Ambition once came with a promise: a home, a salary, progress and fulfilment. What happens when that promise is broken? Meet the women who are turning their backs on consumerism, materialism and burnout

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Completely ridiculous that they quoted Kim Kardashian…

    The soft life approach is not without its critics. In 2022, Kim Kardashian infamously claimed that women need to “get your fucking ass up and work” as “it seems like nobody wants to work these days”. She was forced to apologise – after it was pointed out that coming from a rich, already-famous family in LA would have its advantages in the job market.

    But I never liked how this movement picked up the name “lazy girl job”. Bros can be lazy too…

    I could have pulled in 6 figures after the Navy, but it would have been a shitty job that I fucking hated.

    So I went back to school, got a degree that interests me, did that for a few years, then got a cushy decently paid office job that didn’t care what my degree was about.

    I’m not maximizing my income, but I also essentially get UBI because I’m a disabled vet.

    I’m basically living the progressive dream. And if everyone got the stuff I did, we’d be happier and more productive as a society. Along with a shit ton less crime, because people have something to lose.

    Our current hyper capitalist society only works for people like Kim Kardashian that start out wealthy and connected, and those idiots constantly insist the only reason they’re wealthy is they work harder. I was doing manual labor before I was a teenager. There’s no way in hell Kim has worked a single day harder then I did as a child, but she legitimately believes she busts her ass, all the wealthy elites do.

    Because they’re surrounded by people they pay to tell them what they want to hear, and everyone else is a “hater”.

    • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Kim Kardashian is only rich because she sucked a dudes dick and made a sex tape of it, pretty much with the hopes it would be leaked and make her famous.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        It wasn’t even her plan…

        She was Paris Hilton’s assistant (still no idea why she needed an assistant) when her sex tape legitimately leaked, and Kim saw her go from an fairly anonymous rich girl to nationally famous overnight.

        And wanted to follow suit.

        • EatATaco@lemm.ee
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          7 months ago

          She had a fairly popular reality tv show at the time and was already pretty well established as an it girl and model. Im hard pressed to say she was fairly anonymous. That’s what made the sex tape such a big deal was because it was of someone famous.

          Don’t get me wrong, I buy your story that kim saw the value of the leaked tape. Just having lived through that as a horny young man, I’m not sure I agree with the characterization that she was fairly anonymous.

      • whereisk@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        To be fair, plenty of sex tapes have leaked or “leaked” with a lot of noise over the years, very few people have translated them to massive wealth (games, reality shows, modelling, branding, appearances etc). Whoever is managing them (their mum perhaps?) is very smart in at least that they know how to leverage opportunity, and they’re smart enough to listen to that person.

    • Whiskey_iicarus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 months ago

      Same ship, different service. The safety net affords me the ability to find what I really want to do without tying my life to a single job or place.

      I also think that it can be brought to other citizens through other community activities. Why don’t we offer similar incentives to teachers? 10yr of teaching in exchange for UBI. Or doctors. Or rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure.

      I’m guessing that your VA/service income doesn’t just go straight to savings either. A lot of it goes right back into the economy through purchasing and associated taxes paid on those things. At least mine does.

      The US military is the largest socialist organization in the world and I wish they would extend that to the rest of its citizens without the downside of PTSD, death, and a lifetime of physical and mental ailments.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Yeah, it’s essentially BAH lol.

        Every year it goes up, and every year I make it my new monthly payment for my mortgage.

        The US military is the largest socialist organization in the world

        I say this all the time, it’s 100% true.

        The vast majority of our issues would disappear if everyone got that stuff. And we could pay for it all just be taxing the 1% of wealthiest people and corporations.

        The only reason to not want it, is if those wealthy people give you a shit ton of money to not want it.

        • Whiskey_iicarus@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          8 months ago

          I’ve thought this for a while, but maybe our service to country isn’t done with a DD214. The current situation in the US and world at large makes me think I can still do some good. Maybe politics needs more people who think like you and me.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I got told once in the military:

            If you don’t want to be in charge of a bunch of idiots, one of those idiots is gonna be in charge of you.

            And it’s pretty accurate, even on the civilian side.

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      8 months ago

      But but but HaRd WoRk DoEs NoT EqUaL VaLuAbLe wOrK!!!

      -Bootlickers

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      But I never liked how this movement picked up the name “lazy girl job”. Bros can be lazy too…

      This article isn’t about men. “Meet the women who…”, it says.

      We must have achieved peak equality if the 47% minority are cut out of the piece because we’re not relevant.

  • stoly@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    My biggest regret in life was working hard for an employer who didn’t care for me. I now work in public sector and know that I am making the world a better place, and that pleases me. I got out of the rat race and now have some level of comfort.

    • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
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      8 months ago

      I’m glad to hear that you’re doing better. I’ve found that public sector can be more stressful in some domains, because of how overstretched services are nowadays, but like you say, at least you’re striving for more than just lining someone else’s pocket

      • stoly@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I am also in a good position–I work in higher education, so not quite the same as state or local government, which has different challenges.

  • Darkard@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Companies expect you to slog your guts out for the false promise of a reward. But being a hard worker, at least in my environment, just means you get the hardest work.

    I’ve had the biggest pay rises by changing job. There’s no reason to be ambitious and stay loyal to a company that will run you ragged and offer very little in return.

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      8 months ago

      Unfortunately that’s only really true for white collar work. Most factory/trade schmucks like myself get massive pay cuts when we move jobs…

      I’ve been in the same cycle for almost 15 years now… Work 5 years, get raises, have to move, huge pay cut, work 5 years, get back to first exit salary, have to move, huge pay cut, etc etc…

      I get sooooo bitter when I see already well paid people talk about getting 30-40% more when changing jobs… Like good for them, but man are things not even in that respect at all. :(

      • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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        8 months ago

        It’s also really hard to jump when you work a niche job. The pay is basically flat no matter where you go and there isn’t really anywhere to turn.

      • PriorityMotif@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        It fucking sucks until you’ve been somewhere for years or get into a maintenance or supervisor position where you can hide most of the day. These employers want you to have experience with the exact machines they have in their plant when the machines are custom made for their exact process. Then there’s the employers with absolutely shitty benefits. I just turned down $25/hr because the benefits were complete shit and my initial contact with hr was just blowing smoke up my ass about how good the job was. My advice is to embellish what you did at your last jobs and keep looking and applying. I look for jobs every day during the morning meeting.

        • Cataphract@lemmy.ml
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          8 months ago

          I would love to see comments like this result in a permaban. Fuck, scour the ip’s and any connected accounts, torch everything and anything for this user. Tolerance for this kind of deception is half of the worlds problem and why fascism is taking over while we continue culture wars instead of class wars. Take a cue from the Germans and silence these fuckers.

          There is no excuse, rebuttal, or “Well actually” from this users statements. Pure, unequivocal propaganda and misinformation being spread on Lemmy. We should be able to do better than “X” at the very least.

  • sexy_peach@feddit.de
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    8 months ago

    I don’t think that people voluntarily give up, I believe that they are more burnt out etc than ever

  • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    Once again this X-er is cheering for how aware Millennials and Zoomers seem to be compared to how oblivious I was through my first several decades. Trying to figure out a (non-catastrophic) way out of the rat race myself.

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Speaking as a child of the late 1970s, this was my experience. We had nobody to look at or talk with this about, it was just Boomers being Boomers and pretending that 1995 was no different than 1975. They really just expected us to hustle and get ahead, when THEY WERE THE ONLY GENERATION IN HISTORY THAT THIS WORKED FOR. It took the 2000 and 2008 crashes before people could actually speak about it.

      Make no mistake: the world is now a better place BECAUSE people are talking about this.

      • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        They didn’t even hustle. Boomers grew up in basically the only industrialized country that hadn’t been bombed to fuck. Good jobs fell into their laps.

      • stringere@leminal.space
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        7 months ago

        Thank you for giving voice to years of frustration from feeling like I was screaming into the void.

        Not sure where you grew up but the suburban midwest was/is a nightmare for thinking, rational, empathetic humans.

        • stoly@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Suburban south Puget Sound. It’s filled with angry alcoholics who never had a life or a real chance and just vote Republican.

          I now am in a nice apartment in one of them there anarchic cities of whatever they were called during Lockdown, working for a university and living a life that my family hates.

          • stringere@leminal.space
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            7 months ago

            I miss Seattle. For 9 years I finally got to feel sane.

            Moved back to the midwest for good reasons but believe me we’re getting back out as soon as we can.

            You really described it well:

            t’s filled with angry alcoholics who never had a life or a real chance and just vote Republican.

            And no amount of reason or logic will get them to believe they’re being duped.

            • stoly@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              And no amount of reason or logic will get them to believe they’re being duped.

              Worse: they have been trained to act in their own disinterest, dressing it up in terms like “personal responsibility”. They are basically the monkeys dancing by the organ grinder.

      • octopus_ink@lemmy.ml
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        8 months ago

        Not sure where you are getting that from. It was a movie, not a blueprint for my life. :)

        IME even the folks I knew who fully fit that stereotype were still not as aware as what I am seeing from Millenials and Z today. (some were I’m sure)

  • Asclepiaz@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Getting laid off from my tech job was both the scariest and most freeing moment in my life. It’s been over a year now and I’ve transitioned into doing just a few hours of contract work.

  • dhork@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    It’s really all about defining what “success” means. And “Ambition”. I’ve always looked at “ambition” as a negative trait, at least among my peers in the workplace. Someone who is ambitious will not hesitate to step on me if it gets them further up the ladder. But someone who is happy in the role they have, and doesn’t always have their focus on the next thing, will be a much better team player.

    That doesn’t mean having no goals whatsoever, or never learning anything new. But it does mean establishing your own goals, that bring you your own fulfillment. And if they don’t coincide with what your boss wants, that doesn’t make you a bad person, it might just make the job a bad fit.

  • nexguy@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Just make sure to save enough for retirement as well as bare minimum bills. No need to hand millions in retirement but something will go a long way.

  • moitoi@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    7 months ago

    People should forget that millennials are born in the rat race. It changes the whole perception of it. It makes it easier to quit it as they never experienced something else.

    We are at a systemic change of civilization. We passed the edge and can’t go back. Whatever people can say, we are in a run to something new. Whatever people will do to stop the change, it will fail. These type of change aren’t linear either and last for a certain amount of time.

    Millennials are at the front of this as the first gen to enter the change followed by the gen Z.

  • doublejay1999@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    The good thing about this plague of pieces that begin with “<insert generation> are <insert lifestyle> “ is that you immediately know they are not serious

  • Hackerman_uwu@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Bit late to the Slacker party there millennials. But ya, keep believing everything that happened to you has happened for the first time I’m in history.

    • Ultragigagigantic@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It’s the 1% vs the working class, n9t generation vs generation.

      Don’t let this main stream media conglomerate tell you what to think. Don’t let me tell you what to think.

      • melpomenesclevage@lemm.ee
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        8 months ago

        Also, because you could probably learn how to make a boat from scratch and then build it and get it all pretty much right before you could ‘earn’ one.

        Which means even with expert craftsman economies of scale and staggering amounts of technical innovation making things more efficient; this society is not for you.

        Whether youre a communist or an individualist, even a randian, this ‘society’ is not in your interests.

        Likr, sure, insulin. But lol who can afford that shit?

    • mrcleanup@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Will that’s not a very constructive comment, is it? I wonder if you wanted to try it you could actually add something meaningful to the conversation?

      • Hackerman_uwu@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        It’s a very constructive comment if you consider that the author of this piece has failed to learn from history and will continue to do so, you’re welcome.

        • Mobile@leminal.space
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          8 months ago

          You are unfairly criticizing all millennials by using this author as the sole representative.

          • Hackerman_uwu@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            Have a poke around at the pissy ass responses I’ve had to this comment then consider that Reality Bites was a love letter to an entire generation who felt this way twenty years or more before this article came out.

            Failure to recognise history is the very DNA of the millennial. Bite me.