There’s something sort of like that, at least in Canada, The Liquidator. I feel for the guy though, it seems defeating and exhausting to always be making a deal.
There’s some pallet buyers on YouTube, I can’t quite recall the rabbit hole(s) I had to watch to get to there. (I might’ve just left autoload while I read a book.)
Well, for a while I would tell people I didn’t make enough money at my job so I had to “do some hustling” to make ends meet. I stopped saying that when I realized some people thought “hustling” meant prostitution (in the past it has been used that way.)
You make a great point… The purveyors of the term “side hustle” are probably intentionally drawing on the connotations to imply there’s something illegal or unconventional about the enterprise. It’s making it seem like you “cracked the code” and it’s not in fact too good to be true… It’s “cures they don’t want you to know about,” MLM, “life hacks,” ect… The question is whether you’re bold enough to go out and take it!
What I find most obnoxious is how this pitch is now often deployed in the “sharing” economy of uber and the like… Rent a WeWork space for your side hustle or whatever. The pitch that somehow you’re an entrepreneur and not just another cog inside a giant mechanical turk. As they say, chances are you’re the mark.
This is the connotation that it calls to mind for me (see Midnight Cowboy)… or any kind of enterprise that is nontraditional or black or grey-market, and mostly sales-oriented (not money in exchange for labor)… It’s definitely a term glamorized by gangster movies and music. What’s weird to me is it’s gradual adoption to describe conventional white-collar work… But I guess that shouldn’t surprise me for the reasons @jerwin points out.
I’ve heard the term used for a long time in a positive sense to describe a “go-getter”, especially a “street guy” type who’s working his way up in cut-throat business populated and run by lying arseholes. But yes, it’s definitely morphed into something broader and more respectable as 80% of American economy has turned into a cut-throat business populated by lying arseholes.
At that price there had better be some great shit in the box!
Right! It’s clear to me now that it’s often just describing a poor-man’s capitalist/entrepreneur… In either case, wage labor is for suckers; hustlers, like owners of capital, wager their money (and time) for the chance at a major return on investment… It’s owning the means of production*, but for people that don’t wear a power suit.
*ETA: but like lots of traditional capitalists, in reality a they’re probably just a merchant/marketer/re-seller who thinks they’re doing something creative
Nope- for me, the use of the phrase in the media looks like the creeping normalisation of the idea that working just one job isn’t enough to survive on. Needing to do nothing but work and sleep to keep yourself fed and housed is a sign of societal breakdown, not a source of some sort of pride.
You beat me to it. That’s especially true now, when a “side hustle” is more often part of the gig economy, meaning the hustler works only at the sufference of Uber or Amazon or Taskrabbit, etc. It’s not exactly wage labour, but it isn’t equity in a business, either.
It’s also important to note that the more traditional, entrepreneurial type of (non-sex-worker) hustler is part of the first-generation American immigrant narrative. Lots of people doing dirty things in dirty industries to make sure their kids and grandkids can either go to college or continue in an owned-and-operated family business or trade.
“hiking crampons, shimmer fabric paint, a High Visibility Thermal Winter Trapper Hat, a Mr. Ellie Pooh Natural White Paper List Pad, a St. Patrick’s Pot O’ Gold Cupcake Decorating Kit, a Spoontiques Golf Thermometer, a Feliz Cumpleanos Candle Packaged Balloon, and five Caterpillar Hoodies for Pets”
Sounds like a list of items from a Julius Knipl comic strip.
I’m not sure if this started out as the plan; but ‘side hustle’ also has the convenient property of sounding totally different than ‘informal sector’ or ‘informal economy’; which helps prevent awkward comparisons.
If you use some ugly phrase about pervasive underemployment driving dependence on the informal sector and human capital underutilization it all starts to sound like a BBC piece on a dusty country with UN peacekeepers and tropical parasite worms, or a World Bank writeup on why somewhereistan needs to liberalize its tax brackets and incentivize foreign investment. That’s totally awkward if you are describing life at home.
Thankfully, talking about ‘side hustles’ as though they are some sort of hobby craze among kids these days offers ample distinction; if perhaps not quite as much difference.
I could see a store opening for people that do drag! Look at the prices of gowns, wigs, and costume jewelry!
Has anyone written the “Reverse Supply Chain Blues” song yet?
This just came across my newsfeed:
What do I get? Another day older and novelty dreck.
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