Thread by @activerecall, How to build a personal brand (without superkicking your tag team partner [...]

How to build a personal brand (without superkicking your tag team partner and throwing him through Brutus the Barber Beefcake's barbershop window)

A thread by an internet jobber —

In "Primal Branding", @hanlonpatrick writes about the 7 elements of a successful brand.

- Creation story
- Creed
- Icons
- Rituals
- Nonbelievers
- Sacred words
- Leaders

Here's how 90s wrestlers (masters of personal branding) used these elements to build loyal followings.

Creation Story — Shawn Michaels of The Rockers became The Heartbreak Kid after an iconic betrayal. The 2nd greatest heel turn in history and the creation story for his legendary solo career.

Scott Hall and Kevin Nash departed the the WWF for WCW—portrayed as a betrayal and creating an invasion creation story.

An effective creation story for internet creators is often the opposite: insiders becoming outsiders.

Leave the ladder for independence. Leave finance ( @khemaridh), leave mainstream media ( @polina_marinova), leave engineering school ( @saradietschy)

Creed — This is the belief system. Good guys vs. bad guys worked for a very long time. Then it didn't.

Hulk Hogan leg dropped Macho Man. (Another betrayal!)

A different creed took over: chaos.

nWo created chaos in WCW. DX created chaos in the WWF.

Useful creed template: traditional

is broken.

Some examples:
- Traditional finance is broken.
- Traditional media is broken.

Or traditional education is broken. @fortelabs has a coaching tree of students becoming teachers, leading cohort after cohort of believers.

Icons — Logos are a start (and a good one if you can wear it as face paint like the Ultimate Warrior). But icons go beyond that.

Clothing works (Road Warriors' spiked shoulder pads)

Sound works too (I can't not think of Steve Austin when I hear glass breaking)

Your profile image is your logo, whether you intend for it to be or not. (Like a 1991 babyface, smiling faces work well here!)

You can use a color scheme and aesthetic.

Take black and white and you've got...
- Stone Cold
- nWo
- Sting

Or sprinkle in some symmetry and you've got @visualizevalue

Or use an object.

Undertaker follows the urn. Kurt Angle had his Olympic gold medal.

@AliAbdaal has his computer chair — representing the hero's journey from someone who asks to buy a chair and gets told "No." to someone who gets free chairs sent to him

Or use clothing. Seth Godin, Casey Neistat, @profgalloway have their glasses...

Rituals

... and Bret Hart has his glasses. He also made the glasses part of his ritual. Before every match, he'd seek out a kid in the front row to give his neon pink glasses to.

Things that could happen as a kid that would be better than this:
-
-
-

And the ritual to end every match: the finisher. Every great wrestler has a great finisher. It usually has to...

Happen quickly: Stunner
Look insanely painful: Pedigree, Sharpshooter, Tombstone

... or have an elaborate setup. The crowd knows this is the beginning of the end and can start cheering.

- HBK starts warming up the band...
- Hogan starts shaking his head and becomes impervious to pain...
- The Rock stands over his opponent and rips his elbow pad off...

Nonbelievers — You have your creed. If it's a strong one, then there are people who believe in the opposite of it.

When Vince McMahon screwed Bret Hart, he cemented his identity as Mr. McMahon. The ultimate nonbeliever.

Mr. McMahon represented The Man, corporations, the evil boss. So bad that the antiheroes could rise up against him.

Internet creators have their nonbelievers as well.

A portion of Traditional

thinks going independent is impossible (or just crazy).

One of my favorite niche narratives is @adamwathan's journey with Tailwind. At every stage of popularity, it's been met with nonbelievers.

"The markup makes me want to throw up" → [Gives it a shot] → "I felt that way but you just have to try it!"

Nonbelievers → Advocates

Sacred Words — Just Do It. Think Different.

- And THAT'S the bottom line...
- The best there is, the best there was...
- Ohhhhhhh whaaaaaaaaata rush...
- OH YEEEEEEaaaaHHHH!

... what @TheRock is cookin'

Creators start or end with their catch phrases (thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it).

Or they've distilled their creeds into as few words as possible:

- Get Rich (without getting lucky)
- Personal Monopoly ( @david_perell)
- Build Once, Sell Twice
-

Leaders — The WWF winged eagle belt was the one I grew up on. That's forever the championship belt for me. WCW's (and NWA's before that) big gold belt was another important one. Each represented the company-appointed leader.

The Undertaker won some championships, but had longer stretches without the belt. He was still a fan favorite and always a leader in the locker room.

(Nailed every element too! Entrance, Urn, Colors, Finisher, "Rest... in... peace")

So you don't need the belt to be a leader.

The pre-betrayal Rockers were easily the most popular tag team without ever winning the WWF tag team belt

This is great because there aren't championship belts online. You can still become a leader with a loyal audience without being the absolute #1 in metrics and committee-granted awards.

The most popular wrestlers also all toiled in obscurity for years. Wrestling for $20, $40 a night. Building up experience. Working their way from organization to organization. Meeting other wrestlers along the way who they'd run into again later.

Then they got their shot.

Which brings me to one of the most inspirational videos on the internet. @MKBHD Update 1.0:

100 videos made, 74 subscribers (and completely grateful for it)

Personal brands aren't built overnight but through consistency.

I love that you can reverse sort and see the creation story and all the bricks along the way.

Parts of his brand: matte black gadgets, crazy studio, and crispy footage come a few years later.

But he closes that 2009 video the same way he closes his most recent video and all the videos between: "Peace"

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