Being contrarian and being anti-mimetic are different things.
The simple thing is that people who get promoted (or any other favorable thing) are the ones who share the most similarities with the person doing the promoting. I see this all the time at my company and in my life. This is even true in things like law and government (law enforcement and prosecutorial discretion).
Just stop doing isn't necessarily an option. Why should one not be their true self, and how difficult and painful would that be? Some people are stuck between the options.
of course, the point is that i eventually realized that i didn't want to be contrarian and somehow transitioned to some form of anti-memetism.
that has led me to be mostly self employed, and when i did take on employment then it was to further my own interests and not toil away on something that i could not identify with just to earn some money. i have never been in a position to be promoted in my job, so i didn't think about that. though it is possible that at least one termination of a job was influenced by my anti-memetic behavior, but that let to some interesting new options, so in my case it was not detrimental.
and yes, not being anti-memetic just isn't an option for me either.
The simple thing is that people who get promoted (or any other favorable thing) are the ones who share the most similarities with the person doing the promoting. I see this all the time at my company and in my life. This is even true in things like law and government (law enforcement and prosecutorial discretion).
Just stop doing isn't necessarily an option. Why should one not be their true self, and how difficult and painful would that be? Some people are stuck between the options.