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Lorie's avatar

A while back, I noticed adults talking about "superpowers", in all seriousness, or maybe better put--in relation to the kind of eternal job seeking mode we're all supposed to be in (and some have to be in) since the gig economy took over--which has become sort of internalized and unconscious, I think--there is no longer a state of being at rest--you're either working or looking for something better, or you're homeless...at least here in the US.

So I would hear grownups saying things like:"my superpower is getting the job done even if I have to work 19 hours straight. " or something absurd. "tenacity," "I'm a workaholic", etc. It seemed a further reification of that question they used to put on job applications--describe your strengths and weaknesses or whatever. Not only are you being asked to commodify an aspect of yourself, or pretend to, but then in a way you also have to take on that commodification and reduce yourself to that aspect. So yawning at work would mean you had misrepresented your very self.

And of course, wrt: superpowers--that's also a further infantilization of the whole reificaction, because now,, being merely a human who can type 90wpm or whatever and wants to go home at 5 is not enough. This, I think, also has something to do with guilt--in the US, guilt over lack of money, or maybe it's shame--is rampant.

The gig economy was also sold as "freedom." I think David Graeber talked a lot about that, too.

(Hi Tamara!)

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