Selling ourselves to death

In a Pew Research study released in January 2023, a majority of U.S. parents stated that seeing their child off into a stable, good-paying career they found personally fulfilling was their ultimate priority. Either in helping kids snag a diploma from an elite college or maybe even a trade school, ensuring that they could one day manage to generate enough wealth to live on continues to stand as the primary indication of an American upbringing well done.

But as the actual economic value of a college degree becomes more of a middle-class fantasy than a reality, and as blue-collar work might lack adequate luster, the current generation is looking into other professional ways to pay the bills. The solution for many is the one thing at present nobody can take from them: selling themselves.

Content creation on social media platforms is at an all-time high. The “creator economy” is currently valued at $250 billion, with projections that it will be almost double that by 2027. When the COVID-19 pandemic had most of us glued to our smartphones, creators managed to fill the void left by embodied relationships and interactions (Or, at the very least, they tried.) What stuck with everyone was the possibility that they too could find monetary liberation from clock-driven drudgery in taking up the mantle of influencing, although many are already finding that being a content creator makes many demands of its own.

Time quickly revealed that funny videos and tech reviews were never the endgame. Sex continues to sell, and it apparently sells even better when an individual is part of the product. With OnlyFans, those who would otherwise be committed to the rat race can set it all aside for the chance of far better profit margins. The downside? Merely the total commodification of their bodies and personalities. Plenty of top performers on the platform do not seem to mind; Shayna Loren, a Boston University student, recently articulated how on paper it makes total sense in her mind to take topless photos of herself for her subscribers since her college tuition is now completely paid for thanks to their dutiful patronage. With the OnlyFans-ification of the good life, everything simply falls into place if you become willing to stop caring about what others think in exchange for putting yourself first.

This metaphysical closed-mindedness thrives according to a worldview completely taken up with only what is “under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Should the grind be all that there is, there is little reason to put it and its accompanying earthly pleasures on the backburner and blame those such as Ms. Loren for their financial savvy. If all is truly vanity, it would be foolish to try and act otherwise.

A forced severing from the holy vocation of being human is what devilishly beckons us towards selling ourselves to death. In a 2009 lecture, former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams proposed a radically Christian perspective concerning humanity’s place in creation: “The biblical vision does not present us with a humanity isolated from the processes of life overall in the cosmos, a humanity whose existence is of a different moral and symbolic order from everything else. … T​​he Christian story lays out a model of reconnection with an alienated world: It tells us of a material human life inhabited by God and raised transfigured from death; of a sharing of material food which makes us sharers in eternal life; of a community whose life together seeks to express within creation the care of the creator.”

Against a totalizing gospel of self-determination, the Scriptures invite human beings to inhabit the world as those divinely fashioned to contribute to its welfare, not exploit it for the sake of unfettered self-actualization. Isolation from the deep yearnings of our spiritual affections spells nothing but burnout.

The proper worth of our work finds its basis in a properly Godward estimation of who we really are in the sight of our Creator. Expressive individualism prescribes ceaseless production and consumption so that we might have greater access to the sum total of individual experiences material existence has to offer. Yet when we recognize that we can reflect in ourselves an eternal order meant to be displayed through our efforts no matter how ordinary, our own humanity becomes anything but expendable. From our bodies to our sense of self, a divine economy for life and labor maintains the harmony our hearts must have in order to experience peace. It is good in itself that we exist.

For various reasons, plenty will find their calling as social media influencers or as online creators, rightly motivated by an aspiration to uphold the good rather than mere individual profit. An identity grounded in a God who determines our steps before we take them will prevent us from seeking to become our own false Messiahs.