• The internet is full of negative emotion, and the creative underclass is still raging.
• People with unrealized dreams in creative industries are often angry due to thwarted ambition and the sense that they were meant for more than comfort.
• These people are often college-educated and gainfully employed, yet they are still resentful of those who have succeeded in creative fields.
• They are often jealous of those who have achieved success despite no clear advantage in talent, worth, or effort.
• Nate Silver is an example of someone who is conspicuously successful and enviable, and thus a target of the creative underclass.
• The economics of media and publishing have shifted since the heyday of Gawker, making it impossible for a new Gawker to emerge today.
• Professional writing is still enviable, but the rewards are far more humble than in the past.
• It’s difficult to have an appropriate perspective on the anger from those who don’t have the same opportunities as the creative underclass.
• Bullshit jobs aren’t that bad, and most people would kill to have them.
• We need to shatter the myth of just deserts and remind people that they don’t control their own destinies.
• We can never achieve a world where everyone enjoys public acclaim, and people need to find a way to deal with that.
Published January 9, 2023. Visit Freddie deBoer’s substack to read the original post.
