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How hustle culture took over advertising

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Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#231
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hustler is used a lot in rap. It's always been there. A hustler hustles. They put in work. They are in the grind. It's all about turning a nickel into a dime. In other words, they sell a lot of crack. Nothing deep. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZbwTCrnktY - Cassidy - I'm a hustler https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv6CbP4kVno - Lil Wayne - Hustler Muzic

Reminds me of the other usage of hustling which is an incongruous clash with the macho image - male prostitution mostly to other men and the occasional older women. Not judging either and I fully understand that it is a serious situation - just noting the inadvertent humor in linguistic drift.

Technically I believe it often meant any odd job to make money whether legal, illegal or a grey area. So selling weed, shoveling a driveway, and busking where you could get kicked out at worst all count.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#232
post #209

I know this is a snarky comment, but... is it surprising that an industry built entirely on framing things to look better has a problem of workers having to frame themselves to look like better workers? I do think we should aspire to better, but the extra image consciousness seems like the common thread here.

The problem is, this is affecting every industry. I have friends in accounting for instance, and if you aren't prompt with your emails over the weekend, if you aren't early at work and late to leave, etc, you will not be promoted. I have friends in law and its the same thing; If you aren't putting up 55+ hr weeks, you are going to get an awkward reference and won't get your next job. The problem is universal in early…

That sounds like a stupid human cognitive bias of judging powerful less harshly by following their self serving standards. The CEO made a mistake and has a problem by showing up to work drunk. The janitor doing so is an irresponsible waste of space.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give an example of this - a society with a dictatorship that endeavors to give people artificial work?

http://i.imgur.com/3q0xAJv.jpg Not sure if this counts but this image of a soldier mopping in the rain comes to mind.

That looks like a Marine and this kind of pointless punishment is common in the corps. The more pointless, the better. (Think, digging a hole and filling it back up again, repeatedly.)

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#234

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…

Personally I don't think that is new at all. Farmers have long identified as farmers above all else, sailors as sailors - and that isn't even getting into cushy positions like the warrior-elites.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#235

I'm American but I've lived overseas for nearly a decade, and I hardly ever go back. In recent years when I meet other Americans who are visiting my city, I often get this vague feeling that they're just trying too hard in one way or another. Maybe they're working too hard, or trying too hard to impress someone, or get attention, or assert themselves. I don't know if I've changed or if America is changed or if it's s…

Sounds like a great place to work. Are you hiring? :)

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#236
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't matter what the data says, the feeling that our society is crumbling is palpable, and that is what drives this overwork. People my age (40s) and younger do not believe that our institutions will be able to support us in our old age and retirement. We do not even believe that the earth's ecosystems will be able to support us (as a group) then. In 30 years, we as individuals better have resources accumulated…

I'm waiting for a massive exodus of US citizens to Europe for healthcare. Also the perceived society crumbling is self-imposed. Raging culture wars, terrorism as an excuse for totalitarian paranoia, freely accessible firearms, school shootings, obesity epidemic, trade tariffs, monopolistic corporations lobbying for laws, ecological disasters. Frankly, I'm happy with my European backwater if the cost of getting off we…

I emigrated from America to the UK. Healthcare is the number one thing that would make me trepidatious about moving back, far ahead of the gun violence and even the general political lunacy.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#238

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.

Hatred of advertising at a larger scale, nice. How are those people on said websites (and almost any other medium) supposed to make money?

Maybe they shouldn't be making money? Advertising allows otherwise unviable businesses to survive. This is true of other things besides the internet, yet nobody wonders how TV shows are supposed to make money without advertising when we pay to watch shows with no interruptions. Streaming television contrasted with cable TV illustrates perfectly how advertising lowers the quality of content. Likewise, it lowers the quality of the audience; if you don't have to pay for something, you're more likely to view said thing, but you probably aren't going value it very much or be a valuable customer in the long run.

Advertising is much worse on the internet because it's a lot easier to propagate, not being constrained by time slots in a broadcast. That means that an overwhelming amount of trash is allowed to survive, drowning out a lot of the things that are worthwhile and building up an audience that is low-value and perhaps even dangerous to society in some regards; I would argue such for the amount of "viral" tripe that sways how people view politics, science, religion, etc.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand this but it doesn't really counteract my point: it pays for stuff. It (helps) pay for your bus stop (or at least it does in the states), it's on paid television because you'd have to pay EVEN MORE for it, and movies on top of that. Now, if you made an argument that the entire structure is screwed up and the people at the top deserve to make less and therefore not needing as much cash flow and therefore w…

Nah. I don't believe that my train or bus would cost substantially more without the advertising. And even if it did, it's just an internalization of costs. The advertising (if it works) pulls money in through a side channel (someone sees an ad and later buys a thing). It makes far more sense to just pay for the bus. Other examples, like ads at the side of the road, don't even pay for anything. Driving along the road,…

I'd rather pay £129 for my Zone 2 pass than £135 without ads. The £6 I can buy a kebab with.

Even bought the Kindle with special offers. Preferred it to the one I have without.

Re: How hustle culture took over advertising

#240
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, where do you work now and who are your clients? I worked in Asia and the work culture with the Chinese (mainlanders) and those of Chinese-descent (Chinese Malaysians, Chinese Singaporean) was more challenging than working with Americans. When I was in advertising, stories of people working and staying (as in sleeping over) during the weekends was not uncommon. Clients would call me at 11pm asking for a c…

I'm in Thailand and our customers are almost all in the US. Some Thai companies have a pretty grueling culture, six days a week, little/no vacation, etc. Our customers don't try to micromanage as long as we're getting results. I think our approach to work just comes down to me setting the tone. I was very lucky to have a teacher all the way back in elementary school who drilled the "Work smarter, not harder" mentalit…

I didn't know it was possible to have a 100% foreign owned business in Thailand. Is that a new development, or is the business in your SO's name?
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