Status

CAN BE CORRUPTED BY THE DESIRE FOR SOCIAL STATUS

In 2011, within a span of only a few months, I wrote a men’s dating book extolling the virtues of vulnerability. Then Brene Brown released a viral TED talk about vulnerability. Both unexpectedly became very popular… okay, her TED talk and books became waaaayy more popular than mine.

The message preached by us and others took root: vulnerability is not a form of weakness; in fact, it’s a demonstration of strength.

Vulnerability, as it was defined back then, was the unconditional display of one’s thoughts and feelings—the complete and total willingness to be shot down and rejected. At the beginning of the decade, this became a rally cry for greater emotional health and more authentic experiences with the world in general. It was a great message. And I was proud to be one of the many standing behind it.

Then, as Gary Vaynerchuk likes to say, marketers ruin everything.

It didn’t take long for television shows and social media influencers to deploy “vulnerability” as an engagement tactic. Cry a little here. Smear the makeup there. Move the lighting here. Now say something really emotional about your fears and anxieties of never feeling understood or accepted. Good. Perfect. Aaaanndd… Cut!

Today, vulnerability is borderline cliche. It’s like when a politician, unprompted, launches into a story about how her father was a janitor or something—it’s supposed to be relatable and emotional but you can tell that they practiced it about 500 times in front of focus groups and advisors to get the delivery just right.

That is… not vulnerability. It looks like vulnerability. It smells like vulnerability. But vulnerability, it is not.

It’s a corrupt and disingenuous form of vulnerability. It’s saying, “Here are the somewhat embarrassing or endearing facts about me, but my intentions are totally calculated and designed to elicit empathy.”

Which is pretty much the total opposite of real vulnerability.

It just goes to show that anything that can be demonstrated to improve one’s status within a culture can be co-opted and corrupted by those who will do anything for status.

In other words: humans suck.