> As a Gen Xer, I cannot be tortured enough to care about these bland, apolitical, self-commercialized, professional personalities and, as far as I can tell, neither can most of my peers. When my crowd was coming of age, we called this sort of thing “selling out.<p>> We identified with Naomi Klein, who back in 1999 wrote No Logo, the book with which you waged an intellectual war against identifying with any kind of branding. Branding (especially yourself, God forbid) was anathema to Ms. Klein and to us, too.<p>Well, the '90s were a totally different time. It was infinitely easier to get a well-paying job with reasonable working conditions, but the economy is massively more unequal and feels way more all-or-nothing now. Basically (and I'm exaggerating for effect) you either sell out or you eke out some kind of meager existence, and who wouldn't seriously think about selling out in that kind of situation?