Defining the status bro...

Disrupting the status bro came to me in a season of reclaiming my external identity. I was in the thick of building a company centered on owning your life story, while also swimming in an internet sea of personal brands that felt more like talking Canva templates that actual humans.

I didn’t want to create a personal brand. That much I knew. I wanted to put words to the current that has always pulled me into different industries, roles, geographies and internet rabbit holes. A name for that itch to pick at cultural or societal scabs that most people ignore so they can pretend everything has always been unblemished. I craved a linguistic beacon to shine light on what fuels me while signaling to fellow hard question askers that I am here, you are seen, this is real.

Disrupting the status bro is a practice. It’s a statement of purpose, my modus operandi in all aspects of life. It’s the root of my question asking, my 472 open tabs and my roles in various communities and organizations. It’s a hymn.

What does it mean to disrupt the status bro? At its simplest explanation, disrupting the status bro is an act of interrupting the business as usual of the systems around us in pursuit of something better. Let's unpack the meaning a bit more, because this simple catchy phrase builds from concepts of great thinkers, artists and change makers (lots on them in future issues).

The status bro is a state of lovelessness, created and maintained by the systems of our society. Introduced by bell hooks in her foundational book All About Love, I use the term lovelessness to encompass a lack of care, compassion and unity in the way work, well, works in current American culture — including how capitalist and productivity models have made their way into our non-work lives. Loveless is extractive, not additive.

Disrupt is defined as 1) to interrupt by causing a disturbance or problem and 2) to interrupt the normal course of. Other definitions include to drastically alter the structure of or to break apart. It’s making change, at a structural and/or operational level. Disruption had a heyday during the 2010s Silicon Valley boom, used to communicate (quite effectively) the possibility of massive shifts in entire industries. In reality, many of those disruptions fortified the status bro (the gig economy, anyone?). My choice to use this verb is tongue-in-cheek, but it’s also a small move of reclamation, a hope that we can actually alter the structures instead of reinforcing them.

So, disrupting the status bro means to interrupt by the normal loveless course of life in post-capitalist America by causing a disturbance — asking questions, breaking ideas and actions apart, and reconciling the parts in new, more loving way. It’s pausing instead of moving fast and continuing to break things. I believe it’s this purposeful interruption that breaks our current habits apart, one small action or behavior at a time, to collectively and drastically alter the structure of the systems that engulf us. 

Disrupting the status bro is a long and twisty road. It runs alongside the main thoroughfares built by extractive systems (more on that later, believe me). It’s a path that none of us can make real distance down in isolation.

The actual doing of disrupting the status bro came long before the pithy phrase and branding. I can’t pinpoint when I started challenging the systems we live within, but it’s been a part of me as long as I can remember.

When other children asked how a cash register worked, they wanted to know about the mechanics and transaction. I wanted to know where the money came from, who it was going to and why it was required to procure anything in the first place. My favorite people were the ones who helped me discover the answers instead of brushing me off. These are still my favorite kind of people.

These writings are my journey — and an invitation for you to join me.