Apparently these days, the most popular dream job among children is influencer. I’ve seen articles about it, and both the articles and the comments are invariably full of judgy statements about how Kids These DaysTM are such narcissists/their brains are being rotted by social media/they don’t want to do anything valuable with their lives.
But like. I think the kids are onto something, tbh. The thing is, working a 9-5 (or 8-5, as the average job is nowadays) job is a pretty shit deal. You have no say in your work environment and have to do whatever you’re told. The hours make a medieval peasant’s workload look light, and that’s not even counting the commute you’ll likely have to make. What little free time you have left over is spent recovering, so you don’t have time to do anything fun. And you get to do this for the rest of your life.
At least if you’re an influencer, you set your own hours and may wind up working much less than 40 hours a week. You get to work from home, and there’s a small chance you’ll hit it big and get rich. There’s zero chance of that at your standard office job. If you can swing it, it’s not a bad deal at all.
And I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with being an influencer. Are some of them shitty? Sure. But that’s true of any job. You could argue that being an influencer contributes nothing to society, but really, how many jobs do contribute anything worthwhile to the world? Is it really more respectable to type numbers into spreadsheets all day just to make your boss richer? Or to write up reports no one reads? At least influencers entertain people.
TL;DR: The kids know the grind is bullshit, and they see becoming an influencer as a way to escape that.
I’m older than the kids today and when I grew up I wanted to be a singer or a sportsperson and everyone else did. It’s just another wild dream, it’s normal to want to be cool and rich and famous when you’re a kid.
I feel that depending on what kind of content creation it is, some of the people balking at those kids who want to be influencers don’t realize that it is still a lot of work. This is being a freelance entertainer, you still need to learn strategies. I’m preparing to start VTubing (independently) at 20 as a side hustle, and there is an astounding amount of preparation to do it well. Also, these content creator lifestyles can also be appealing for disabled/chronically ill people like myself. A good community will wish you well, understand, and not ask you for a doctor’s note if you need time off frequently; a manager at a corporate job, not so much. Disabled or not, everyone deserves flexibility, and being an influence can support that well.
If I may summarize what I think I’m hearing from you:
This is the current version of “Going to Hollywood” / “Hitting it big” so you can make some money and set your own rules.
And, since these are people, some of them will be very cool individuals and some will be absolute trash and there will be a number who are in-between those extremes.
If so then I can’t really argue with you. Who wants to work at the Fedex Copy Center and try to make it that way?
Kids have always had wild career dreams, it’s not new it’s just a different medium. It’s fine. I’m not sure it’s a conscious decision to escape the grind though. I grew up with kids who wanted to be movie stars or athletes. Why? Because they idolised movie stars and athletes and want to be like them. It’s what they’re exposed to the most. Now kids are exposed to influencers the most, so they wanna be one too.
I wanted to be a train driver 🚂
That’s exactly what my first thought was. How many kids did you know growing up who practiced singing into their hairbrush, convinced they would be rock stars?
Me and my fiance were looking at dolls and tbh i found it sad. They had these “i can be anything” set and the doll in question was a barista doll. What kid honestly wants to work for Starbucks for the rest of their life? Kids deserve better, bigger dreams than we give em
A friend of mine from architecture school wound up as barista during the Great Recession and genuinely ended up loving it, to the point that he tried to buy a coffee shop from a guy who was retiring. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t get a small business loan mid-recession (the bank told him “you have the most airtight business plan we’ve seen in a hot minute, but we’re just not making loans right now”) and he wasn’t able to make it work.
There’s no shame in wanting to work in the service industry. The challenge is in finding a way to do it without being exploited.
