
How hustle culture took over advertising - ilamont
https://digiday.com/marketing/welcome-hustletown-hustle-culture-took-advertising/
======
apatters
I'm American but I've lived overseas for nearly a decade, and I hardly ever go
back.

In recent years when I meet other Americans who are visiting my city, I often
get this vague feeling that they're just _trying too hard_ in one way or
another. Maybe they're working too hard, or trying too hard to impress
someone, or get attention, or assert themselves. I don't know if I've changed
or if America is changed or if it's something else entirely.

What I do wonder is, what's with all these Americans working themselves to the
bone? I own an agency which is one of the types of businesses called out in
this article. I tell all my employees very clearly, whenever possible, work 40
hours and then call it a week. We also happen to be mostly remote so I tell
them, within reason, respecting a small number of important calls/meeting
times etc. you can put in those hours whenever you want, preferably after a
great night's sleep.

There's nothing like "you're measured by how many hours you bill out," nor
does there need to be, if we have more than 40 hours of work per person per
week, we hire more people.

Where does this all come from? This is an honest question. Why are people
working themselves to death in the US and having this crazy mindset that doing
stuff which puts you on the verge of a breakdown is good? When did this start?

Is it good for health/happiness? Definitely not

Is it good for productivity? Maybe, but I doubt it

~~~
rabidrat
I think we're all increasingly aware that our society and infrastructure are
crumbling, and no matter how "rich" the country as a whole is, if you haven't
built up your own security through wealth, you're [going to be] fucked. And
that awareness translates into people being willing to overwork themselves, so
they don't lose their spot in the rat race; and corporations with money to
spend on workers are well-positioned to take advantage of that, and they do.

~~~
phillc73
> if you haven't built up your own security through wealth, you're [going to
> be] fucked.

Another approach is to build security through self sufficiency and community
based initiatives. For example, growing your own food wherever possible, or
community gardens on common land.

There is a long list of examples and ideas where future security, defining
that as decent quality of life, health and education, doesn't need to be based
around monetary wealth.

~~~
jimbokun
Almost no one in the US has a problem with getting enough food. Maybe
substandard nutrition, but no one is going to starve.

Healthcare and education are areas where a common option could make a major
difference in people's lives. But I think the "community" has to be pretty
large to make a meaningful impact.

~~~
Hydraulix989
This may be true in socially progressive areas such as Silicon Valley, but it
is far from the case anywhere else.

Hunger is further down Maslow's pyramid. You can't even begin thinking about
things like education until you are able to adequately eat.

[http://map.feedingamerica.org](http://map.feedingamerica.org)

------
esotericn
So, this is the industry that:

\- puts flashing colored boxes in front of our faces at any possible
opportunity

\- requires us to click through multiple popups to access almost any for-
profit website

\- has normalized the act of wasting human life at a mass scale by injecting
multi-minute time-wasting sessions in activities

"How hustle culture took over"? It's a hustle by default. I'd call it a
swindle.

~~~
lanewinfield
Hatred of advertising at a larger scale, nice. How are those people on said
websites (and almost any other medium) supposed to make money?

~~~
esotericn
Examples, with specific citation:

My local bus stop has adverts (London).

My local metro station does too (London).

They're all over the roads (UK).

They're in pubs (UK).

They're on paid television services (Sky).

They're on paid programs (Windows 10).

They're shown before movies (cinema, UK).

Advertising is _everywhere_, in paid services, unpaid services, whatever.

Unless I'm in my own, or a friend's private home I could probably find an
advert by spinning my head around.

Ask yourself - why haven't you included an advert on your comment? You could,
and it'd allow you to comment on HN more, right?

~~~
lanewinfield
I understand this but it doesn't really counteract my point: it pays for
stuff. It (helps) pay for your bus stop (or at least it does in the states),
it's on paid television because you'd have to pay EVEN MORE for it, and movies
on top of that.

Now, if you made an argument that the entire structure is screwed up and the
people at the top deserve to make less and therefore not needing as much cash
flow and therefore we should be able to cut the ads, THEN I might agree...

~~~
esotericn
Nah.

I don't believe that my train or bus would cost substantially more without the
advertising.

And even if it did, it's just an internalization of costs.

The advertising (if it works) pulls money in through a side channel (someone
sees an ad and later buys a thing).

It makes far more sense to just pay for the bus.

Other examples, like ads at the side of the road, don't even pay for anything.
Driving along the road, I see an ad in a farmer's field. I'm not using that
field in any meaningful sense.

edit: I actually looked up the transport example.

Transport for London had approximately a 1:20 ratio of advertising to fare
revenue last year.

So, I'd have to pay approximately 5% more, or 7 pence per bus fare, to not
have adverts plastered on the inside and outside of buses, tubes, station
platforms, corridors within stations, and probably various roads under TfL
authority as well.

I think the world in which we pay 7 pence more for bus fare and have nice
artwork on the bus or something instead of hair loss adverts that call us ugly
balds is better.

~~~
scarejunba
I'd rather pay £129 for my Zone 2 pass than £135 without ads. The £6 I can buy
a kebab with.

Even bought the Kindle with special offers. Preferred it to the one I have
without.

~~~
esotericn
If it ever happens, I'll gladly pay 12 more and you can have a kebab and a
pint on me. ;)

I reckon if we ever get to that point, by then the pint alone might be 12 quid
though. Soz.

~~~
scarejunba
Haha, every month? I'd happily take that trade. If only since I'd enjoy the
company.

------
bachmeier
> it wasn’t just working hard — it was “maximizing every last bit of energy
> you have in order to produce.”

That reminds of this blog post by Jamie Zawinski[1]:

"What is true is that for a VC's business model to work, it's necessary for
you to give up your life in order for him to become richer.

Follow the fucking money. When a VC tells you what's good for you, check your
wallet, then count your fingers.

He's telling you the story of, "If you bust your ass and don't sleep, you'll
get rich" because the only way that people in his line of work get richer is
if young, poorly-socialized, naive geniuses believe that story! Without those
coat-tails to ride, VCs might have to work for a living. Once that kid burns
out, they'll just slot a new one in."

[1] [redacted]

~~~
Ygg2
EDIT: Make sure you don't click the link but copy and paste it. It seems the
author is intercepting all traffic from HN site to an _interesting_ image.

~~~
eumenides1
I love that the author is doing that.

------
nimbius
As a professional diesel mechanic, I find most of the points in this article
pretty difficult to understand outside the context of, say, Hollywood? or
maybe iPhones? Do programmers really have to show this kind of reckless drive?
This hasnt been a thing in tradecraft since...forever i dont think...and if it
is, its punished pretty severely.

An example: if im rebuilding the idler and pitman assembly on a fourteen ton
truck, theres no hustle. there is no competition to do it "the fastest." You
do it right, because if that assembly fails in a turn you could cause a pretty
horrible accident. Depending on what that professional driver hauls (benzene,
chlorine, pesticides, etc...), you might find your "hustle" on the evening
news as the police evacuate some poor suburb.

If you're writing a web application, shouldnt you take care to make sure its
secure and well written? Just because nobody had to pick hair out of a
windshield doesnt mean a hacked webapp doesnt ruin just as many lives.

~~~
Raphmedia
The work that programmers do is not physical. Management have a hard time
seeing the result of our work.

What always ends up happening because of this is that managers start to manage
time spent instead of value outputted. Since the work done is all very vague
for them, _the best programmer is the one that finish their projects the
fastest_.

We do our own estimates and our subconscious is trying to "win" that race.
Sometimes, we even get bonuses based on this. So we end up stamping time
estimates that would only happen in a perfect world. Management use those
estimates as hard deadlines. If you do not meet the deadline, it's your fault.

 _So you start to work crunch time at the end of months._

Since the work is virtual, nobody but the programmer cares about the quality
of the work. Management pushes you to finish as quickly as possible.

 _You then start to work for free one or two extra hours a day every day to
fix those things in the code that bring you shame._

The things management won't give you extra time to correct. You know this
glaring security hole is going to end your career, even if management doesn't
want you to correct it. So you correct it anyway.

You want better tools to insure the quality of your projects but since
programmers have to build their own tools from scratch, management won't grant
you time to build them.

 _You use some time out of your weekend to build them._

Nobody wants to use a dull blade so your sharpen your tools on your own time.

A few projects done the road, you work 20 extra hours a week without even
noticing anything has changed.

... now imagine a new hire trying to compete without putting any extra time.
On his first meeting, he gets asked why he takes double the time to finish
projects. He quickly end up doing the same as everyone else. Everyone is
working for free because everyone else is.

It's a vicious circle that's very hard to break. Most of the time you only
notice it when you are a new hire... and nobody listens to new hire. Heck,
what management would allow the situation to get back to normal? They are
getting so much free work.

~~~
tensor
I've read this narrative that only the programmer cares about the quality of
the work many times. I find, however, that sometimes the programmer cares more
about showing off how clever they are then building a quality and simple
system that is delivered in a reasonable time frame.

Hacker News has this narrative that programmers are always right and always
smarter than "management" or any other non-programmer. That's not reality
though. Programming isn't some special discipline where everyone is great.
There are a lot of poor programmers out there like I describe above.
Management often ends up not believing people because of this, just like in
other professions.

Developers need to share the responsibility of the situation, it's not all
just "bad managers". Developers need to start caring more about the people
they build products for rather then simply their wallet and personal "fun".

~~~
Raphmedia
Of course this is but an anecdote from my point of view based on the
workplaces that I experienced.

What I've lived through a lot of time is teams of senior programmers led by
junior managers. Sometimes they are fresh out of school and have never led any
team. Heck, sometimes senior programmers turn into code monkeys because they
are hired as nothing more than glorified trophies. IT teams having to answer
directly to sales department managers, etc.

Teams of juniors or intermediates are way more likely to make mistakes such as
the one you describe. I've seen my share and I do agree that they exist.
People migrating entire projects to the language-du-jour and creating a bad
situation for everyone because they didn't master that language and ended up
refactoring stable solutions into shaky messes.

In a perfect world, we would have a team of strong senior programmers leading
a few juniors under a strong management team.

------
Novashi
>Hustle is public. And in the ad industry, publicity matters.

There's your reasoning right there.

I've drank a bit of kool-aid myself. It feels normal now to overlay a level of
'hustling advertising' because that's what the business culture does and you
don't want to be the one guy in a client meeting who looks pained to be there.

Another way of thinking about it: would you learn to do a little dancing for a
good salary + benefits?

It quickly becomes second-nature to at least be engaged in the hustling
adverts and culture meetings. The real trap (which is toxic) is feeling like
hustling is a competition and a second job.

This stuff can push introverts to the sidelines though, and that can make
their real world suffer if they feel isolated because they don't participate
as much.

~~~
esotericn
> would you learn to do a little dancing for a good salary + benefits?

This isn't an appropriate analogy because dancing is harmless.

------
nradov
The "hustle" culture has been a key part of MLM (pyramid schemes) for many
years. It's sad to see that crossing over into legitimate businesses.

------
sharemywin
I think companies are missing something. Just because I like to work on side
projects doesn't mean I want to work for free for you.

~~~
Cthulhu_
Oh but you wouldn't work for them, you'd work for yourself! That's what they
want to sell you anyway, so they have no obligations whatsoever to their
employees.

------
robot
Hustle != Struggle. The original meaning of the hustle culture is that you
creatively find your way into an expected result, often creating value along
the way.

For example, instead of simply spending money for advertising, you create a
valuable piece of content and share it in places your audience hangs out. Then
repeat this and be consistent until you get to a result.

Instead of using quick and lazy methods, you achieved something, often
creating value for others along the way, and the whole activity was a
'hustle'.

You can hustle 9 till 5 and be done with it. Though, I do get that if you were
more persistent and focused on a result, this can easily become 9 till 7 or
12.

So yes, while the term in my opinion was a positive one, it is worth being
cautious when explaining it.

------
davidwitt415
Nothing really new except the social media amplifier. After all, the Ad
industry has been defined by this quote since the 60s:

'Please don't tell my mother I work in Advertising, she thinks I play piano in
a whorehouse.' -David Ogilvie

------
ACow_Adonis
Out of curiosity, as a non-american, am i the only one who understands the
word "hustle" to be synonymous-with/frequently associated with con-men,
shysters, spruikers, boosters, etc?

I mean, for me it has almost no connotations of busyness or hard work, but its
basically all about defrauding/image-projection.

The phrase "side-hustle" stemming from an almost ironic ghetto-esque-
referential joke: like a scam or something a low level gangster or drug pusher
is doing on the side to make money. But with complete openness that a hustle
is, like his other activities, criminal and fraudulent...

~~~
hateful
I had to come to the comments here to figure out what they were meaning by
"hustle". I had assumed what you thought and was thinking the article was
about some sort of gorilla marketing.

------
josefresco
"Of course, every industry has its fair share of hustle idolization, but ad
agencies and advertising in general are unique"

Expand your horizons! Ad agencies are not unique. Boasting about the number of
hours your work is one of the oldest, most tired tropes in many industries.

I have clients across all sectors that simultaneously boast and complain about
their long hours and how committed they are to their business, or employer.
Early rise, stay late, skip lunches, skip vacations, work from home even on
holidays - I've heard it all - how is this unique to just the advertising /
agency industry?

------
munchbunny
I know this is a snarky comment, but... is it surprising that an industry
built entirely on framing things to look better has a problem of workers
having to frame themselves to look like better workers?

I do think we should aspire to better, but the extra image consciousness seems
like the common thread here.

~~~
asdff
The problem is, this is affecting every industry. I have friends in accounting
for instance, and if you aren't prompt with your emails over the weekend, if
you aren't early at work and late to leave, etc, you will not be promoted.

I have friends in law and its the same thing; If you aren't putting up 55+ hr
weeks, you are going to get an awkward reference and won't get your next job.

The problem is universal in early careers, and entirely absent in mid to late
careers. We all know that for X amount of entry level hires there's only Y
amount at the top of the food chain, but when people are being pushed out of
the field for not being able to devote all their available waking hours to an
entry level position rather than rewarding real skill and prowess, the
situation is completely untenable. In 25 years, senior positions won't be
filled by the most clever or bright workers, but whoever was able to slog
through being overworked and underpaid and put their life on hold for their
first 15 years out of college.

~~~
Nasrudith
That sounds like a stupid human cognitive bias of judging powerful less
harshly by following their self serving standards. The CEO made a mistake and
has a problem by showing up to work drunk. The janitor doing so is an
irresponsible waste of space.

------
mslong
I don't think "hustling" has to be synonymous with overworking. When I think
of hustling I think of my dad who used to pay for his life traveling around
Europe by buying, driving, and selling cars in different countries he was
visiting. Or how he was able to spot a pair of good tires in the junkyard that
he could buy for 50 bucks but sell for 500. I always felt hustling meant you
could see small opportunities in the world that could make you money,
basically out of the knowledge that most people aren't paying attention and
turn their "money-making" brain off when they leave the office.

~~~
asdff
Hustling would be if your dad was buying more and more cars at a time, making
more and more profit, eventually reaching a point where if he were to flip
more cars he would need to hire people, and doing so. Hustling is exponential
growth, not stopping at comfortable profits.

------
keiferski
Just some random thoughts here...this strikes me as a consequence of the
contemporary idea of work having to be the end-all to one’s identity, purpose
and meaning in life.

Advertising, perhaps the ‘original’ fundamentally meaningless career field to
spawn from consumer capitalism, used to be mostly about just communicating
your product/service. Eventually it morphed into lifestyle marketing and at
this point has reached its ultimate conclusion: advertising workers themselves
have drunk the Koolaid that used to only be peddled to consumers.

I wonder if we’ll ever see a return to simple “hey, we make this thing, you
might find it useful.”

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I think it's a consequence of abundance.

If you have a grocery store that has cantaloupes, and that's unusual because
most grocery stores don't have cantaloupes most of the time, you just hang a
sign in the window that says "Cantaloupes". Maybe you put a print ad in the
newspaper. Those who decide they want them will come to your store. When
they're all gone, well, your advertising did its job.

But if every grocery store has cantaloupes year-round, you're not going to
sell many extra cantaloupes by hanging a sign in your window. You need to get
_clever_. And behold, advertising-as-hustle is born.

~~~
TeMPOraL
This is where it turns into tragedy of the commons. If every grocery store has
cantaloupes year-round, they need to figure out something else to advertise,
or - if they're all selling the same stuff - they should all shut up. Instead,
someone will always start the advertising arms race, and suddenly everyone has
to waste time and Earth's natural resources on actions that roughly cancel
each other out.

~~~
ovi256
>actions that roughly cancel each other out

Welcome to the 'the service industry is a job program for the middle class'
view. It's not a rosy one, and the predictions it makes even less so.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I've been entertaining that view for a long time now wrt. advertising, but
what other service job has the same characteristics? Namely, that your works
serves mostly to undo the results of your peers' work, and vice versa?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I think medical insurance has a component like this. The doctor's office has
people in it whose job is to make sure that the doctor gets paid, and the
insurance company's office has people in it who try to find ways to not pay.

------
stupidbird
"hustle culture" is a scam that's tricking you into robbing yourself of
worker's rights

I suppose when it comes to the advertising industry, hustle culture is at
least better than misogyny and alcoholism

~~~
dmux
Would setting up an LLC for yourself help protect some of those rights?

~~~
stupidbird
Probably not.

As an LLC you might also be entering a whole new world devoid of worker rights
by being considered a contractor rather than an employee — which of course
means you don't qualify for benefits. Ask a freelancer about how wonderful
their healthcare options are.

The American variety of capitalism has successfully vilified unions and coined
nonsense like "hustle" and "gig economy" to make it seem like this shift in
work came from the bottom-up, but it's all just a guise to cut benefits and
wages.

It's essentially a system that rewards executives for doing anything possible
to exploit labor as much as the law allows for.

If you don't believe me, just look at the ever-increasing gap between employee
and executive pay. Or check out the salary plateau despite the enormous
increases in worker productivity. We've been suckered into doing more for
less.

------
pl0x
Gary Vaynerchuk is one of those clowns that encourages people to work to their
bones and sometimes comes off as selling snake out. Leonie Dawnson did a great
write up of him.

[https://leoniedawson.com/the-horror-pitchfest-an-honest-
revi...](https://leoniedawson.com/the-horror-pitchfest-an-honest-review-of-
gary-vaynerchuk-success-squared-and-success-resources-australia/)

~~~
jsonne
Getting hit with her course (For only $79!!!!1!!11!) at the end of the article
is such a hilarious pot kettle situation and lack of self awareness I'm
frankly stunned.

------
BLKNSLVR
_> To be clear, hustle isn’t just hard work — it’s showing that you’re working
hard._

I often find that the people that try the hardest to make it appear they're
working hard are only working hard at maintaining that appearance, and are
often doing only the basics of their job.

If you're trying so hard to prove it, it's coming at the cost of actually
doing the job you're trying to prove you're working so hard at.

The double-irony is that in many cases, this over-proof effort is needed
because of Managers that are dis-engaged from their subordinates and only
notice the sizzle, not the steak, because the Managers Manager is the same,
and so on up the chain.

In time, the side-hustle will be all that's left. Which could already be the
case given that people now live off their earnings as an "influencer", and if
they have a day-job then that's just their side-hustle.

------
Justsignedup
Hustle is an interesting concept.

Most of the time the hustle is making sure the hours at work and at home are
effective and not slacking off.

Sometimes it means that as you build a business shit happens at unexpected
times so make sure that when an opportunity comes by you take it and don't say
oh but it's 7pm and I'm tired.

However I never take it to mean that you should work 50 hour weeks until you
collapse. And so far this has been the mentality pushed by fiverr and other
companies because it means that they get to profit off your barely profitable
labor.

Having to work 60 hours a week is not a hussle. It is a horrible situation.

------
paganel
> it was “maximizing every last bit of energy you have in order to produce.”

This sounds really dystopian, a mindset like this genuinely frightens me.

------
someguydave
Meanwhile over in this other thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18271834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18271834)

We learn that you aren't really an "entrepreneur" unless you are a salesman.
Business without "hustle" is unthinkable?

~~~
varjag
Every traditional business is living from sales, it's incredible you find this
shocking.

~~~
someguydave
I suppose it's surprising to me because I interpret the word "hustle" to mean
something like "tricking the customer into paying more than needed to turn a
profit on a trade"

------
rando1812
Seems fitting that this was on Forbes just yesterday -
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/alizalicht/2018/11/04/how-to-
st...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alizalicht/2018/11/04/how-to-start-a-side-
hustle)

------
everybodyknows
Hustle Culture: What does it mean, exactly? From article:

>"maximizing every last bit of energy you have in order to produce"

>To be clear, hustle isn’t just hard work — it’s showing that you’re working
hard.

How anyone can imagine this is supportive of creative work, I just cannot get
my head around.

------
olivermarks
[https://youtu.be/zBfwIWblz5E](https://youtu.be/zBfwIWblz5E)

Gary Vanyerchuk, IMO king of hustle culture BS, explaining why his glassdoor
reviews by ex employees and employees used to be so bad.

------
gowld
This article is apparently about nothing, and it doesn't example" how"
anything happened. People show off for other people to gain status and
manipulate others. This is not news.

------
sosuke
To answer some of the questions as to why people do this. To try to get ahead.
To try and advance. To move up. If you don't hustle, if you aren't trying to
advance then how could you ever expect to move up financially?

Think of it in the small scale at a fast food joint. You bus tables, sweep
etc. If you do just that you can do just that forever. You can also do more to
try and get promoted. You can also do less and get fired. If you want more
money per paycheck then you'll want to get promoted. To get promoted you have
to hustle. You have to do more. No one will give it to you if you weren't
already born into it.

~~~
sosuke
To my downvote. Tell me how you get ahead without working harder than you're
currently working? How do you get a raise without showing you've put in the
requisite work? How do you gain the experience you need to move from junior to
senior other than working harder.

I'd say you could get there with time. But how do you make future possiblities
happen in the present without working harder.

------
germinalphrase
So where’s the exit lane? If you’re willing to move to a low COL location and
work remotely, how do you assure yourself a modest, if reliable, income?

------
jimbokun
Reminds me of this:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJtrLKGZZFg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJtrLKGZZFg)

------
gadders
I think "hustle" is over now. Someone pronounce the time of death.

