The way I see it is that Millennials are caught between two extremes - optimism about keeping one's local communities in an increasingly interconnected world, and the total shattering of consensus that is created by the huge amount of contextless information pushed onto us today.
The idea of a side hustle is rooted in Boomer optimism - you can work hard at something, make money, and make up the deficiency in what you earn from your job against what you want, refactored for the chaotic future. The clientele for the side hustle is usually the amorphous social media "others" rahter than anyone they actually know.
Great essay, as always, Gunnar! Seeing the 'decoupling' visually, on a chart, might bring further clarity about our generation's struggles. And it might prove useful more to our boomer parents rather than us passing it around our(millennial)selves.
You outline side hustles from the angle of necessity, to pay the bills. But I always associated side hustles more with that ambition to constantly prove yourself, without taking any time for rest or play. The mentality that the more you side hustle, the more worthy you are. And that, I think, is highly toxic.
I was on track to go into tech-related fields in high school, then the year before I graduated the dot com bubble burst. Sure, fine. Whatever. First year entering college? 2001. Here comes 9/11 and the endless wars.
Finish school, move far away from home, get my first "real" job in 2007, am there long enough to get my first series of real raises and then what happens? Housing market implodes, stock markets crash and we have a global economic crisis. Nobody's getting raises anymore, can you weather the layoffs?
Oh boy.
Life happens, things move on. Finally have some stability. Married, hey got kids now and oh shit, here's President Donald Trump, you know, the racist guy from the TV!? This sure isn't the world I wanted. Not even a little bit, but raise the kids to be nice and oh fuck, here's a global fucking pandemic. Is it from lax regulations at a virus lab or from lax regulations at a wet market? Who fucking cares! Oh wait a minute, American cops? All the shit they've always been doing, hey it's gonna get way worse, and that guy you knew from high school that everyone loved? He's running for local office back home on a pure MAGA campaign and look at how many of your friends think that's swell.
The way I see it is that Millennials are caught between two extremes - optimism about keeping one's local communities in an increasingly interconnected world, and the total shattering of consensus that is created by the huge amount of contextless information pushed onto us today.
The idea of a side hustle is rooted in Boomer optimism - you can work hard at something, make money, and make up the deficiency in what you earn from your job against what you want, refactored for the chaotic future. The clientele for the side hustle is usually the amorphous social media "others" rahter than anyone they actually know.
It's certainly an interesting place to be.
https://argomend.substack.com/p/global-paradox-2023
Great essay, as always, Gunnar! Seeing the 'decoupling' visually, on a chart, might bring further clarity about our generation's struggles. And it might prove useful more to our boomer parents rather than us passing it around our(millennial)selves.
You outline side hustles from the angle of necessity, to pay the bills. But I always associated side hustles more with that ambition to constantly prove yourself, without taking any time for rest or play. The mentality that the more you side hustle, the more worthy you are. And that, I think, is highly toxic.
So, I was born in 1983.
I was on track to go into tech-related fields in high school, then the year before I graduated the dot com bubble burst. Sure, fine. Whatever. First year entering college? 2001. Here comes 9/11 and the endless wars.
Finish school, move far away from home, get my first "real" job in 2007, am there long enough to get my first series of real raises and then what happens? Housing market implodes, stock markets crash and we have a global economic crisis. Nobody's getting raises anymore, can you weather the layoffs?
Oh boy.
Life happens, things move on. Finally have some stability. Married, hey got kids now and oh shit, here's President Donald Trump, you know, the racist guy from the TV!? This sure isn't the world I wanted. Not even a little bit, but raise the kids to be nice and oh fuck, here's a global fucking pandemic. Is it from lax regulations at a virus lab or from lax regulations at a wet market? Who fucking cares! Oh wait a minute, American cops? All the shit they've always been doing, hey it's gonna get way worse, and that guy you knew from high school that everyone loved? He's running for local office back home on a pure MAGA campaign and look at how many of your friends think that's swell.
Barf.