unbillable hours: volume 3
shopping is horrible on purpose now, we deserve opaque white tank tops, SEO art sucks so much
This is the third installation of a casual series where I share the media that has been impacting what I’m thinking and writing about this week. You can probably see how these influences shape what I write down. More importantly, I might influence you into finding something you find interesting, too.
I’ve been extremely busy applying and interviewing for a lot of different kinds of jobs and being ghosted by a variety of hiring teams. I’m starting to get a little concerned that the economy is entirely fake being that the majority of jobs on these boards are for talent acquisition positions or firms. There is clearly an abundance of hiring solutions looking for more people to do hiring solutions, but I can’t find many jobs that those people at those jobs are hiring for. I thought we had two main options: tech guy or person who serves the tech guy. Now I’m pretty sure we have three with the addition of the person who calls tech guys to tell them about tech guy jobs.
This couldn’t have come at a better time. I’d been looking for a single pair of jeans that actually fits me. I primarily shop secondhand at stores without fitting rooms and haven’t tried pants on since the pandemic started anyway. The typical horrors of shopping for jeans are only intensified when sweating in a face mask. Yesterday, I rode my bike to the weirdly concentrated jeans store district known as the Southport Corridor and checked out the strongest contenders. The main problem is that there’s like, nothing in these stores. To their credit, Madewell appears to have all their styles present, but only in a few random sizes. Free People and Gap are now just showrooms for the kind of pants they offer. The existence of the online store is present throughout the experience. You can check online for the other colors and sizes. You can check out the full collection that is nowhere to be seen in stores. You should read their web copy for more information because only one person works in the whole store and they cannot help you now. You can order your size to the store for pickup (why would you do this has anyone ever done this). It’s so much worse than it was a few years ago. I’ll try again next year.
In this episode, Atlantic consumerism columnist Amanda Mull traces the short history of our modern consumer culture leading us to this point: spending all day on the internet looking for one decent, normal mixing bowl. The most compelling part of the episode is the story of the department store, created to suit the new needs of the burgeoning middle class and reward them for not being workers anymore. The flagship stores were created by robber barons to demonstrate that you’re like them, and that they are friends with you. They marked middle-class status through exceptional services and beautiful environments unaccessible to the real poors, previously their coworkers, now their new enemies. (Successful worker movements threatened their access to affordable slacks that can be altered for free on-site.)
The Macy’s of the world are now ghost towns, and they’re not even pretending that they evoke nostalgia anymore. The rise of online shopping crushed this aspirational image because it’s no longer necessary. Mull explains that even if you are able to try on a garment before you buy it (an extremely logical desire), the remaining dressing rooms are smaller with stained carpet and whatever lightbulbs last longest. There are no attendants. I have to imagine that the decline of the retail experience is part of the aggregate that has disillusioned the “middle class”, who carry tens of thousands in student debt, can’t buy homes, and now can’t go somewhere to pretend they’re fancy and signal their relative wealth through their wardrobe. You’re gonna buy your shit on the internet like everyone else. People making 80k can no longer be fooled into thinking they have more in common with a billionaire than a minimum wage worker, which would be a problem if there was still anything we could do about anything. The facade could not be torn away so brazenly while this country still had a strong labor movement. We know we’re all in the same sinking boat, and that consciousness just does not matter.
I think a lot about how our online shopping culture puts more responsibility on the consumer. At this point, most people’s parents have Amazon Prime. They must be getting ripped off on the daily by fake companies that sell melting “microwavable” plastic and off-brand drop-shipped socks that have been SEO manipulated to make people believe they’re Nike. Google is doing elder abuse through targeted ads.
This episode also did my favorite thing, which is not verbally confusing commerce, consumerism, and capitalism. Recall that commerce is as old as societies. Consider the differences, at the very least, so that you don’t have to feel bad about buying bread at the store or selling your handmade jewelry on the internet.
Tank top girl TikToks
This girlie is providing an important service by searching for a “wife-pleaser” that is supportive and opaque. She is unsatisfied and begs her followers to demand better for themselves and their tank tops in the way that only a lesbian can. She will not wear a bra, she will not layer two tank tops, she will not wear an athletic top, and she will not just wear a darker tank top. This series is useful for its intended purpose, but it also highlights the unreliability of online advice. The comments are full of people recommending a slept-on-hidden-gem-perfect-tank-top that, upon receipt, meets none of her clear requirements. It’s honestly incredible. Sometimes I need to be reminded to not trust people on the internet. Also, I’m on the waiting list for a $34 + shipping white ribbed tank top.
This piece from Amy Odell’s substack, Back Row.
Designers showing at fashion week, like everyone else, will utilize all tools at their disposal to get the attention they need. This isn’t groundbreaking. But Odell identifies what sucks so much about it. The optimized keyword approach is horrible for creativity. You can feel them imagining twitter’s trending topics before considering anything else when Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant served us a moment that was exciting to see and was also a boring dress relying on the spectacle of 20-year-old technology on a freezing supermodel. No risk and no reward.
I read this story about SEO-focused fashion shows while taking an SEO content writing class. I hadn’t spent much time thinking about how much keyword targeting and algorithm bait makes everything in real life worse. There’s no incentive for quality or innovation. The “O” in SEO is the crazy part. You get two choices: either do not optimize at all and build a small, slow following of real heads who seek out what you do, or optimize as much as you can without sounding like a seven-line Amazon product title. I imagine that everyone at the Coperni show could feel themselves becoming a backdrop in a fake-outrage Instagram post. Someday, there will be a word for the sensation when you all of a sudden fall into the shadow of online existence. This is why I had to move away from the cool neighborhoods where influencers threaten to turn my Tuesday night into a set I’m just an extra on. It’s like self-objectifying but someone else is in focus. Side character-ification?
Side note- does anyone else feel like they died and nobody told them when they see articles like this that aren’t even about the thing but are about the stats on how much people like the thing?