iJustine and her line of t-shirts. Despite her expression, no word yet on which 1-800 number to call for a "good time."

Meet iJustine. You might have already. I learned of this pink and blonde abomination when I was trying to change my Twitter background, of all things.

I did a quick search on Google to figure out the parameters to cobble together my own Photoshop background. In the old days of search and find out something, you usually got this info by stumbling across a very basic Web page set up by somebody who likes to explain the ins and outs of how to do common Web tasks.

Not anymore.  Instead I found a million pages about how to “brand” my Twitter.  That is, to put a background with as much information about myself and my business interests as possible.  There were even sites that offered to do this for you for the low, low price of $32.99. (I did mine for free.)

In fact, this one site seemed to think glamor shots were a good thing.  The example it gave of a good Twitter background was Miss iJustine.  She’s blonde, beautiful and completely insipid.  But she also has 1,000,000 followers. How does she do it? Her claim to fame is her fascination with gadgetry (a girl who likes gadgets?! *shock, awe*), in particular Apple products.  Once, she complained about a really long phone bill, which apparently revolutionized the way yuppies receive their iPhone bills now.

Also, and I’d never heard this term before, iJustine is also a “lifecaster.” I thought maybe this was somehow related to the teachings of Scientology or some other new age religion, but it turns out a “lifecaster” is one who documents his/her entire, albeit boring, life.

I don’t begrudge Miss iJ her success, I just question if people are branding insipidness. She sells t-shirts, attends tech conferences and probably gets a lot of swag from cool companies, so she must have some really useful insights, right? I watched her videos eagerly expecting to learn something about Macs or gadgets.  Instead, I walked away with a pink migraine. Just watch a little of this:

I honestly don’t see the appeal, well, other than sex appeal. Her videos, many of which feature dancing fits, feel like a dumbed down version of Ze Frank’s year-long Web series called “The Show.”

Sure, I’ve made silly videos before, but she’s actually marketing this to people as useful! This is her brand. And she’s not the only one throwing herself at the lens. The whole idea of getting “followers” on Twitter is like a biblical parable.  “Follow me,” the twitter brands say, “for I am the truth, the light and the way… and I can make funny quips in 140 characters or less.”  Nothing wrong with imparting wisdom or expertise. But the people I refer to, like iJustine, are nothing more than self-branding cows. Someone please put her on E! News channel; I think I would actually enjoy seeing her there while I’m scarfing down a bowl of Kashi cereal on Sunday morning.

Granted, it could be said my hand turkey is a “branding” of sorts (and in more ways than one).  But at the end of the day, it’s just a silly clip art turkey that generates me NO profit. And, yeah, I’m actually very happy with that. Don’t expect me to flat iron my hair and start dancing like a monkey just so you’ll buy my t-shirts (…coming soon).