Six years ago, an eternity in HR years , there was a topic I presented via keynote and general sessions at several HR conferences around the country: “Lessons from Hollywood: HR and Pop Culture.”
The gist of the content was that we, as HR professionals, are well-served when we realize how pop culture/”Hollywood” shapes the world of work, influence, organizational change and the entire HR agenda. Why is this important? Because human resources practitioners tend to become singularly focused on legislative or economic activities but fail (big time fail) to consider how OTHER factors impact the world of work.
So I discussed the need for constant environmental scanning (via the PESTEL model) and reminded my HR comrades to pay particular attention to pop culture – movies, music, literature, art, politics, design, fashion, consumer trends and even slang and memes – because those are the things that signal shifting or emerging ideas, perspective and attitudes.
Six years ago, signals could be easily picked up regarding things like gig work and the evolving definition of “family” and savvy HR leaders, even those in fly-over country, were picking up on the swiftly rolling tide.
Another trend I discussed was the rise of what I call “look at me (me! me! me!)” culture which was, admittedly, somewhat in its infancy circa 2015 when examples I refenced included the “discovery” of Justin Bieber and how Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton were launched into the influencer-sphere via their sex tapes. While we had been living with reality TV for some time by then this was well before the omnipresence of Instagram influencers making serious bank by giving make-up tips or grifters of every stripe “monetizing” their YouTube channels by spewing crackpot conspiracy theories.
Yet, even then, we could see the rise of the concept that “everyone” can be a star.
And in those somewhat-innocent days, the exhortation was for HR practitioners to take advantage of this shift. We began, in earnest, to plead with HR to think of how their employees could be evangelists and brand ambassadors. We promoted having a plan for employees to widely share company-branded content or job openings via their personal social media channels.
Oh sure – the rise of micro-celebrities led us down some dark paths as restaurant employees posted videos of themselves bathing in the kitchen sink. And every now and again there would be a clip or tweet posted by someone of a bit more nefarious nature that prefaced a somewhat-public termination from employment.
And for the last few weeks, as we’ve been inundated with a tsunami of self-posted pictures and videos of Americans surging at the US Capital, it became abundantly clear that FAR TOO MANY PEOPLE believe that EVERYONE ELSE wants to listen to/see their shit.
We’ve moved well beyond duck-faced Instagram selfies and masturbatory humble-bragging on LinkedIn. We’ve surpassed the desire of seemingly everyone to start a podcast. It’s more than just one rando employee – and TikTok star!!! – posting paint-mixing videos.
I’m not surprised at all.
But if everyone is a self-appointed celebrity in 2021…who’s in the audience?
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image: “All right Mr. Demille. I’m ready for my close-up.”
