My Generation is a Bunch of Creative Hustlers Trained to Sell Themselves
By: Liam Heitmann-Ryce
Tags: Creativity, Self Improvement, Careers, Society, Millennials

My Generation is a Bunch of Creative Hustlers Trained to Sell Themselves

Selfie-made man [Image courtesy of the author]

Earlier this week, I was flicking through BBC iPlayer to find another interesting documentary, having just poured five hours into the utterly gripping (if somewhat inconclusive) The Trails of Oscar Pistorius. Naturally, I was looking for something a little lighter and less bleak, as that one made me cry a lot, so I was happy to come across a thumbnail image of Michael Caine in the browsing gallery. He was staring into the camera with the words My Generation fastened above his head, which all looked innocent enough.

The one-sentence bio described the programme as a series of artists and cultural change-makers reflecting on the decade in which they came of age — the 1960s — and I thought that looked agreeably frothy. To be honest, I only watched the first fifteen minutes of this documentary as it came across as a little smug and pleased with itself, with Sir Michael and a load of his famous friends (Twiggy, Roger Daltry and Paul McCartney, among others) explaining just why the ’60s was the best decade ever.

The crux of the documentary, outlined in that first quarter-hour, was that Caine’s generation of young postwar creatives was the first group of people to really make a wider impact in their formative years. They were the beneficiaries of a somewhat affluent western society, paving the way for progressive politics — the 1967 Sexual Offences Act decriminalising homosexuality, to an extent; Women’s Lib; and the foundations of the 1970 Equal Pay Act — and making a damn good show of it.

There were lots of pleasant reels of archive footage of long-haired young men bombing around Trafalgar Square in cream-coloured Alfa Romeos and women in short skirts leaping onto red double-decker buses. It was like watching Austin Powers but without the irony. All of the celebrity voiceovers triumphantly looked back on their generation as the real pioneers of the age, assured of their impact and what a jolly good lark it all was.

Of course, the majority of their anecdotes and reflections were cast upon predominantly white, heteronormative plains and it was upon realising this that I switched the TV off and went to do my laundry.

But it did put the thought in my head, what is my generation?

This is a question conceived at the end of a decidedly woeful year, which I’m sure many of us wish to move on from — or forget entirely — so the outcome is going to be significantly coloured by circumstance. I recently turned 24 and am still stuck at home with my parents, out of work, and with no visible prospects for the future beyond the countless number of job applications I submit each week. (Not that this makes me much different from anyone else, as UK unemployment recently hit 5%.)

Yet I still have a roof over my head and food in my belly, so it’s a lot better than it could be. It still sucks, though.

But after a bit of mulling-over, the conclusion I’ve reached is that my generation is a pack fidgety twenty-somethings desperate for a break, for a chance to be given a chance. For a chance to prove what they’ve got and how they do what they do. I think a lot of us are so starved for employment opportunities, they will sell their kneecaps to satisfy a role even remotely related to their training, experience or pricey university degree. I mean, why are hospitality staff predominantly comprised of university students or fresh-faced postgrads?

Sure, we have the advantage of the internet, online portfolios, digital trainee programmes, remote conference calls, Instagram feeds and Twitter accounts, all there to platform our abilities and get our voice heard — but so does everyone else. We might have the advantage of a platform on the world wide web, but it’s awfully easy to become tangled in that web and get overlooked. Or remain unseen.

Image courtesy of the author

Unless you’re born rich or happen to have the right combination of good genes and flattering light to become a TikTok influencer, it’s a pretty tough deal being ordinary and invisible. If you are halfway creative or artistically gifted as a young person, then it’s up to you to market yourself accordingly. Much like the conundrum as to whether a tree falling in the forest can still make a sound if no-one is there to hear it, you can be as good at dancing in your driveway as you like, but if it’s not happening in front of an iPhone camera it may as well have never happened at all.

Given that so much of our western society is predicated upon stats and figures — how many years experience do you have, how many followers do you have, how many countries have you travelled, what’s your salary, how long have you been with your partner — a big part of getting one’s start comes from having the most, from being the most widely known and seen and heard.

It’s all one big hustle, just peddling your wares before an audience that may hopefully be comprised of at least one person with the ability to see what you’ve got and to do something with it. This may be the attention-hungry generation, but perhaps that’s just the by-product of growing up with a smartphone in your pocket.