The traditional 9-to-5 job is fading, replaced by flexibility and shared economy models.
The term "slash" originates from American New York columnist Marci Alboher's bestselling book One Person / Multiple Careers: Managing the New Career Portfolio, which led many people to assume that slashing simply means "constantly taking side gigs to create income," and to misunderstand it as an act of desperation due to "lack of money"—even criticizing it as a "money-chasing" game. In reality, this thinking is too narrow. In recent years, many people's motivations for slashing have changed, and the slash identity evolves alongside different "gig" patterns to become personal value.
Slashing actually has three stages: first, the gig economy phase, then advancement to multiple income streams (commonly known as the slash generation), and finally transformation into personal brand building. The time and maturity required at each stage varies depending on individual capabilities. Slashing may initially begin with the gig economy phase—taking on side jobs everywhere to supplement insufficient primary income—but it evolves from there.
The healthiest model of the gig economy is taking on work related to your own profession, slashing into different roles. For example, a writer can be an author/speaker/social media manager, gaining multiple exposures and accumulating expertise to gradually transcend the corporate job title, developing a personal brand.
Further Reading
Karen's Native Slash Story: You Work So Hard—Isn't It All for the "Right to Choose"?
Personal Branding Becomes the New Focus
The inner essence of personal brand implementation has never really changed—what has changed is the shift in needs brought about by civilization's evolution. In the industrial era's "9-to-5" system, most people had ample time after work and weren't disrupted by messages; to increase income, workers took on side gigs and freelance jobs everywhere.
After instant messaging became prevalent, work hours are consumed by meetings and information bombardment, and workers must respond to management messages after hours. Workers spend their time at work without finding their own value; questions like "who am I" and "what do I really like" gradually gained importance, thus the "slash" concept emerged—through multiple identities and multiple income streams, to define personal value.
The public gradually awakened. The China Airlines strike event once again made people understand that capitalists' greed makes it difficult for them to generously share enterprise earnings with hardworking employees. Capitalists control the ideals and dreams of the lower tier, exploiting low wages and excessive working hours without limit. Then we realized that a company cannot support an employee for a lifetime; only oneself can accompany you for life. Therefore, personal power and personal brand building have recently become mainstream topics, and in Taiwan, a wave of personal brand building centered on knowledge economics has emerged.
Personal brand building requires continuous learning and iteration by creators to seize breakthrough opportunities.
The Era of Reader-Author Equality
In the past, publishing and traditional media lacked interactivity. Once works were published, readers had to passively accept them without discussing or providing feedback to authors. However, in modern times, the barriers to becoming an author have lowered significantly thanks to increasingly advanced internet platform tools. Combined with growing public acceptance of the concept that "knowledge has value," payment systems have emerged. This also creates opportunities for readers to participate in the author's creative process, increasing interaction, closing distances, and enriching content. Through platforms, creators can establish professional images and build personal brands.
Taiwan currently offers two types: video and text formats. Among these, online courses and paid subscription platforms can create profitable models for individuals or small studios.
Online Courses primarily operate through course crowdfunding and revenue sharing with instructors. Courses are priced per course and can be watched repeatedly forever. Taking hahow as an example, it uses a revenue-sharing model requiring a minimum of 30 enrollees to launch a course. With 150,000 members and about 300 course instructors, the platform's highest record was over 13,000 people enrolling in a single course. Based on the platform's revenue-sharing mechanism, course creators can share at least 16 million dollars; there are no restrictions on instructor identity—"anyone with expertise can be a teacher," breaking down past class barriers where one needed to accumulate social prominence before anyone would pay for their expertise.
Paid Subscription Platforms operate on monthly or annual payment models, using user fees to maintain creators' production momentum and stability. Different payment models also provide different content formats. PressPlay, for example, currently has steadily accumulated approximately 26,000 members and 120,000 cumulative subscriptions, with monthly revenue around 14 million dollars. Taiwan's famous YouTubers such as Ray Du and This Group are creators on the platform, having established small companies using this as fixed monthly revenue to grow their teams.
From various platforms having over 100,000 members, we can determine that "original content" has a certain market in Taiwan, and pricing adjusts based on creators' abilities—a fair mechanism. The subscription model itself allows members to judge whether a creator's content meets their needs; if the content isn't high quality enough, they can cancel as punishment.
Another form is transmitting personal perspectives through "text creation," from self-hosted WordPress websites allowing users to customize layouts and use plugins for membership systems, to the wave of Chinese creators flowing into the American Medium platform. Starting from their professional angles, they earn traffic and follower exposure. Content mostly consists of perspectives on internet and startup fields from various positions—such as business development, website operations, project management, product management, programming, and other hard knowledge.
Whether video or text creation, what lies behind is ultimately establishing one's personal brand, gaining recognition and value, and exerting influence to change society. The diversity of tool platforms and lowered barriers to creation allow everyone to build their own voice channels and choose their most comfortable forms of expression, attracting groups of people who appreciate them.
Work is already busy enough—why do employees still produce content after hours, document perspectives, or even give up stable jobs for freelancing? Is it really just for money?
He Zewen, currently an overseas division manager at a Global Fortune 500 company, is a classic example. His annual work income exceeds one million dollars, and he holds a management position. Yet he still regularly writes articles after work, is a media columnist, has published three books, and served as the representative commencement speaker for Nchu University's centennial graduating class. He could be called a "successful person," yet he hasn't abandoned building his personal brand—a classic case of slash transformation. He Zewen believes "don't let the world define you; talent requires recognition earned through accumulated strength to be seen by others, not influenced by external perspectives to affect what you want to do." In fact, when He Zewen gives lectures back in Taiwan, he seeks book sales rather than speaker fees—not for profit, but for recognition and value being seen, with income following naturally.
Some believe that the gig economy created by the slash generation is not merely a "money-chasing" game. Those who think otherwise are viewing it too superficially. More complex dimensions reveal that personal brand builders are evolving and integrating various forms of content to avoid being limited by corporate systems and traditional societal perspectives on careers, creating their own customized profit models.
If the world insists on labeling us, let's run fast enough that it can't catch up!
