Please Perceive Me

Burned In: A Cattle Brand, a Styrofoam Cup, and a Crisis of Identity

In my one wild and precious life, there are a few inescapable moments that will never fail to conjure deep dread within me. The first is being on the receiving end of a rendition of "Happy Birthday." I’ve learned to tolerate this because it only lasts about ninety seconds and is baked into a ritual that—though excruciating—is about love, acceptance, achievement of another year of survival. So even though thinking of what to do with my hands and face while people serenade me is tough, I swallow this one.

Another is deciding whether or not to hug someone you’ve just met. COVID solved that for a while, but now that we’re “free” (until they trap us again—haha, don’t!!!), everyone I meet barrels into me like a cage-free ape. I’m not low-touch; this is just another situation in which I don’t know what to do with my hands – in this case, when they’re on the other side of you. I prefer when they’re in front, meeting yours briefly in a handshake (or, in some cases, a fist bump… never, ever a high five).

But nothing compares 2 sitting in a circle and doing an icebreaker. For those uninitiated, the icebreakers are meant to be shortcuts to getting to introduce yourself. Being expected to distill myself into something— a fun fact (“I was born in Los Angeles” which holds about as much water as the city cisterns in January 2025—opa!), a quirky habit (this is where Carrie Bradshaw would talk about her “secret single behavior,” which, for her, was eating Saltines standing up or something else that didn’t sound like it needed to be so clandestine, but I digress), or an anecdote with a moral (I’m not short on those, but who has the time?). You are expected to know how to distill your essence and translate it accordingly: I have to choose something that proves I’ve done something, lived somewhere, or made good or interesting choices. You’re expected to know your interests, your aesthetic, your angles, all for the sake of connection. We check the boxes because we need to commune, the only antidote to alienation in this boring dystopia.

These awkward rituals—birthday songs, hugs, icebreakers—reveal something deeper: the pressure to package ourselves into easily digestible identities. I’ve never been good at that. And I’m not totally convinced that we’re meant to be.

Recently, I was told to do some “soul searching” to figure out my personal brand. This came after a meeting with some very well meaning people who do not pretend to be anything other than in the business of selling people. It makes sense—if people are products, you need a tagline. You only get one first impression. One shot at vibe. But I’m not sure it’s as simple as assembling a mood board or selecting your “three words.” Because while you’re hard at work curating a personal brand, the world is busy crafting one for you—without your input.

Every time an ice breaker circle forms, I think of the scene in Legally Blonde when Elle Woods is meeting her classmates at Harvard Law School. She introduces herself and her dog as Gemini vegetarians, lists her credentials (president of her sorority; degree in fashion merchandising) and ends with an anecdote about her dissuading Cameron Diaz from buying a “truly heinous angora sweater.” The gleeful message in this movie is all about how Elle’s bimbo self-presentation does not bely her genius and she ends up being an asset in her criminal defense case. Her external brand contradicts her professional capacity, and her secret weapon is amplified because other people misunderstand her. Her chosen identifiers and codes do transmit something about her, but does it really make her more legible?

I get the appeal. I look for identity cues in others too. But I’ve always struggled with self-definition. I went to a college prep school where the curriculum was essentially a years-long tutorial in personal PR. I wrote my college essay about how I was as unremarkable as a glass of milk. In retrospect, it was either a deeply Zen Alan Watts moment—We Are All One—or a self-pitying cry for help. Probably both.

Meanwhile, my dad has a brand—literally. It’s on his cufflinks, his stationery, even the leather in his car: his initials, shaped as if by cattle brand, which was first printed on stacks of Styrofoam cups gifted to him by his buddies on his birthday. His is the original kind of brand: burned into flesh, denoting ownership, one that someone else designed and granted. He wears it like a badge of legacy. I know that he loves birthday serenades, and I’m sure he fucking kills in an icebreaker circle.

His brand feels permanent. Mine feels evasive, shifting depending on who’s doing the looking. Is this because he’s older, more established, more sure of himself? Is it a product of our generational divide, where the brand was more about legacy, and this is more about performance? In a recent episode of Hacks, Ava, the Zillenial head writer, tries to soften her new writing team with a casual icebreaker: “I’m Ava, and I recently found out I’m allergic to shrimp.” It’s pointless, shallow, an attempt at a relatable, toothless data point. Debra, the older comic, rolls her eyes at the softball approach, but she emphasizes later that she needs the writers to create content that is specific to her as a late night host because that is the key to success: people never talked about the Tonight Show, they talked about Carson, they talked about Letterman. Even though the crux of the show is about the ways in which the older comedian’s methods feel out of touch, Debra certainly understands the value of a brand.

I guess my real hang-ups come from the methodology that one is supposed to use to come up with the brand. Does it really come about from soul searching? Or is it a more comprehensive overlook of how people see you?

Printed on the other side of my dad’s Styrofoam cups is a quote from “Lonesome Dove”: uva uvam vivendo varia fit. Roughly: “a grape changes color by living with other grapes.” Identity, in that sense, isn’t static or self-determined. It’s relational. We evolve by exposure. We become ourselves in situ.

While I agree with that in theory, it’s much messier in practice. So I’ll probably still be here, blanking like a deer in headlights every time someone starts an icebreaker, ad infinitum—hoping someone, somewhere, might still see me, even if I never land on those three perfect words. And maybe, if they do, those will be the ones that stick—the ones that get etched somewhere permanent, like a tombstone. Until then, I’ll keep suffering through those 90 second strains of “Happy Birthday,” unsure of what to do with my hands, just hoping the brand doesn’t hurt too much when it finally lands.

SOME RECS:

-WATCH: The Big Easy (1987) I’ve recently been deep in docs about police corruption (Karen Read, the Gilgo Beach murders) this was a totally unexpected yet refreshing take on the laissez-faire attitude of cops in New Orleans — and it’s weirdly fun and kind of hot? I watched with my aforementioned father, boyfriend, and grandmother, so it really is fun for the whole family.

-READ: part of my #brand is that I love learning about cults, especially those popping up more and more around Silicon Valley and this new one about The Zizians is fab

-LISTEN: The gals over at Nymphet Alumni have tremendous insight about trends, Internet micro-niche aesthetics, and identity politics — bonus points for our shared identifiers as Texan / Southern! <3