You are aware that the majority of kids aspire to be social influencers as a desired life/career path, yes?
https://pro.morningconsult.com/analysis/gen-z-interest-influencer-marketing
The majority of current US children do not want to be doctors or professors or plumbers or coders or truck drivers or electricians… they want to pursue a career path that has something like a one in a million odds of making them stupidly wealthy.
Because that’s what they see. All the time. A constant super, uber version of a reality tv show of wealthy idiot assholes doing and saying whatever they want and almost never facing any consequences.
And to some extent, who can blame them?
Every other career path has exceptional upfront costs of time and money, involves much, much more challenging work (either physical, mental or both) and are seen as basically just as risky in terms of actually working out.
Fuck it. YOLO. Only got 10 or 20 years until the water wars or WW3 or climate change breaks everything anyway.
The majority of current US children do not want to be doctors or professors or plumbers or coders or truck drivers or electricians… they want to pursue a career path that has something like a one in a million odds of making them stupidly wealthy.
I, too, had dreams of being a rock star when I was a kid.
Checks for free. He’s talking about writing personal checks, like in the beforetimes, and them having no impact on his bank account later.
It’s a damning account of 80s hypermaterialism.
Yes, I know, history rhymes and Socrates was right about the youth being out of control.
This is really different though. In so many ways.
Looking up to rock stars was different from parasocial relationships with people you watch hundreds and hundreds of hours of.
The volume of content dictates so many differences between rock stars and influencers just on its own.
Different in some ways? Sure, maybe, but go watch the videos of people at the Beatles concerts, or Michael Jackson concerts, etc. etc. They look like they’re losing their minds just while he is standing on stage looking around before the performance. Humans have incredibly sick relationships to any ‘star.’ Look at athletes and their incredible influence on kids. Holy hell, for a recent one just look at taylor swift and getting people to register to vote.
How many kids did anything toward that goal, such as forming a band, learning how to play an instrument or sing, actually landing that first gig at a local bar or something…
… vs how many kids nowadays … have a social media account they post to religiously?
Forming a band? Tons. You couldn’t drive down a neighborhood block without hearing someone banging on drums in a garage, or an amp pealing its notes out from an open window.
I would bet the amount of ‘bands’ that formed and the amount of kids that post videos to become influencers have a pretty similar number.
And to some extent, who can blame them?
I agree with your entire comment, but from this point on, you really nailed it.
Who knows what my attitude would be if I was in my teens or early twenties? I would be old enough to understand that I have almost no chance of building a “good” life. Everything’s fucked. Political systems, the labor market, and worst of all, the environment. Might as well earn money by being an idiot. At least then I’d be my own boss.
The majority of kids dream of eventually owning a home… it looks like that’s unrealistic unless you can get 4-5 million together in some markets.
Is there a room for humans in those garages? Why does every house these days need to dedicate so much of their square footage to cars.
Also, I’m aware there are substantial price differences in different markets - I’m in Canada and, specifically, Vancouver - our market is insane… but gone are the days of a modest home for under 200k.
Fuck it. YOLO. Only got 10 or 20 years until the water wars or WW3 or climate change breaks everything anyway.
psst… don’t look now, but it’s less than ten years.
Pssst, we all wish, this shit is going to circle the drain for decades. Think it’s bad now? Just wait.
No, I get what you mean. It just depends on what we mean by “breaks everything”. I’m not saying we’re looking at human extinction in ten years, or the complete loss of advanced industrial civilization in ten years. But I do expect in that time span massive and permanent decreases in the average standard of living and the availability of goods, services, and information.
