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How hustle culture took over advertising

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11–20 of 266 posts

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#11

Just some random thoughts here...this strikes me as a consequence of the contemporary idea of work having to be the end-all to one’s identity, purpose and meaning in life. Advertising, perhaps the ‘original’ fundamentally meaningless career field to spawn from consumer capitalism, used to be mostly about just communicating your product/service. Eventually it morphed into lifestyle marketing and at this point has reac…

Ultimately it seems to be about people throwing politeness out of the window in the name of business.

We are humans first and foremost, and economic actors second.

I encounter people all of the time that treat their job as being more important than, well, being human.

I generally find these individuals difficult to interact with in a meaningful sense, aside from in a professional capacity.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#12

Just some random thoughts here...this strikes me as a consequence of the contemporary idea of work having to be the end-all to one’s identity, purpose and meaning in life. Advertising, perhaps the ‘original’ fundamentally meaningless career field to spawn from consumer capitalism, used to be mostly about just communicating your product/service. Eventually it morphed into lifestyle marketing and at this point has reac…

Ultimately it seems to be about people throwing politeness out of the window in the name of business. We are humans first and foremost, and economic actors second. I encounter people all of the time that treat their job as being more important than, well, being human. I generally find these individuals difficult to interact with in a meaningful sense, aside from in a professional capacity.

it's a redirection of the natural human characteristic of competitive behaviour and climbing hierarchies. Keeping challengers down and attempting to elevate ourselves in whatever hierarchy we find ourselves in is about as human as it gets, sadly.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#13
>Hustle is public. And in the ad industry, publicity matters.

There's your reasoning right there.

I've drank a bit of kool-aid myself. It feels normal now to overlay a level of 'hustling advertising' because that's what the business culture does and you don't want to be the one guy in a client meeting who looks pained to be there.

Another way of thinking about it: would you learn to do a little dancing for a good salary + benefits?

It quickly becomes second-nature to at least be engaged in the hustling adverts and culture meetings. The real trap (which is toxic) is feeling like hustling is a competition and a second job.

This stuff can push introverts to the sidelines though, and that can make their real world suffer if they feel isolated because they don't participate as much.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#14

So, this is the industry that: - puts flashing colored boxes in front of our faces at any possible opportunity - requires us to click through multiple popups to access almost any for-profit website - has normalized the act of wasting human life at a mass scale by injecting multi-minute time-wasting sessions in activities "How hustle culture took over"? It's a hustle by default. I'd call it a swindle.

I always thought that hustler was synonymous with confidence artist or a low level scammer. That it’s now considered a positive word is fascinating to me.

A hustler hustles, but one who hustles isn't always a hustler.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#15

Just some random thoughts here...this strikes me as a consequence of the contemporary idea of work having to be the end-all to one’s identity, purpose and meaning in life. Advertising, perhaps the ‘original’ fundamentally meaningless career field to spawn from consumer capitalism, used to be mostly about just communicating your product/service. Eventually it morphed into lifestyle marketing and at this point has reac…

I think it's a consequence of abundance. If you have a grocery store that has cantaloupes, and that's unusual because most grocery stores don't have cantaloupes most of the time, you just hang a sign in the window that says "Cantaloupes". Maybe you put a print ad in the newspaper. Those who decide they want them will come to your store. When they're all gone, well, your advertising did its job. But if every grocery s…

this seems accurate to me, although I would phrase it as competition rather than abundance. When everyone has the same product on offer, differentiation comes from how you position that product in the market. This trainer is for aspiring marathon runners, this one is for aspiring basketball players. The reality is the difference between the two is minimal and they're both just trying to focus on selling to the subset of people with a particular self-image.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#16
post #13

>Hustle is public. And in the ad industry, publicity matters. There's your reasoning right there. I've drank a bit of kool-aid myself. It feels normal now to overlay a level of 'hustling advertising' because that's what the business culture does and you don't want to be the one guy in a client meeting who looks pained to be there. Another way of thinking about it: would you learn to do a little dancing for a good sal…

> would you learn to do a little dancing for a good salary + benefits?

This isn't an appropriate analogy because dancing is harmless.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#17

Just some random thoughts here...this strikes me as a consequence of the contemporary idea of work having to be the end-all to one’s identity, purpose and meaning in life. Advertising, perhaps the ‘original’ fundamentally meaningless career field to spawn from consumer capitalism, used to be mostly about just communicating your product/service. Eventually it morphed into lifestyle marketing and at this point has reac…

I think it's a consequence of abundance. If you have a grocery store that has cantaloupes, and that's unusual because most grocery stores don't have cantaloupes most of the time, you just hang a sign in the window that says "Cantaloupes". Maybe you put a print ad in the newspaper. Those who decide they want them will come to your store. When they're all gone, well, your advertising did its job. But if every grocery s…

This is where it turns into tragedy of the commons. If every grocery store has cantaloupes year-round, they need to figure out something else to advertise, or - if they're all selling the same stuff - they should all shut up. Instead, someone will always start the advertising arms race, and suddenly everyone has to waste time and Earth's natural resources on actions that roughly cancel each other out.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#18

So, this is the industry that: - puts flashing colored boxes in front of our faces at any possible opportunity - requires us to click through multiple popups to access almost any for-profit website - has normalized the act of wasting human life at a mass scale by injecting multi-minute time-wasting sessions in activities "How hustle culture took over"? It's a hustle by default. I'd call it a swindle.

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Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#19

So, this is the industry that: - puts flashing colored boxes in front of our faces at any possible opportunity - requires us to click through multiple popups to access almost any for-profit website - has normalized the act of wasting human life at a mass scale by injecting multi-minute time-wasting sessions in activities "How hustle culture took over"? It's a hustle by default. I'd call it a swindle.

Don't forget ads in movie trailers! Now that is "ingenious". Forcing you to watch an ad to watch an ad. The guy who thought of that deserves "Advertiser of the Year" award and a "Crime against Humanity" charge.

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