from white-collar to no-collar
things right now 036—week of 05.13.25
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Zero Wage Premium or "The New Grad Gap" by Derek Thompson
From Anand Sanwal:
AI is eating entry level jobs
For the first time in nearly 4 decades, recent college grads are doing worse in the job market than the general population.
Not the same.
Worse.
That bottom rung of white-collar work?
The reports, the research summaries, the PowerPoints?
The reality is that AI does all that now.
Faster.
Cheaper.
24/7.
And AI is only getting better, faster, cheaper
Meanwhile:
Fewer entry-level hires
Diminishing college ROI
Grads drowning in debt and uncertainty
We told students: get into a good school, and everything else will work out.
Kinda looks like that promise is busted.
This chart isn’t just a red flag.
It’s a siren.
That graph:
Graphic Designers as Directors or The Surfer
I went to see this film having no idea what it was about—just a general desire to see a film in a theatre, zero interest in most of the films playing, and a general respect for the Los Feliz 3’s curation. After Tarantino’s Vista, it’s my favorite theatre in Los Angeles.
I’m not going to give a review. Part of the pleasure I found in this film came from not knowing anything about it before seeing it. The trailer gives few clues.
See below:
I will say, it’s visually exceptional, especially the title cards. When I got home and looked up the director, I was unsurprised to learn he had a degree in graphic design.
The Fyre Festival of BookTok or Romantasy
Romantasy fans — the extremely popular book genre among millennials and Gen Z women that blends fantasy fiction with smutty romance tropes — were baffled when they arrived at the A Million Lives Book Festival in Baltimore on May 2 and 3. What was promoted as an immersive gathering of hundreds of book lovers, dozens of authors and publishers, and themed entertainment quickly devolved into what is being dubbed the “Fyre Festival of BookTok.”
A friend who worked at the now-defunct "Netflix for books" startup, Oyster, once told me romance novels in which women were ravaged by supernatural creatures and extinct animals—she specifically mentioned velociraptors—were very popular. I suppose romantasy is the name for this genre.
Perci Jay, an author attending the event, showed off the “absolute chaos” of the ball, which only attendees who bought the most expensive ticket had access to. The affair cost $250 and had no food, with water and drinks for purchase at a cash bar. The only music at the ball was from a small speaker a security guard had on him.
Were things always this scammy? Did the internet supercharge scamminess? Or did we just not hear about it? Without TikTok, this would’ve been a very local, relatively private disappointment.
Skilled Posting or Why we should get off of our phones
So very, very true.
….and yet another skill that will soon be performed much, much better by AI.
