Mixing business with pleasure
The problem with turning hobbies into hustles.
You like talking about this, have you ever thought about starting a podcast? You’re good at gaming, you should start streaming! Oh my god, I love your creations, you should sell these! I’m sure some of these dialogue lines the majority of people have either had or are aware of as we seek to monetise our leisure for a multitude of reasons. Technological advances have enabled us to reach many more people, and as the cost-of-living crisis continues to hit hard(er) and job satisfaction lessens, people are looking for alternate and/or additional income streams to help weather the storm and/or get ahead. However, has this cost us our joy in activities we once did for nothing and nobody else?
I will always be in the affirmative of keeping leisure activities leisurely, otherwise this will lead to a plethora of negative consequences; burnout/exhaustion, inability to unwind, the elimination of rest, erasure of joy. I feel people are already stressed, frustrated and worn out as it is without adding to it. A source of positive emotion (joy, fun etc.) becomes a source of negative emotion (anxiety, depression, performance of side hustle scrutinised etc.). It’s a bit like the separation of church and state analogy – keep business away from pleasure – small wonder America struggles with it.
Any kind of interest or area of expertise or knowledge, suddenly you can’t just enjoy it, you have to pimp it out. You have to amass a following, get a sponsor or start a subscription. Before long, it starts taking up all your free time, it becomes a chore, and you’re a slave to the schedule. Then you stop enjoying the thing in the first place as you become obsessed with analytics and trends and growth.
“Monetisation of everything. Got to sell everything…including your soul.”
While it’s good financial advice to diversify your income streams, the majority of people will only ever have one. Such is the drive to earn more money, we’ve seen an increase in the desire for passive income streams. In today’s society with such an emphasis on productivity and efficiency, 100% is seen as not enough. There is this constant pressure where you have to do either a lot of the one thing, or one thing in as short amount of time as possible.
A part of me empathises with the current situation of a lot of people because has it become a necessity? People are side-hustling just to get by. The continuation of their day job onto evenings/weekends when they should be getting their rest and/or enjoying leisure activities. This is in part due to low wage growth, both objectively and comparatively, leaving people desperate to find means of staying afloat, let alone trying to get ahead.
I think a lot of what I’ve talked about so far speaks to the publicisation of private life. Modern people struggle with doing something for the sake of doing something. It’s akin to the tree falling in the woods but nobody to hear it analogy – If we do something, but don’t record and post it, did it really happen? I think people have this idea that social media gives off this get rich and famous quick panacea – go viral, massive following, everyone loves me, free shit, money etc. Don’t have to do real work and then I’ll be raking it in, travelling here and there or going to events, bumping shoulders with other “successful” people.
The thing is, there are examples of people who have made it, and across areas of interest. Video Games – Twitch/YouTube streaming, Discord – have exploded over the last decade. So much so, the majority of gamers have given it a go at some point as we move into this can’t just play, gotta show, gotta grow (an audience/community) type world. Basically, you can think of any hobby, niche, or curiosity, and there’s a sea of people trying to publicly succeed in it i.e. gym/fitness culture, self-help/mental health, holiday/travel, food/dining, golf, cars. However, like with more or less every creative endeavour, only the very few make something of it, and sometimes it’s not clear why.
I think another factor in all this is that we struggle to do one thing at a time. Often, we consume multiple content at once – watching tv and scrolling phone – so much so that Netflix even makes shows with this in mind. We undertake multiple stimuli – exercise and music, work and podcast listening – we can’t seem to do one thing at once. We increasingly try to cram our lives; we mix/blend or hybridise (bastardise) our lives. It’s not a stretch for me to realise what this must be doing to our stress levels, blood pressure, along with other bodily and mental effects.
I yearn for a return to doing things for the personal joy they bring rather than for show and tell. People will justify that they can do both, but the purpose changes and it’s not the same. I find it sad that people are increasingly unsatisfied in their work, both from the job itself and their financial remuneration, but it can force people to try and make money from a hobby or something they enjoy. What’s even sadder, this tends to end up with people losing joy in their interests or giving them up entirely.
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