A short video of a teacher in class pops up on my TikTok feed. Centred in the horizontal frame, with a whiteboard behind her, she answers students’ questions, corrects their mistakes and explains basic English grammar. She is funny and charismatic, and she responds playfully to her class of probably primary school pupils, who seem more interested in her than in what she teaches. Over the following weeks, her videos pop up more frequently. They are more edited scenes from her class: teaching, games, activities and mini-interviews with students. I swipe left and look at her profile. She is by no means an unknown teacher; her account has 2 million followers, which puts her in the category of mega-influencers.

This level of appeal strikes me as odd because teaching is not a glamorous endeavour. But the phenomenon is real, and her example serves as a testament to the possibility of making it big. This possibility hovers over all of us ordinary professionals across the spectrum of occupations that we call white- and blue-collar, who post scenes from their working lives. Does that mean that online visibility is a de facto requirement of a modern CV?

I am not convinced that this is the case. For most people, such success is not realistically attainable, and furthering a career may not even be their motivation. A deeper change has taken place, one that speaks to what our societies recognise as a life worth living: a life that is made visible to others. What we do for a living is a defining part of who we are and how we live, and this is why it can dominate our online self-presentation.

Expressing oneself

Not every professional who begins to systematically document and share their working day does so with the intention of monetising it or getting brand deals. A recent study shows that while such professional reasons might be present, people also want to express themselves in a distinctive way and contribute something that they think is valuable to others.

Dr Vaios Papanagnou

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Why do we put our working lives on display?