THE GEN X CAREER MELTDOWN
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- XC01
Just when they should be at their peak, experienced workers in creative fields find that their skills are all but obsolete.
- NBQ00-6
So this article needed its own thread, ok then.
- microkorg11
- haha good for themhans_glib
- i like thisCalderone2000
- YEAHHH!!OBBTKN
- Follow the money! https://www.youtube.…SlashPeckham
- go on brent!stoplying
- Continuity2
Yeah, I read this article a couple of days ago, too. Fucking depressing.
- #TraumaTuesdayspalimpsest
- #MardisDeMerdepalimpsest
- flol @ #MardisDeMerdeContinuity
- dittomonospaced
- BonSeff6
I read the article, then I thought about godzilla
- Godzilla doesn’t want this for any of usprophetone
- ^ lolNairn
- prophetone7
This is a similar feeling when Flash creative boom ended overnight.
Only instead of a firecracker and losing a finger... we just unknowingly walked three steps beyond the cliff edge while holding the comically-large 50s ACME ball bomb with the lit wick (looks at camera before the drop)
- i'm more tech based than many but i've had several career wipes. very lucky in any professional field to be doing the same thing for a decadekingsteven
- BonSeff0
This kind of struck me:
"As opportunities and incomes dwindle, Gen X-ers in creative fields are weighing their options. Move to a lower-cost place and remain committed to the work you love? Look for a bland corporate job that might provide health insurance and a steady paycheck until retirement?"
Like a bland corporate job is a bad thing, and somehow selling out?
- Most people have a bland job in the first place. You're talented and lucky if you get one. Not every creative independent is good at what they do.bainbridge
- I choose bland corporate until retirementmaquito
- and pizzamaquito
- I'd take bland corp and insurance. Plenty of side projects to have creative freedom on, whether music, art, or web design projects.mg33
- boring/secure/well-c... sellout jobs are the best. they allow you to live your life outside of workmxhxr
- yuekit6
- Hello. You've reached the winter of our discontent.prophetone
- Non-ironocally.palimpsest
- In the words of The Lucksmiths: It’s the winter of our discount tent! Great band! Clever.sab
- Think anyone got rich designing this poster? Because some of you think this was made in the golden era of design . Lulz.********
- lol...wasn't the film itself about people in the creative industry struggling to find a job?yuekit
- yuekit0
Although some of what's in that article may ring true you've got to keep in mind it doesn't contain any numbers or data. It's just the stories of a few people.
Overall fields like graphic design and UX design are growing and projected to keep growing for the next decade.
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer…
But I'm sure that heavily differentiated based on what your specific focus is. I think the most difficult are people who don't have that many technical skills and also get stuck in a niche which then goes away.
- by "technical skills" do you mean the ability to prompt?hans_glib
- Let's say your career was centered around designing magazine layouts...well no shit you're probably now going to need to find another type of job.yuekit
- Media has changed dramatically during that time and will continue to change but it doesn't mean the overall pie is getting smaller.yuekit
- DaveO0
I posted this in the Blog thread – i do think it needs its own space.
They don't mention how that generation benefitted from a great property market before it skyrocketed everywhere!
- _niko6
Not just Gen X.
Remember what made many of us feel special as kids? our ability to draw or make art? How impressed our schoolmates were? How no matter how much of a fuck-up we were at math or how much we horsed around, the teacher would give us a pass and actually respected us because we were creative?
Yeah, for the next generation, that's probably all gone now.
- Millennials, Gen-Z, Alpha live life under a constant 4K microscope socially...prophetone
- everything is (potentially) recorded, scrutinized, media over-stimulation is off charts, de-sensitization at all time highprophetone
- I agree – i feel like the instant access to everything means that nothing is special any more, and there's not as much boredom that leads to magicDaveO
- little is cool anymore, it's all snapped to rails or an industry/platform formula. where are the wild rock bands, crazy movies, explosive creative pop culture.prophetone
- there are amazing rare examples of this of course... but pre-2000s it was like an explosion of creative musi, visuals and the artsprophetone
- the motivations have shifted away from striving for the creative magic as THE GOAL - now it's just focus on maxing 'likes, subs, mentions, shares'prophetone
- and most importantly imo - the 'zombification' of the, especially, younger generationsprophetone
- like now, even if a young person sees something inspiring! special! freshly-creative! they 'pause for a sec say MEH and keep doom scrollingprophetone
- All of this just in time for fast food approach of A.I. - which imo will create millions of more kids saying MEH out there even if actual great creativeprophetone
- Ok enough of this, time for my vitamins and Metamucilprophetone
- nah keep going. I think you are right.cherub
- You felt special?palimpsest
- https://www.youtube.…renderedred
- lol yeah not special more like bad-ass...I felt special when I tried to do math ;)_niko
- bainbridge0
This is all a generalization.
Plenty of people go through art college and aren't talented or give the effort to be creative.
Anyone who cares and has a good eye and tries will always find work.
There's also dumb ways to make money if you try or get lucky or are just confident and have dumb clients.
This doesn't mean creatives have to go work at Chipotle now or deliver Amazon packages.
- bainbridge0
I'm tired of people always saying that someone is good just because they went to school for something or have a job.
How many people are bad at their jobs or work for dumb companies?
How many of your friends/peers majored in something at an expensive school that they never had a career in?
- Less than 15% of my graduating design class from college are working in design********
- Less than 15% of my graduating design class from college are working in design
- jonny_quest_lives8
As a Gen X'er I don't recall a time when the bottom wasn't perpetually falling out of every creative industry...
- Seriously. The dot com crash was no picnic but I think the job market now is at least as bad as late 2001. That was when I had my first layoff.CyBrainX
- Agree, very uncertain times with AI, tooling, job market etc.falcadia
- The job market has been screwed up for a while, it's worse that it's been going on for too long.OBBTKN
- toemaas1
I was under the impression that every generation goes through this. Change is the essence of the universe. Unless you work for some sort of municipal or education job that comes with some sort of respect for tenure, what profession doesn’t feed off of the energy of youth? Athletics, entertainment, creative, hell even like delivery drivers or labor. It seems that only the absolutely exceptional are thriving full force through the twilight of their careers. That’s why the idea of advanced age retirement seems so dumb! Especially as creatives! Make some good financial decisions early on. Take the big risks early on. That way, you can walk away from the commissioned work and spend the last 1/4 putting your experience to work (both in life experience and creative technique experience). Throw out as many artifacts as possible and showing the rest of the world that you existed + letting them know you understand and you know they exist too. Fight the dying of the light, but not in the corporate “sell-out” environment that you have already clung to for decades. It’s time to do the good shit and build your own communities. That’s what the younger crowd is already doing with you you anyway.
- ********1
We ain’t nothing but steelworkers in the rust belt.
