Phantasmagoric labor: The new economics of self-presentation

We are entering an economy based not on information, but on image. The result is a phantasmagoric capitalism in which labor performers gain value on markets through their work of self-presentation. After tracing the evolution of labor performance through the romantic and modernist styles, this article contends that performers now intentionally compose their persona for the market, and do so through methods learned from the celebrity world. The language of iconography, the discipline that investigates the meanings of images, reveals the methods through which persona is composed, these being personification, attribute and allegory. By contrast to literature on the postmodern self, the article concludes that this phantasmagoric style of self-presentation does not entail a fracturing of self. Rather, aspirants to economic success must have a stronger and more determined sense of self than ever before, since they must strategically adapt persona to meet market demand.