The Insufferable Culture of “The Hustle”

"Hustle” seems to have entered our vernacular to mean “work very hard.” And I think it’s super weird that a term that used to refer to selling drugs has been sanitized and co-opted by bland techbros, who now use it to mean, “working on my app that’s like Uber for dogs.” (Interesting etymology on the term side-hustle here from Merriam-Webster.)

Another thing that’s happened with the term is it’s been strangely glamorized. Maybe our cabal of late capitalist overlords engineered these cute notebooks and plaques to normalize the idea of working every waking minute. (Jk. But really though.)

In a great example of the insufferable hustle culture, I ran across this Tweet recently with a screen shot of this post from LinkedIn.

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How did we get here? How did we get to the point where bragging about how few hours of sleep we get is some kind of social currency?

Also like... toxic workplace culture and unrealistic expectations are very real issues, especially in startups. Now we’re making fun of that to make a point about how much we work?

Some Twitter users had smart stuff to say about it.

As an entrepreneur and user of LinkedIn in a tech-adjacent space, I see these faux-inspirational humblebrags all the time. WHY ARE WE DOING THIS? WHAT ARE WE DOING?

I don't think we should burn LinkedIn to the ground, but it is definitely a breeding ground for this bizarre one-upsmanship, where the winner is the most sleep deprived and sees their family the least. Let's stop with this.
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​❤ Bayley