That is not how sample sizes work. If the sampling was actually random, a sample size of 1000 is way more than enough to measure a 25/75 split in a population.
The sample size gives you the "random error" in your estimate, and that scales roughly as 1/sqrt(sample size). So 1000 is plenty. But it is reasonable to worry whether the sample was actually random, or biased in some way (e.g. sampling only Gen Z-ers that use a certain website) -- that would lead to a systematic error. However, for a systematic error a bigger sample size would not help much.
I like your comment! However, isn’t it plausible that the underlying population (or the distribution resulting from the ascertainment process) is structured in such a way that N=1000 might well have over-representation of certain subgroups, whereas N=10000 would be likely to have equal representation of subgroups?
That was my concern. How many states did they test in the US? How many people from each state? LA and NYC are famous for being the cities every theater kid wants to live in, so if too many responses come from them, it seems obvious a huge portion want to be influencers. What about the midwest and south? Do they get the same results there?
Sure, that makes sense. But it's completely irrelevant: the point is that kids identity with cultural moments, and that we shouldn't mistake that for what they're actually going to do when they grow up.
It does affect what they focus on though, and what interests them later in life. The Apollo effect is very real. There’s a lot of boomers and Gen X folks who went into technology and science because of the Moon landings. we should be doing things and making cultural choices that inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.
The Apollo effect is real, and so is the Scully Effect[1]. Entertainment stars with no particular relation or expertise in the roles they play can have an outsized effect on children and young adults' professional goals.
There is no economical scheme in which 25% of all Gen-Z-ers actually become social media influencers, so I'm not going to spend my time actually worrying about that. For the ones who do, the content they produce matters much more to me than their mere job description.
I’m not worried about them becoming social media influencers. I understand that there’s a limited pool of positions here.
It’s just that the kid who wants to be an astronaut or involved in the space program in the late 60s early 70s grows up to be a tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley in the 80’s and 90’s. We got that generation to thank for this website and websites in general.
I don’t know what the profound effect of Gen Z or Gen A will be, but I suspect a future in which they are inspired by a revived Moon and Mars exploration program will be better than one where they mostly aspire to be “influencers.”
Here's what I'll point out: the generation that grew up to be astronauts didn't have astronauts to look up to. They looked up to silent movie stars, army generals, and Depression-era daredevils. Neil Armstrong was born in 1930 and flew in a "Tin Goose" as a child; he probably admired barnstormers a lot more than the rocket scientists who eventually paved the road for his flight to the Moon.
It's of course good to have good role models. But I don't think those role models need to be technical experts or "heroic" in some socially beneficial way to be good. They can also be good public speakers, or educators, or just plain entertaining.
I think you answered your own question about what this is supposed to tell us.
I’d love my child to long being an astronaut, and all the studying and life choices it will impose on them. Can’t say the same about becoming a TikToker.
I'm not going to argue that really wanting to be an astronaut won't have better life outcomes. My point is that asking young people what they "plan to become" is very different from what they really want (much less intend to achieve).
If the two were the same, we'd have a lot of firefighters and astronauts.
We all want the things we consider good for our children. I want my hypothetical ones to read Buddenbrooks, but I know they're probably going to watch YouTube instead.
Social media stars are an extension of fame, a basic human desire. It's not surprising (or even particularly civically harmful) that fame is now associated with TikTok influencers rather than movie stars. Your child is about as likely to become either.
Jonny Kim (Navy Seal, MD from Harvard, Astronaut) is also famous, he'd be a better role model. Accomplishing 1/3 of what he's done is impressive in its own right.
Who in this thread is claiming that astronauts are not impressive? Of course they are, especially to me as an adult.
As a 16 year old, I wouldn't give a damn that Jonny Kim has an MD from Harvard. I did, however, find myself impressed by the fact that Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier while lying about his broken ribs[1]. I have no idea which (if any) college he went to.
How is it different than making videogames?
Is James Hoffmann a YouTuber or a batista or an entrepreneur? I don't watch social medias to know a "better" example or not too contrived .
It would be interesting to see the internal distribution within the survey. I'm 25 and I've been in a full-time career for 4 years, so I probably wouldn't have even answered this survey.
Entertainment is valuable, but there are many forms of entertainment beyond television. Read a book, play a video game, invite friends over and do some fun stuff, etc. I am not a fan of TV(or streaming) because its the most passive form of entertainment around. Its valuable, but it also feels overvalued these days.
While I think they are productive at the moment in that they really push the economy by proxy through big budget movies and surrounding merch, I also feel that if the movie and TV industry disappeared that role would be easily filled by other things.
You gotta think about the 99% of people who don't make it.
What's the use of having a million washed up D-list actors?
Whereas if you fail on the journey to becoming an astronaut, you've at least got an engineering degree of something. Maybe you'll contribute by designing a machine to manufacture bearings for desks at a hospital or something.
Why is that sad? Influencers are today's actors and movie stars (especially as the latter noticeably age and are not replaced[1]). I don't think we should idolize actors either, but if you have an intuition for why we do then extending it to their equivalent on social media should not be difficult.
Unfortunately I think this is just a reflection of the fact that human-driven space exploration has not only stalled, but declined. If you graph “Maximum distance from Earth achieved by a living person” over time, it’s currently trending downward as the original pilots of the Apollo missions die off.
I’m sure if we sent someone to Mars and back, a lot more children (and adults!) would want to be astronauts.
Here's NASA's prerequisites for becoming an astronaut:
1. Be a U.S. citizen
2. Possess a master's degree in a STEM field, including engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science or mathematics, from an accredited institution.
3. Have at least two years of related professional experience obtained after degree completion or at least 1,000 hours pilot-in-command time on jet aircraft.
4. Be able to pass the NASA long-duration flight astronaut physical.
Effort towards those goals is not wasted even if one does not become an astronaut.
Of course it isn't. But this assumes that anybody who wants to become an astronaut attempts any of those prerequisites.
"Planning to become" something when you're 16 years old has very little connection in reality with what you actually end up doing. When I was 16, I wanted to be a biologist (definitely a step down from my original plan to be a dinosaur). I ended up being a computer programmer with a completely unrelated degree.
There’s nothing surprising about this since it seems common to want to be famous, rich and someone that lots of people pay attention to, especially in your teens and early 20’s. Previous versions of this dream include author, movie star, sports pro, and musician. Influencer is just the cultural flavor of the decade.
And of course, most people are terrible at estimating probabilities, so these dreams seem vaguely realistic for awhile.
Yeah, social media influencer is a pretty sweet job and has high visibility. Every 5 years someone does this sample and its always the same for the past 50 years, Tiktok star, youtuber, rockstar, tv star, celebrity.
almost no one plans to be a truck driver or cashier but they're the most common jobs in the country, and thats fine.
Is this really true about cashiers and truck drivers? I would have guessed the most common jobs are retail and fast food worker. But maybe that's just because I eat too much fast food.
But now the truck driver or cashier or lawyer or doctor can make TikToks about their profession and become a minor celebrity.
These people are much more interesting than traditional celebrities because they usually have a few good stories or insider tips they can give you. Like "Mr Rice" giving you cleaning tips from his 20 years of experience running a dry cleaning business, "Mechanic Link" doing showing you how involved some car repair tasks are, or the clinical pathologist that tells you about different kinds of carcinomas.
I remember planning to do something in video games as I was growing up. Ended up in a different but fairly related field. Maybe this is just a sign of the next generation of people that'll work in advertising/marketing/PR/media/fashion?
Yeah I had dreams of making video games when I was younger (and still daydream about it sometimes now) and even got to the point of doing some work in modding communities and playing around with my own simple games/clones. Lots of these Gen Zers will likely start TikTok channels or such, but once you find out how difficult it is to make it to the top you tend to at least redirect. Led me to a job in Cybersecurity, and I'm sure most of these kids will turn out fine as well.
Yeah, as much as I think the whole concept of social media influencers is sad and dumb, this smells like one of those 'dang kids and their <x>' articles that have cursed us since Aristotle.
As a Gen-Xer, I don't know how many times I read similar things growing up about my own generation, except it was metal or hair bands or glam rockers that garnered the worry.
And civilizations since Aristotle have only lasted a few centuries on average. So when adults look at younger generations and see inevitable decline, they might be correct.
I don't think I implied causation as much as symptoms of decline. In this case we're talking about a large percentage of people who are entering what is historically considered adulthood, 16+, who intend to apply themselves towards a career that (arguably) doesn't offer much utility to anyone. So the ghosts of Ancient Greece would see this as part of the decline of the American civilization and I don't think they would laugh, shrug their shoulders and say, "the kids are alright".
I'm confused as to whether you're saying that a few centuries is a decline or not. When these civilizations were first forming do you believe that the elders would have looked at the youth and seen them as strengthening?
Hair bands is exactly what sprung to mind for me (fellow Gen-Xer here). "Being a celebrity" has been idolized by young people for ages, whether it's an actor/actress, musician, or professional athlete. I didn't see the actual survey questions, but takeaways like this seem really loaded and perhaps the output of a leading question:
> Just 7.13% of Gen Z responded that they would not want to be a social media Influencer.
I'd also love to see an age distribution, though they did list the range at the bottom of the article. ("The research was conducted by Censuswide with 1,000 general consumers (nat rep) aged 16-25 in the USA between 26.07.22 to 28.07.22.")
[1] Unrelated, Bill Burr has a hilarious rant about hair bands that anyone who grew up listening to would relate with. It's really striking how bad it was -- akin to seeing the graphics of old Atari 2600 games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0KXrESpAn4
I don't think most influencers are leaders. They're attractive conduits for corporate product placements. In fact you have to be quite careful as an influencer not to offend your base or get cancelled - I think they tend to be quite conservative and reserved with respect to risks.
This makes me think of the "shark scene" from Back to the Future, and how reality has diverged from this extrapolation.
- It's still ubiquitous, like a hologram accosting you in the street.
- It's still surprising through targeted ads, the machine understands you.
- Unclear privacy concerns, your scream of fear makes it a discussion piece.
- It's short and sweet.
...but the form isn't terribly artful. It's like a surrogate video call mixed with lowest-common-denominator talent show. This may be part of the effect as well to produce the -- apparently -- rather-effective drive to engage.
This rut, and the congestion may cause things to quickly stagnate.
Plus, a horror movie with some 4-dimensional monster that views reality, places, and human connection as some sort of twisted bubblewrap ought to sort these Gen Z-ers out.
Survey results show more men than women feel becoming an influencer is their only viable career path.
How bad do things have to get in your life for you to feel that "become a TikTok star" is your only option. It's one thing to think you want a fun and exciting career when you become rich and famous (I mean, who doesn't?), but another thing entirely to feel that you have no options for a fulfilling life except internet fame.
If a lot of people genuinely feel this way then that is truly terrible, and society needs to start making other careers viable and attainable possibilities.
I know this is going to get laughed at, but you know how so many in our generation were like "oh man, it was SO EASY to start a tech startup back in the 80s and 90s compared to now!"
Same thing is going to be said about how we had it online during the early 2000s. Kids these days go to war for followers and the social media companies have caught up to the new meta and have started just directly paying them. Only going to get more fierce from here.
Already is being said. 'Influencers' were a thing early in 2000s and many of them already said 'if I started YT today I wouldn't make it'. Many of them coast by doing what they used to without major changes, but their format would fail today.
This is splitting out two things that are really conjoined: people do think that becoming a TikTok star will make them rich and famous. And they're right in a sense: my understanding is that the small percent of "big" influencers make a lot of money.
Social media is civically poisonous in a lot of unique ways. But the desire for fame it induces in people, especially young ones, is not one of them.
> But the desire for fame it induces in people, especially young ones, is not one of them.
For me, it's not the desire for fame that's concerning, it's how everyone is equipped to become an influencer and the lengths people will go through to achieve their goals.
The scary thing to me (and this isn't unique to children) is how many people are willing to lie and put out disinformation in order to generate a following, and I'm not just talking politics here. People were sharing their own baby formula recipes when that shortage spiked, regardless of whether or not it was actually safe for babies to consume. If young people feel that the best way for them to succeed financially is to become an influencer, they're gonna prioritize the fame and money above putting out high-quality content if they're serious about reaching their goals.
I share this concern, and I think it tidily summarizes the underlying problem: social media is itself civically corrosive. I'd rather we focus on that then shock-quotes telling us things we already know (that children want to be rich and famous).
The question is whether this isn't more a problem with the perception and attitude of the surveyed people. Maybe they have prospect for a decent career, just not as a good as the funny and lazy career they see with influencers.
let's put it into context, to some people, becoming a TikTok/Hollywood star or work for FAANG or whatever is just a way to achieve financial independent, a mean to an end.
Think about the fact that some of these "stars" now has so much money they start doing charity, while the righteous salary men are still saving for their investment property or whatever.
We’ve told every kid in Gen Z that they need to go to college and become coders. But a majority of the population is not qualified to do that. Even if they go to college, they’ll be getting the same job they would have gotten a generation ago without a college degree because that’s what they’re qualified to do. And a lot of them are smart enough to realize that. What they don’t have—because boomer parents failed to properly socialize them—is a conception of a fulfilling and dignified life that’s actually attainable to them.
Had I known my career success would be the result of luck, I wouldn't have taken on debt as an adult to go back to school to get out of jobs like you listed.
Sometimes I think that the border of GenX and Millenials have the best grasp on reality.
US Boomers had literally the world handed to them in the shadow of WW2 and therefore have no conception of the privilege into which they were born.
US Zoomers have assumed they're screwed and have given up all consideration that working hard has any sort of payoff.
In the middle, you find those who understand that success is borne of a combination of hard work, talent, privilege, and luck. Not any single one of the above.
To me, it showcases both the lack of necessity to have a stable career to survive, and the struggle people foresee going for a traditional career trying to 'make it'.
Even software devs, despite (proclaimed) massive shortages, have to deal with a lot of BS worldwide. Some places, you can't even afford a family home without a long commute (remote? Just kidding, culture insists hybrid at best). Now extrapolate that to other careers. It ain't pretty.
So is it really a surprise, in a world that makes it easy to play the 'famous person' lottery, where people are increasingly more individualistic, where society continues to disincentivise traditional careers, young people opt to try the lottery?
Oh come off it. Lots of professions like journalism are supported by ad dollars and work for a company who makes money via ads. Influencers are no different than working for a news corp as a journalist, just without the "noble" fakery
Coming from a generation where lots of people thought professional athlete, rock star, or best-selling author were viable career paths, I will abstain from mocking the younger kids and their unrealistic expectations.
Fighter pilot is not such a bad aspiration. Even in the likely event that you fail, you may have worked through a path towards being commercial pilot / air control / engineering... That's not so bad
Sure, but the point is that trying and failing to become a fighter pilot leaves one in a much better position than trying and failing to be a professional athlete.
> Hemorrhoids are a common source of complaint among fighter pilots, who are subjected to G forces. Colorectal disease continues to this day to be a very common and often debilitating complaint, and colorectal surgery clinics in the military generally are well frequented by patients.
Rock star, even had the hair to prove it. But I never reached tolerable on the guitar. Which leads is to one thing that seems to be different for the current generation's pipe dream: lack of clear requirements. Sure, they'd better have some form of appearing charismatic on screen, but that's much less clearly cut out as "good radio voice" or "hot enough for MTV cameras" (or athleticism, or some music skill). Particularly because there are plenty of examples of influencer brands built on "on camera despite". Which might vet well be helped by the platforms, boosting I'm their algorithms a few random "you could be them!" to platform-stardom to foster The Dream in more consumers.
The more specific requirement other than looks is a personality type that is ebullient and resistant to stress from risk-taking. I don't think it's a coincidence that modern-day rappers have many face tattoos and extravagant styles: popular artists are selected in part for their ability to be consistently larger than life characters.
Who thought being a pro athlete was going to work out? Everyone I knew who worked had in sports just used athletics as a vehicle for free college and it worked great for that
Depends on the sport/path. Where I'm from it's more common to join a provincial sports league than NCAA. They earn a small wage, but often get stiffed on education. With the bonus of sometimes having sustained injuries that stay with them the rest of their lives. I know of a guy who had one too many concussions and found it difficult to concentrate once he left the league - then had to fight the association for funds he was promised. What does that leave a person?
> And once [African-Americans] do [join organized sports as children], their parents’ motivation to keep them in the game is significantly more driven by the possibility of playing beyond high school. Parents of African-American youth rated the pursuit of a college scholarship as 23% more important and a pro sports opportunity as 26% more important than White parents, according to the survey.
Yea well when I was 20 I wanted to be a cool EDM party boy like my favourite 2010 era artists.
My dad had long hair in the 80s and all his friends were into metal and goth. They certainly chose to be like that for some reason too.
My grandad likes his rock n roll and folk and... surprise, he was the height of fashion back in the day too.
Who cares? Gen Z are fine doing them. If anything, they need us (now uncool) millennials to empathize with them: talk through the destructive parts of social media, while encouraging them to use the good parts to thrive.
What's the breakdown by gender? I wouldn't be surprised if it skews female. Anecdotal, but it seems a large percentage of online dating profiles just exist to collect followers and increase count (which increases revenue if you sponsor something, right?)
Perhaps this is another solution to the Fermi Paradox. At some point every race develops their own Instagram or TikTok and people are too consumed by it to notice the asteroid coming towards them.
Unlike the generally terrible plan of trying to become a TV/Movie/Music star, the plan of becoming a social media influencer complements most real careers nicely.
Just like a software engineer can benefit from having a popular blog, a doctor can benefit from having a successful TikTok account, and a lawyer can benefit from having a highly rated podcast.
For some careers like journalism, it's hard to see how someone can become successful without becoming some kind of social media influencer in the process.
If they target a good niche it could be a career. I don't mean the traditional "influencer" type that I think of with vapid content pushing products. I mean more like a content creator type on youtube but with other social media presences, its the same concept but niched down.
A niche I follow people in, woodworking, there are several that have quit day jobs and produce content. One in particular has reached over 100k in revenue from making content about building workshop stuff. These are people that are creating things though - plans for sale, funny merch, and instructional content that is helpful. In some ways the content is timeless.
To me I think the corollary to software is devs (like me) that wanted to pursue becoming a solo or indie software shop. So I say go for it to the Gen-Zers but have alternate plans or a fallback as well if it doesn't pan out.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 180 ms ] threadThe sample size gives you the "random error" in your estimate, and that scales roughly as 1/sqrt(sample size). So 1000 is plenty. But it is reasonable to worry whether the sample was actually random, or biased in some way (e.g. sampling only Gen Z-ers that use a certain website) -- that would lead to a systematic error. However, for a systematic error a bigger sample size would not help much.
1000 is plenty of individuals, the real concern is how they were chosen.
Sounds familiar?
In any case, more transparency from the platforms is warranted.
For the record, I wanted to be a dinosaur.
There is no economical scheme in which 25% of all Gen-Z-ers actually become social media influencers, so I'm not going to spend my time actually worrying about that. For the ones who do, the content they produce matters much more to me than their mere job description.
[1]: https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Scully_Effect
It’s just that the kid who wants to be an astronaut or involved in the space program in the late 60s early 70s grows up to be a tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley in the 80’s and 90’s. We got that generation to thank for this website and websites in general.
I don’t know what the profound effect of Gen Z or Gen A will be, but I suspect a future in which they are inspired by a revived Moon and Mars exploration program will be better than one where they mostly aspire to be “influencers.”
It's of course good to have good role models. But I don't think those role models need to be technical experts or "heroic" in some socially beneficial way to be good. They can also be good public speakers, or educators, or just plain entertaining.
I’d love my child to long being an astronaut, and all the studying and life choices it will impose on them. Can’t say the same about becoming a TikToker.
If the two were the same, we'd have a lot of firefighters and astronauts.
Social media stars are an extension of fame, a basic human desire. It's not surprising (or even particularly civically harmful) that fame is now associated with TikTok influencers rather than movie stars. Your child is about as likely to become either.
As a 16 year old, I wouldn't give a damn that Jonny Kim has an MD from Harvard. I did, however, find myself impressed by the fact that Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier while lying about his broken ribs[1]. I have no idea which (if any) college he went to.
[1]: https://medium.com/knowledge-stew/when-chuck-yeager-broke-th...
They don't magically become logical/rational brains upon turning 16.
But your movie star comparison is pretty spot on.
Entertainment is valuable.
While I think they are productive at the moment in that they really push the economy by proxy through big budget movies and surrounding merch, I also feel that if the movie and TV industry disappeared that role would be easily filled by other things.
What's the use of having a million washed up D-list actors?
Whereas if you fail on the journey to becoming an astronaut, you've at least got an engineering degree of something. Maybe you'll contribute by designing a machine to manufacture bearings for desks at a hospital or something.
[1]: https://www.theringer.com/movies/2022/6/27/23181232/old-acto...
I’m sure if we sent someone to Mars and back, a lot more children (and adults!) would want to be astronauts.
1. Be a U.S. citizen
2. Possess a master's degree in a STEM field, including engineering, biological science, physical science, computer science or mathematics, from an accredited institution.
3. Have at least two years of related professional experience obtained after degree completion or at least 1,000 hours pilot-in-command time on jet aircraft.
4. Be able to pass the NASA long-duration flight astronaut physical.
Effort towards those goals is not wasted even if one does not become an astronaut.
"Planning to become" something when you're 16 years old has very little connection in reality with what you actually end up doing. When I was 16, I wanted to be a biologist (definitely a step down from my original plan to be a dinosaur). I ended up being a computer programmer with a completely unrelated degree.
And of course, most people are terrible at estimating probabilities, so these dreams seem vaguely realistic for awhile.
almost no one plans to be a truck driver or cashier but they're the most common jobs in the country, and thats fine.
These people are much more interesting than traditional celebrities because they usually have a few good stories or insider tips they can give you. Like "Mr Rice" giving you cleaning tips from his 20 years of experience running a dry cleaning business, "Mechanic Link" doing showing you how involved some car repair tasks are, or the clinical pathologist that tells you about different kinds of carcinomas.
As a Gen-Xer, I don't know how many times I read similar things growing up about my own generation, except it was metal or hair bands or glam rockers that garnered the worry.
> Just 7.13% of Gen Z responded that they would not want to be a social media Influencer.
I'd also love to see an age distribution, though they did list the range at the bottom of the article. ("The research was conducted by Censuswide with 1,000 general consumers (nat rep) aged 16-25 in the USA between 26.07.22 to 28.07.22.")
[1] Unrelated, Bill Burr has a hilarious rant about hair bands that anyone who grew up listening to would relate with. It's really striking how bad it was -- akin to seeing the graphics of old Atari 2600 games: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0KXrESpAn4
Being a social media influencer translates to influencer. Which seems to be either a leader, or some sub variant of leader.
Is it a surprise people want to make a difference and be the decider of that difference?
The economics gets touched on in "decade eight, third millennium".
In the world of Accelerando... well... I suspect that the new and rehashed ideas of social media would be a gold mine.
- It's still ubiquitous, like a hologram accosting you in the street.
- It's still surprising through targeted ads, the machine understands you.
- Unclear privacy concerns, your scream of fear makes it a discussion piece.
- It's short and sweet.
...but the form isn't terribly artful. It's like a surrogate video call mixed with lowest-common-denominator talent show. This may be part of the effect as well to produce the -- apparently -- rather-effective drive to engage.
This rut, and the congestion may cause things to quickly stagnate.
Plus, a horror movie with some 4-dimensional monster that views reality, places, and human connection as some sort of twisted bubblewrap ought to sort these Gen Z-ers out.
How bad do things have to get in your life for you to feel that "become a TikTok star" is your only option. It's one thing to think you want a fun and exciting career when you become rich and famous (I mean, who doesn't?), but another thing entirely to feel that you have no options for a fulfilling life except internet fame.
If a lot of people genuinely feel this way then that is truly terrible, and society needs to start making other careers viable and attainable possibilities.
Same thing is going to be said about how we had it online during the early 2000s. Kids these days go to war for followers and the social media companies have caught up to the new meta and have started just directly paying them. Only going to get more fierce from here.
Social media is civically poisonous in a lot of unique ways. But the desire for fame it induces in people, especially young ones, is not one of them.
For me, it's not the desire for fame that's concerning, it's how everyone is equipped to become an influencer and the lengths people will go through to achieve their goals.
The scary thing to me (and this isn't unique to children) is how many people are willing to lie and put out disinformation in order to generate a following, and I'm not just talking politics here. People were sharing their own baby formula recipes when that shortage spiked, regardless of whether or not it was actually safe for babies to consume. If young people feel that the best way for them to succeed financially is to become an influencer, they're gonna prioritize the fame and money above putting out high-quality content if they're serious about reaching their goals.
I just want the rich part, thank you very much
At least now they can give it a go for free.
But it does seem like fewer people want to do metalwork or be a mechanic or do electr-ic/onic repairs of some kind.
Many of my peers became welders and they're the ones raking in cash all the time, stable as hell.
Incidentally work that is being outpriced by mass production, proprietary solutions, planned obsolescence and to a lesser degree, automation.
Think about the fact that some of these "stars" now has so much money they start doing charity, while the righteous salary men are still saving for their investment property or whatever.
It’s social media influencer over Amazon warehouse, hospitality house keeping, home health aid, and shit like that.
Careers are the result of luck. Usually the ordinary luck of birth into social status.
Most people in the world have to take whatever job is available. And a job harvesting melons is only available if they are lucky.
US Boomers had literally the world handed to them in the shadow of WW2 and therefore have no conception of the privilege into which they were born.
US Zoomers have assumed they're screwed and have given up all consideration that working hard has any sort of payoff.
In the middle, you find those who understand that success is borne of a combination of hard work, talent, privilege, and luck. Not any single one of the above.
Good fortune is why “back” was an option.
I am not saying that lucky people never work hard.
Or that success is entirely a matter of luck.
Even software devs, despite (proclaimed) massive shortages, have to deal with a lot of BS worldwide. Some places, you can't even afford a family home without a long commute (remote? Just kidding, culture insists hybrid at best). Now extrapolate that to other careers. It ain't pretty.
So is it really a surprise, in a world that makes it easy to play the 'famous person' lottery, where people are increasingly more individualistic, where society continues to disincentivise traditional careers, young people opt to try the lottery?
It's not all roses:
From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2780168/
> Hemorrhoids are a common source of complaint among fighter pilots, who are subjected to G forces. Colorectal disease continues to this day to be a very common and often debilitating complaint, and colorectal surgery clinics in the military generally are well frequented by patients.
> And once [African-Americans] do [join organized sports as children], their parents’ motivation to keep them in the game is significantly more driven by the possibility of playing beyond high school. Parents of African-American youth rated the pursuit of a college scholarship as 23% more important and a pro sports opportunity as 26% more important than White parents, according to the survey.
My dad had long hair in the 80s and all his friends were into metal and goth. They certainly chose to be like that for some reason too.
My grandad likes his rock n roll and folk and... surprise, he was the height of fashion back in the day too.
Who cares? Gen Z are fine doing them. If anything, they need us (now uncool) millennials to empathize with them: talk through the destructive parts of social media, while encouraging them to use the good parts to thrive.
Just like a software engineer can benefit from having a popular blog, a doctor can benefit from having a successful TikTok account, and a lawyer can benefit from having a highly rated podcast.
For some careers like journalism, it's hard to see how someone can become successful without becoming some kind of social media influencer in the process.
A niche I follow people in, woodworking, there are several that have quit day jobs and produce content. One in particular has reached over 100k in revenue from making content about building workshop stuff. These are people that are creating things though - plans for sale, funny merch, and instructional content that is helpful. In some ways the content is timeless.
To me I think the corollary to software is devs (like me) that wanted to pursue becoming a solo or indie software shop. So I say go for it to the Gen-Zers but have alternate plans or a fallback as well if it doesn't pan out.
Okay, so they're going to group 16 year olds opinions in with people who are over 20.
Nah, not buying it as being a remotely realistic portrayal of Gen Z.