October 8, 2025

You Are What You click

Back in 1899, economist Thorstein Veblen identified something darkly brilliant about human nature: we don’t just buy things because we need them. We buy them to broadcast who we are—or who we want others to think we are. He called it “conspicuous consumption,” and it was all about flaunting wealth through extravagant purchases. The leisure class didn’t just own yachts; they made sure everyone knew they owned yachts.

Fast-forward 125 years, and the game hasn’t changed. It’s just moved online and gotten exponentially more granular.

The Signal in Everything

Every like. Every share. Every thoughtfully curated story post. Every retweet with commentary. These aren’t random acts of digital expression—they’re identity signals, broadcast to an audience that’s always watching, always judging, always updating its mental model of who you are.

This is identity signaling theory, and it’s the skeleton key to understanding why social media works the way it does. The concept draws from decades of research across economics, sociology, and consumer psychology. In 1973, economist Michael Spence showed how people send costly signals to communicate hidden qualities—think of education credentials as proof of competence. In 1988, marketing researcher Russell Belk argued that our possessions become extensions of ourselves, that “we are what we have.”

But here’s where it gets interesting for anyone trying to crack the code of digital engagement: on social media, identity signaling isn’t just about what you buy or own. It’s about everything you do.

The Invisible Currency of The Feed

That sunrise photo you posted? Signal. The niche meme you shared? Signal. The cause you amplified? Signal. The brand you tagged? Signal. Even your silence—what you conspicuously don’t engage with—sends a message.

Social media has turned identity construction into a real-time, always-on performance. Every interaction is a micro-broadcast saying: “This is my tribe. These are my values. This is how sophisticated/funny/conscious/successful I am.” Users aren’t just consuming content; they’re using that content as raw material to build and maintain a desired identity.

The platforms know this, of course. The algorithm doesn’t care about “content.” It cares about identity-congruent behavior patterns. It’s tracking which version of you gets the most engagement, then serving you more opportunities to be that person.

Why Marketers Keep Getting It Wrong

Most social media marketing still operates on a transactional model: create content, push it out, measure clicks and conversions. But this fundamentally misunderstands what users are doing on these platforms.

They’re not shopping. They’re signaling.

When someone shares your brand’s post, they’re not endorsing your product features. They’re using your brand as a vehicle to communicate something about themselves. The outdoor gear company isn’t selling tents; it’s selling membership in the tribe of adventurers. The sustainable fashion brand isn’t selling clothes; it’s selling the identity marker of someone who cares about the planet.

Marketers who understand identity signaling understand that engagement isn’t about getting people to pay attention to you. It’s about making your brand useful for their identity projects. The question isn’t “How do we get more likes?” It’s “What does liking our content say about the person doing the liking?”

High Signal Strategy

The brands winning on social media are those that provide clear, powerful identity signals. They understand their audience isn’t asking “What does this product do?” They’re asking “What does this product say about me?”

This explains why some brands become cultural juggernauts despite “worse” products. Supreme. Glossier. Tesla. Patagonia. They’re not winning on features—they’re winning on signal clarity. When you wear Supreme, drive a Tesla, or refuse to buy anything but Patagonia, you’re making a legible statement about your identity that others in your reference group immediately understand.

Social media amplifies this dynamic into the stratosphere. Every platform interaction is public (or semi-public), creating a permanent record of identity signals. The stakes are higher. The feedback is faster. The competition for signal clarity is fiercer.

Behind The Like

Here’s the shift marketers need to make: stop thinking about “content that goes viral” and start thinking about “content that makes people look good when they share it.”

Your post isn’t competing with other brands for attention. It’s competing with everything else in someone’s feed that they could use to signal their identity. That wedding photo. That political take. That joke from their favorite comedian. You’re in the identity signal marketplace, and you need to offer something valuable.

This means different strategies for different platforms. Instagram is visual identity—aspiration, aesthetics, lifestyle curation. Twitter is intellectual and tribal identity—wit, opinions, in-group knowledge. TikTok is cultural identity—what’s cool, what’s emerging, what separates the olds from the youngs. LinkedIn is professional identity—expertise, career trajectory, industry insider status.

The platform is the context; the signal is the currency.

Science Behind The Scroll

Recent research in consumer psychology has formalized what digital marketers are learning through trial and error. In their comprehensive “Handbook of Research on Identity Theory in Marketing,” researchers Americus Reed II and Mark Forehand demonstrate that brands function as “meaning systems that can serve as markers of identity.” They identify five key principles, with identity salience—how prominent a particular identity is in a given moment—driving identity-linked judgment and action.

Translation: people don’t have one fixed identity. They have a portfolio of identities (parent, professional, activist, fan, ironist) that activate in different contexts. Social media is the switching station where these identities get performed, tested, and refined in real time. Smart marketers position their brands to be useful across multiple identity contexts, or they own one identity context completely.

The New Conspicuous Consumption

Veblen’s leisure class flaunted wealth through mansions and carriages. Today’s digital class flaunts cultural capital through follows, shares, and engagement patterns. The conspicuous consumption of the feed isn’t about price tags—it’s about demonstrating you have the knowledge, taste, and tribal affiliations that matter to your audience.

This is why “authenticity” has become such a valuable—and marketable—signal. In a world where everyone is performing identity, the appearance of not performing becomes its own high-cost signal. It’s harder to pull off, more risky, more valuable when executed well.

The brands that understand this aren’t just creating content. They’re creating identity infrastructure—giving people the tools, language, and symbols they need to signal who they are to the people who matter to them.

Every click is a choice. Every choice is a signal. Every signal is a statement: This is who I am. This is my tribe. This is what I stand for.

The marketers who understand this don’t just get engagement. They become part of how their audience constructs meaning in a world where identity is the ultimate currency.

Welcome to the signal economy. Your move.

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