I'm older than the kids today and when I grew up I wanted to be a singer or a sportsperson and everyone else did. It's just another wild dream, it's normal to want to be cool and rich and famous when you're a kid.
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Kids have always had wild career dreams, it's not new it's just a different medium. It's fine. I'm not sure it's a conscious decision to escape the grind though. I grew up with kids who wanted to be movie stars or athletes. Why? Because they idolised movie stars and athletes and want to be like them. It's what they're exposed to the most. Now kids are exposed to influencers the most, so they wanna be one too.
I wanted to be a train driver 🚂
That's exactly what my first thought was. How many kids did you know growing up who practiced singing into their hairbrush, convinced they would be rock stars?
I feel that depending on what kind of content creation it is, some of the people balking at those kids who want to be influencers don’t realize that it is still a lot of work. This is being a freelance entertainer, you still need to learn strategies. I’m preparing to start VTubing (independently) at 20 as a side hustle, and there is an astounding amount of preparation to do it well. Also, these content creator lifestyles can also be appealing for disabled/chronically ill people like myself. A good community will wish you well, understand, and not ask you for a doctor’s note if you need time off frequently; a manager at a corporate job, not so much. Disabled or not, everyone deserves flexibility, and being an influence can support that well.
Me and my fiance were looking at dolls and tbh i found it sad. They had these "i can be anything" set and the doll in question was a barista doll. What kid honestly wants to work for Starbucks for the rest of their life? Kids deserve better, bigger dreams than we give em
A friend of mine from architecture school wound up as barista during the Great Recession and genuinely ended up loving it, to the point that he tried to buy a coffee shop from a guy who was retiring. Unfortunately for him, he couldn't get a small business loan mid-recession (the bank told him "you have the most airtight business plan we've seen in a hot minute, but we're just not making loans right now") and he wasn't able to make it work.
There's no shame in wanting to work in the service industry. The challenge is in finding a way to do it without being exploited.