I Am Winning

Or, the New Theory of the (Un) Leisure Class

Photo by swabdesign on Unsplash

“I am winning,” grins the pretty brunette from her office desk. Beneath the sit-stand workout desk are a set of pedals that she pushes while she types. Hashtag stepgoals. Off the side of her desk is a cell phone, where she live streams herself working and exercising at the desk for hours each day.

At 28, this is Roxanne’s first job. She is more fortunate than most of her friends, who, ranging from 25 to 33, are still looking for work. Most gave up the hunt long ago.

“Four kilometres already today,” she tells her viewers, beaming through her sweaty glow-on. “And I finished the a through k entries! I am winning today!”

Within the span of just a handful of years, AI systems knocked away approximately 70% of the ‘white collar’ workforce. The adoption of AI systems was rapid, uncontrolled, yet neither companies nor governments planned for the sudden extinction of middle and upper-class work categories.

As a consequence, the vast majority of the populace are out of work. That number rises to 90% for youth, unless the roles are in what used to be known as ‘blue collar’ jobs. Pipe fitters, electricians, plumbers and builders are still employed, but since the poverty rates have risen so high globally, these ‘safe haven’ employments are just squeaking by.

The exception to these rules is whether you’re the son or daughter of a CEO—in which case you’re handed keys to the C-suite at adolescence and never look back.

And only until those CEOs build cyborg replacement models of you.

For everyone else, there are ad campaigns. What category are you? Highest priority hires = 35- 50. Stand aside for the good of all.

Young workers like Roxanne can’t rely on the roles like her new data entry clerkship. It’s a temporary gig, at any rate, because she isn’t at that magical number, age 35, where she would be prioritized for a role.

So she’s got to remain on the wheel of her social media content creation, spinning her brand. Defining for the world who she is. Telling the world how much she enjoys her new #work.

Roxanne has a large social media following, but she knows that at least half of her 40,000 followers are extremely engaged bots. The other half are like her: underemployed adults living at home with their extended families while the world’s economic systems collapse. People who feed on Roxanne as much as she on them.

Most of Roxanne’s content is about her winning this war against attrition, aimed towards people just like her—those feckless youth once classified as NEETs (No Education, Employment or Training).

She is winning at her new desk. She is winning at her fitness goals. It doesn’t matter how temporary the win is. It doesn’t matter how tired it makes her. Roxanne is winning.

Paradoxically, the more she wins at her personal branding, the more Roxanne has failed.

Because in this version of the future, class is demarcated by the distinct lack of social media presence. In this world, the rich and powerful move like shadows, undetected by the multitudes and without digital fingerprints. If you have money, if you have a career, you do not call attention to yourself. That makes you a target.

Besides, leisure is no longer about chatting aimlessly (or angrily) with friends and strangers on the internet. It is no longer about going to the gym, or reaching personal fitness goals. True leisure is the ability to step back from branding yourself, the constant churn and pressure to create a persona. The ability to work, to earn. To live. Simply to live.

Even if she manages to hold on to her new job, Roxanne will be blacklisted from the higher echelons of society. There is a new lower class brewing, just inches above the unemployed masses. She may join it; she may even live in her own apartment one day, or be able to afford a family of her own.

But she will never reach the CEO class, the real leisure class, which keeps their humanity intact at the expense of everyone else. Outclassed, Roxanne will remain shut out, just like 90% of the rest of the world.

And yet, She is certain. Roxanne is winning. She is winning. She is winning.

More reading:

Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class

Thorstein Veblen, Conspicuous Consumption