomenon: identity has as much to do with cultural indoctrination and others’ perceptions as it does with what we choose.
We adopt and create roles for ourselves (and others). Because we cannot see entirely into someone’s head—because we can’t understand every aspect of another human being—any interaction between two persons is necessarily defined by roles. If Gary V.’s perceived role is “that wine guy,” then that is the only role Gary has believably performed. He has yet to build a rapport with casual observers that, for lack of a better term, confirms his credibility in other fields.
This is simple enough—I’m not sure that I’m giving anyone new information here. As I mention earlier, the more we interact with each other, the more nuanced our roles become. Our close friends know us not merely as ‘the poststructuralist’ or ‘the art guy,’ they know that our interests and specialties extend beyond single-phrase definitions.
Friends are also better able to accept deviations from expected roles. The broader their understanding of each other, the easier it is to construct identity narratives. Being able to trace connections between the various pigeonholes a person occupies makes understanding the wider role easier. For instance, knowing that your friend who works as a mechanic comes from a family of musicians makes it understandable that he is also an accomplished classical pianist. Those who only know him as the guy who fixes their brakes, though, would be more shocked: there is no obvious connection between the role of mechanic and the role of musician. Connecting those two pigeonholes requires creating a narrative—either the family connection, tying ‘working with your hands’ and ‘mathematical complexity’ together, or something similar.
Identity narratives build up the credibility I mentioned earlier. In business, it may be necessary for someone who works, like Gary, in the wine industry to go out of his way to prove that he is also proficient in and knowledgeable about technology. He needs to establish his identity as a “tech guy” as well as a “wine guy,” and may even need to work extra hard to tie those together to make him “the tech and wine guy.”
Fans, though, understand implicitly that G.V. is firmly grounded in these fields and more: his fame comes from Wine Library T.V., a video podcast. Of course he understands technology—his vidcast has built a community on Pownce, Twitter, Facebook, and Gary’s own social site, Cork’d. There’s no stretch involved in connecting Gary to Web 2.0: it’s an integral part of his identity, and an integral part of how his fans interact with him. Gary Vaynerchuk’s fans are privy to a complex identity narrative—Gary is never shy about talking about his background, his family, his interests, or his businesses.
Understanding the idea of identity narratives makes it easier to be seen as capable in various fields. While many people are too quick to assume that others are only good at one thing, or have one specialty, it isn’t their responsibility to assume that others are multi-talented. Creating a rapport in multiple arenas is the responsibility of the individual. If one can connect one specialty with another, or make it clear why they occupy numerous roles, then they can control their public identity to a much finer degree. Finer, that is, than by assuming others will just trust that one can be multi-capable. No one is assuming you’re a one-trick pony, but until you show them the other skills you in your repertoire, they won’t assume you’re not, either.
End Notes
1. I take this idea from Judith Butler and her book Gender Trouble. In it, she says that gender is performative—here, I expand her sexual identity theory out to identity in general.
Bibliography and Citations
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. 1990. New York, NY: Routledge Classics, 2006.
Genghis Philip
Gordon Levine
That identity is performative and interactive probably has a lot to do with something I’ve heard from a few people over the years: that it’s easier to understand someone when you first meet than when you’ve known each other for awhile. People actually become someone else after you pass the superficial-relationship stage with them. Their interactive identity multiplies. They’re still themselves — but they are, literally, not what they were.
That’s a really good point. The ‘blank slate’ of first meetings brings very few assumptions to the table, and leaves a lot of room for the narrative to be laid out.
In my personal experience, that would explain why friendships I think are going to take off sometimes don’t; staying up all night chatting about life can only really happen once, and then it’s a matter of tweaking that established role instead of constructing a new idea of someone outright.