I’ve always felt weird talking about my work. Don’t get me wrong, I love sharing my research and the importance of history with people but discussing it as my expertise feels a bit like an imposter. Besides, so many people are already writing and narrating their accomplishments to the void of the internet. We all shout and hope we are heard over the cacophony of curated noise. That’s what this is, isn’t it? Recent graduates, professionals, all trying to break into our respective fields by posting on LinkedIn glossy images of our projects with self-inflationary captions to sell ourselves to recruiters and the larger professional world. And it feels like we must do that.
I had a phone call with a CRM professional. I had asked them for advice early in the summer, and they had been kind enough to reply and offer to keep in touch with advice. On that phone call, I learned that it was standard practice for this professional to do a LinkedIn search for every recent graduate that reaches out to them. If one person is doing it and referring to the practice in such a blase way, then surely others are also doing it. An unspoken requirement is then to be found online.
On the other hand, I had an advisor admonish social media. To him, what crafts a reputation and an institution’s longevity is doing the work. He believed completed projects and word of mouth spoke volumes about the ethics and capacity of a public historian. That requires a lot of faith in a system. Faith, I generationally do not have. I grew up with the internet, with Facebook and Instagram. Naturally, my brain immediately ingests that advice and asks “if a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” How will outsiders know about completed projects without a record of it? There’s even a line in Newsies: “If it’s not in the papes, it never happened.” Central here is promotional and documentary necessity of sharing events and accomplishments.
It is a fine line. I have to be active on these professional network sites to be findable, but then I must determine how much of myself I post online. How much of my work life receives a carousel style post on an Instagram account dedicated to bringing public history to the people via social media’s algorithm? Because truthfully, doing community centered work must always ask the ethical question related to the use of photographs from projects. Who gains from these projects? Who gains from the LinkedIn post “expressing your gratitude for the opportunity to work with this community”?
Tangentially, before every LinkedIn post, before every authoritatively answered question I receive at my job, I ask: where do I allow myself to speak with expertise, particularly in a field like history and heritage where most practitioners are wildly educated? What is enough experience? This is a problem of someone who delves into subjects and likely does not have the Dunning-Kruger effect. Despite holding the degree in my hand, despite the experiences I’ve gained, I still feel like I am not an authority on a subject. But, that is imposter syndrome at its finest, isn’t it? Imposter syndrome is that shadow that lurks in every blog post, every job application. It’s a wrinkle in a rug at the top of a flight of stairs.
How do I get over it? I don’t think I’ll ever be the person that posts about every single project that I complete. I don’t think I will be the person that has a TikTok account instructing people who to clean a tombstone or how to care for a family scrapbook. I might link cited resources, craft resource lists like the good little librarian I am. Hell, I’m thinking of consulting with the community members I’ve worked with on any reflective blog posts about the projects. Something in my gut says that is the best way to ensure joint agency and joint ownership over how the project is portrayed and used to benefit me and the community it was for.
How else do employers and people themselves discover practitioners that can bring unique perspectives to the field? How else do governing officials and other community members hear about the work going on in their locales? But, it isn’t just about me and the shiny “look at what I’m doing” promotional work all professionals must now do. There is the perceived confidence in posting about projects completed, thanking communties for the work done and opportunities had. If I’m having to sell myself as a brand of public historian, I want to be aware of the image I’m projecting to those that I work with.