Don’t sneer at reality shows: if you’re on social media, you’re in one

"Withdraw into yourself and look. And if you do not find yourself beautiful as yet, do as the creator of a statue that is to be made beautiful; the sculptor cuts away here, smooths there, makes this line lighter, this other purer, until he or she has shown a beautiful face upon the statue." 

Plotinus said that in the mid 250s - time-worn advice.

And in this the 10th anniversary year of KUWTK (keep up) - Keeping Up with The Kardashians - what better philosophy magnet for the Kardashians to place on all their fridges in the Palladian enclave of Calabasas. "Never stop sculpting your own statue" or your butt, your lips, your kids, your profile on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat and your reality-TV show.

In the ever-evolving performance of their lives, the Kardashians have amassed more than 560 million followers and lately over $1-billion (R13-billion) of revenue for Kylie's Lip Kits. In all, 42% of Kim's income comes from an online game, which is pretty smart for a person who is famous for being famous and that sex tape.

For all those naysayers who bemoan the impoverishment of popular culture, who cannot comprehend how the vacuous endeavours of a bunch of rich girls, their mother and their transgender parental could sustain the interest of millions for a decade, think again.

Is 2017 the year of peak personal branding? The so-called leader of the free world probably thinks so. Trump is the living, breathing, tweeting apotheosis of the idea that personal branding is what you have to do to get ahead in life.

Live your brand to its fullest and you will become Potus. Potent. Powerful. All Powerful. You will Trump everyone and take the prize. And you will keep your prize by tweeting.

Strategic tweeting, like strategic sculpting, is the constant performance of your personal brand.

Perhaps you feel superior, somehow above this perpetual and superficial marketing of the self. Perhaps you think you have a real self, something different to the self you project on the many screens in your life. I suppose only if you have never taken to social media in any way or form can you afford to feel that way. For everyone else, you, my friend, are caught up in the same game.

With every tweet or Instagram you carve out a personality that you moderate for public consumption, that you sculpt for effect, that you sell for likes. Whatever your schtick, your cute babies, your perfect dogs, your political views, your dinner, your avo toast - whether you have 300 followers or friends or 300 million, you are caught up in the same set of considerations. You, too, have become permanently visible, just like the Kardashians and Donald Trump.

Perhaps you haven't realised that your psychology has become a performance. Being seen and the act of making sure you are seen in the act of creating yourself is the essence of social media.

And social media is very much like Jeremy Bentham's circular Panopticon prison. A brilliant way of exercising power through the notional idea that you might be seen. This prison moderates the inmates' behaviour because at any moment a prisoner could be observed by the all-seeing guard, by a big brother who could potentially be observing the prisoner's every move. (Sounds a bit like a cookie, doesn't it?)

The latter-day philosopher Foucault said this is "the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power". The question is, who has the power in this Panopticon? Happy birthday, KUWTK.