Interesting post. I notice PR here being used in a mostly “avoid negative” way, and while I get why, I feel like it’s just one side of the coin… and the comparison to adhering to honor doesn’t quite capture the full thing either.
One of the ongoing struggles I write the protagonist in Pokemon: The Origin of Species as having with some of the others is that they grew up the children of famous people and so are immersed in a worldview in which PR is a good and important thing, while he did not and so it seems intrinsically dishonest or “slimy” to think in ways like “how will people react to this?”
Their major arguments against him is something like “PR isn’t just about protecting your brand, it’s also about putting yourself out there. If you want to be someone that matters in the world, someone that the public will listen to, you need some hustle, you need to promote yourself, and yes, sure, of course you should do that honestly, but if you just flat don’t care about what others think of you, you give up low hanging fruit in ways to show positive parts of yourself that the public cares about, and are more prone to blunders that the hivemind of society has put more collective thought into than you have.”
He is not fully convinced by this, but so far in the story he’s becoming less sure of his resistance to it as well. I’m curious to know what you think of the above.
Interesting post. I notice PR here being used in a mostly “avoid negative” way, and while I get why, I feel like it’s just one side of the coin… and the comparison to adhering to honor doesn’t quite capture the full thing either.
One of the ongoing struggles I write the protagonist in Pokemon: The Origin of Species as having with some of the others is that they grew up the children of famous people and so are immersed in a worldview in which PR is a good and important thing, while he did not and so it seems intrinsically dishonest or “slimy” to think in ways like “how will people react to this?”
Their major arguments against him is something like “PR isn’t just about protecting your brand, it’s also about putting yourself out there. If you want to be someone that matters in the world, someone that the public will listen to, you need some hustle, you need to promote yourself, and yes, sure, of course you should do that honestly, but if you just flat don’t care about what others think of you, you give up low hanging fruit in ways to show positive parts of yourself that the public cares about, and are more prone to blunders that the hivemind of society has put more collective thought into than you have.”
He is not fully convinced by this, but so far in the story he’s becoming less sure of his resistance to it as well. I’m curious to know what you think of the above.