It’s weird that it is a coastal elite thing to be broke most of your early adult life but you’re correct. Somehow making $30k a year as a post doc is an elite signal. Which is a very retarded signal and explains a lot about our society.
It’s weird that it is a coastal elite thing to be broke most of your early adult life but you’re correct. Somehow making $30k a year as a post doc is an elite signal. Which is a very retarded signal and explains a lot about our society.
I think the income marker is more about being a creative than location. There are plenty of very well-paid 28 year old engineers, corporate lawyers, management consultants, computer programmers and investment bankers.
Katie and Jesse live in a world where they don't interact with these types on a regular basis. (Especially Katie).
Katie is married to a nurse, though. I (a creative type) was in awe of the salaries that my 22-year-old BSN classmates were earning straight out of school. It wasn’t millionaire money, but it was sufficient to build a solid, middle class life and not be broke in your 20’s. Definitely better than “I’m going to wait tables or temp while I do this unpaid internship and hope my journalism career kicks off” money. Katie is familiar with “people who have useful, non-flashy professional skillsets who are always employable” because she lives with one.
Devil's advocate: Katie's wife got into nursing prior to the credentials change that led to big salary boosts.
(When I was high school in the late 1980s, classmates would go to a local "nursing school" and have an RN in two years. Now you must have a BSN.)
A few years ago my little sister explored one of those accelerated BSN programs for people who already have Non-STEM bachelor's degrees. After reading the brochure outlining the program, I joked "why don't you just go to medical school"?
I don't know hold old Katie's wife is or how long she's been a nurse. Just guessing.
I graduated college in the late 90’s, and even then, and entry level new grad nurse could earn a starting salary that seemed very much “not broke” to my English Major sensibilities. Katie is about 40, so unless she is in a major age gap relationship, her wife probably came into the nursing field after the time that you are talking about.
Or they just weren’t together back then. Katie and her wife married during Covid. So late 30s. In the Seattle area, it’s increasingly unusual, especially for white college graduates, to be married before 35ish.
My husband and I live in the Seattle area. We are a few years older than Katie and Jesse- I’m about to turn 43. We have been married for 22 years and our oldest son is turning 20 next week. We are significantly younger than most of the parents of our sons’ friends and classmates.
No offense, but I think you’re doing the rightwing thing where you assume anything you find exasperating or confusing or foreign that artsy liberals do can simply be dismissed as a status “signal.”
(Richard Hannani’s sincere belief that any cultural interest that wouldn’t appeal to a horny, male, U. of Chicago libertarian on the autism spectrum must be an affectation is probably the current great example. It’s a frequent source of much inadvertent comedy. Though admittedly he’s an extreme case.)
Here’s the thing: many people are genuinely interested in the arts. (Some have talent.) Journalism, not that long ago, was a real job with a future. There were even many actual decent-paying jobs in the arts. Things like musician or illustrator.
The people who pursued the arts and journalism these past few decades may have been foolish. Some may be poseurs.
But no one pursued them because they thought they’d be poorly paying and lack of money as adults would then give them cool points.
Yes, but it’s the fun we have along the way in the comments that counts.
I hear what you’re saying and sort of halfway agree with it. I’ve never considered myself an artist probably because I have some kind of cultural aversion to it as you mention but I’ve been more successful at it than most people I know who do it in real life. I did give it up as a sort of waste of time/just do it when I have time as a hobby because I didn’t see money in it to support a family. But also I did go to enough writing groups to meet people who come from affluent backgrounds who sincerely seemed to get off on the idea of being poor. It’s a weird world.
How old were you when you went to those writing workshops? Or — more significantly — how old were your fellow students? What part of the country?
Honestly, the only time I encountered serious hardcore dumbass romanticization of poverty was in and around indie/alt rock. I got a couple lifetime’s worth, sure. Still, it was all people still safe and snug in their 20s.
If ever there was a “that shit grows old fast” in life it’s not having money. And if there is any group of people on earth with little tolerance for not having the money of their peers it’s children.
Last thought: I failed to acknowledge how much people often hate 9 to 5. Maybe they’re spoiled entitled brats, but wanting to avoid that grind is, I think, a much greater motivator than any cubicle stigma.
I feel like this is a trick to make me think about how old I am. Washington state and Oregon. About fifteen years ago and ten years ago. Probably a dozen ish people across both fairly small groups who were in their mid and late twenties but they seemed to be able to assert some kind of control just through sheer numbers and recklessness. Also had a comp professor of the same genus. It was before I knew the word Woke but they were probably nascent wokesters who primarily contributed information on how everything was problematic but never wrote anything themselves.
What I mostly dislike/react to is the sense that there’s a class of people who think they are simultaneously too good to work or check their ideas against others but also highly capable and all knowing.
I probably *am* an art type if I lived in a different place, like I write poetry and shit, but I do find now that I somehow just can’t feel comfortable around art people.
Two thoughts (I’m a lot more confident that I’m right about the second):
1) I think the NW US where you’re from may be really unique in neither having the cultural insularity & alarmingly high rates of violence found in some rural homogenous communities (Ozark, Appalachia) nor the histories of racism and racial tension of the rest of the US. (Perhaps I’m being naive.)
You would know much better they me how that would play out, but I wonder if there might be an awareness of class, irrespective of race, that persists or persisted longer where you grew up. (In NYC the idea that Chinese or Russian or Irish-American kids in, say, an honors class may be working class or poor is provocative. And thus the very idea of poverty divorced from identity is.)
This awareness of class would seem to me to be a good thing, but it might also result in a romanticized view of poverty. One that you no longer have in most of the US.
Everything in much of the rest of the country is just about race. (Again: perhaps it is in the NW now too. I know there’s now more racial diversity & immigration.)
Also — and this is going to sound weird, but, oh, it’s true — communities with lots of immigrants and racial minorities tend to be extremely aspirational in way that is contemptuous of poverty. Neither rappers nor immigrant shopkeepers have any illusions about poverty. They want nothing to do with it. That results in a lot less overall romanticization about being financially strapped, but more vulgar materialism.
2) The lower the technical standards of entry for an art form are, the more clowns you’re going to get.
Portrait and landscape painting are going to have less clowns participating than abstract and conceptual art.
Rap MCs are going to have more clowns among their number than tenor sax players or gospel singers.
More poets are going to be clowns than novelists.
And more wannabe novelists are going to be clowns than actual (did the work) novelists.
But that doesn’t mean all poets (or wannabe poets) are clowns. Not at all. It just means the non-clown poets are going to deal with a lot more annoyance from their ostensible peers.
Sure, it beats the problems (tuberculosis, rats, starvation in garrets, no hot water, untreatable venereal diseases) poets often dealt with back when the rigor of rhyme & meter made the entry requirements higher, but it’s still going to be (as you found) incredibly annoying.
You’re right. It is weird. But I would say these people are “broke”, not broke.
Many jobs in media or the arts pay low because it’s a winner take all market. Two dozen playwrights will write bad plays for years in a bohemian community before someone emerges with a big hit and makes a ton of money.
You can only bide your time trying to become the winner while making $30K if you’ve got support from elsewhere.
tl;dr, only the rich can afford to be poor artists.
With respect to, “real rich kids”, I’d say it’s all relative.
The children of college grads much more likely to graduate college than the children of non college grads. More then 2:1. Among college students, the kids or degree holders are 2X as likely to attend a highly selective college than their first generation counterparts.
Finally, college educated households are 4 times wealthier than non college households.
Put it all together and we have this: graduates from highly selective schools come from dramatically more wealth than the average American. Even if they’re underemployed.
I gotcha. And rest assured, I only break these stats out online. I promise I don’t make a hobby out of telling underemployed art school grads how much better off they are than most people because like you said, it’s little comfort.
In medicine you’ve got six-figure loans and by the time you actually make money you’re locked into roughly the same salary as a teacher for several years, typically at least into your early 30’s.
People who went into tech or business often tell me we’re idiots for accepting this. I think they’re right.
It’s weird that it is a coastal elite thing to be broke most of your early adult life but you’re correct. Somehow making $30k a year as a post doc is an elite signal. Which is a very retarded signal and explains a lot about our society.
I think the income marker is more about being a creative than location. There are plenty of very well-paid 28 year old engineers, corporate lawyers, management consultants, computer programmers and investment bankers.
Katie and Jesse live in a world where they don't interact with these types on a regular basis. (Especially Katie).
Katie is married to a nurse, though. I (a creative type) was in awe of the salaries that my 22-year-old BSN classmates were earning straight out of school. It wasn’t millionaire money, but it was sufficient to build a solid, middle class life and not be broke in your 20’s. Definitely better than “I’m going to wait tables or temp while I do this unpaid internship and hope my journalism career kicks off” money. Katie is familiar with “people who have useful, non-flashy professional skillsets who are always employable” because she lives with one.
Devil's advocate: Katie's wife got into nursing prior to the credentials change that led to big salary boosts.
(When I was high school in the late 1980s, classmates would go to a local "nursing school" and have an RN in two years. Now you must have a BSN.)
A few years ago my little sister explored one of those accelerated BSN programs for people who already have Non-STEM bachelor's degrees. After reading the brochure outlining the program, I joked "why don't you just go to medical school"?
I don't know hold old Katie's wife is or how long she's been a nurse. Just guessing.
I graduated college in the late 90’s, and even then, and entry level new grad nurse could earn a starting salary that seemed very much “not broke” to my English Major sensibilities. Katie is about 40, so unless she is in a major age gap relationship, her wife probably came into the nursing field after the time that you are talking about.
Now I'm stumped. Maybe Katie's wife worked at a free Medicaid clinic.
Or they just weren’t together back then. Katie and her wife married during Covid. So late 30s. In the Seattle area, it’s increasingly unusual, especially for white college graduates, to be married before 35ish.
My husband and I live in the Seattle area. We are a few years older than Katie and Jesse- I’m about to turn 43. We have been married for 22 years and our oldest son is turning 20 next week. We are significantly younger than most of the parents of our sons’ friends and classmates.
I mean yeah, she’s Irish.
No offense, but I think you’re doing the rightwing thing where you assume anything you find exasperating or confusing or foreign that artsy liberals do can simply be dismissed as a status “signal.”
(Richard Hannani’s sincere belief that any cultural interest that wouldn’t appeal to a horny, male, U. of Chicago libertarian on the autism spectrum must be an affectation is probably the current great example. It’s a frequent source of much inadvertent comedy. Though admittedly he’s an extreme case.)
Here’s the thing: many people are genuinely interested in the arts. (Some have talent.) Journalism, not that long ago, was a real job with a future. There were even many actual decent-paying jobs in the arts. Things like musician or illustrator.
The people who pursued the arts and journalism these past few decades may have been foolish. Some may be poseurs.
But no one pursued them because they thought they’d be poorly paying and lack of money as adults would then give them cool points.
Yes, but it’s the fun we have along the way in the comments that counts.
I hear what you’re saying and sort of halfway agree with it. I’ve never considered myself an artist probably because I have some kind of cultural aversion to it as you mention but I’ve been more successful at it than most people I know who do it in real life. I did give it up as a sort of waste of time/just do it when I have time as a hobby because I didn’t see money in it to support a family. But also I did go to enough writing groups to meet people who come from affluent backgrounds who sincerely seemed to get off on the idea of being poor. It’s a weird world.
How old were you when you went to those writing workshops? Or — more significantly — how old were your fellow students? What part of the country?
Honestly, the only time I encountered serious hardcore dumbass romanticization of poverty was in and around indie/alt rock. I got a couple lifetime’s worth, sure. Still, it was all people still safe and snug in their 20s.
If ever there was a “that shit grows old fast” in life it’s not having money. And if there is any group of people on earth with little tolerance for not having the money of their peers it’s children.
Last thought: I failed to acknowledge how much people often hate 9 to 5. Maybe they’re spoiled entitled brats, but wanting to avoid that grind is, I think, a much greater motivator than any cubicle stigma.
I feel like this is a trick to make me think about how old I am. Washington state and Oregon. About fifteen years ago and ten years ago. Probably a dozen ish people across both fairly small groups who were in their mid and late twenties but they seemed to be able to assert some kind of control just through sheer numbers and recklessness. Also had a comp professor of the same genus. It was before I knew the word Woke but they were probably nascent wokesters who primarily contributed information on how everything was problematic but never wrote anything themselves.
What I mostly dislike/react to is the sense that there’s a class of people who think they are simultaneously too good to work or check their ideas against others but also highly capable and all knowing.
I probably *am* an art type if I lived in a different place, like I write poetry and shit, but I do find now that I somehow just can’t feel comfortable around art people.
Two thoughts (I’m a lot more confident that I’m right about the second):
1) I think the NW US where you’re from may be really unique in neither having the cultural insularity & alarmingly high rates of violence found in some rural homogenous communities (Ozark, Appalachia) nor the histories of racism and racial tension of the rest of the US. (Perhaps I’m being naive.)
You would know much better they me how that would play out, but I wonder if there might be an awareness of class, irrespective of race, that persists or persisted longer where you grew up. (In NYC the idea that Chinese or Russian or Irish-American kids in, say, an honors class may be working class or poor is provocative. And thus the very idea of poverty divorced from identity is.)
This awareness of class would seem to me to be a good thing, but it might also result in a romanticized view of poverty. One that you no longer have in most of the US.
Everything in much of the rest of the country is just about race. (Again: perhaps it is in the NW now too. I know there’s now more racial diversity & immigration.)
Also — and this is going to sound weird, but, oh, it’s true — communities with lots of immigrants and racial minorities tend to be extremely aspirational in way that is contemptuous of poverty. Neither rappers nor immigrant shopkeepers have any illusions about poverty. They want nothing to do with it. That results in a lot less overall romanticization about being financially strapped, but more vulgar materialism.
2) The lower the technical standards of entry for an art form are, the more clowns you’re going to get.
Portrait and landscape painting are going to have less clowns participating than abstract and conceptual art.
Rap MCs are going to have more clowns among their number than tenor sax players or gospel singers.
More poets are going to be clowns than novelists.
And more wannabe novelists are going to be clowns than actual (did the work) novelists.
But that doesn’t mean all poets (or wannabe poets) are clowns. Not at all. It just means the non-clown poets are going to deal with a lot more annoyance from their ostensible peers.
Sure, it beats the problems (tuberculosis, rats, starvation in garrets, no hot water, untreatable venereal diseases) poets often dealt with back when the rigor of rhyme & meter made the entry requirements higher, but it’s still going to be (as you found) incredibly annoying.
You’re right. It is weird. But I would say these people are “broke”, not broke.
Many jobs in media or the arts pay low because it’s a winner take all market. Two dozen playwrights will write bad plays for years in a bohemian community before someone emerges with a big hit and makes a ton of money.
You can only bide your time trying to become the winner while making $30K if you’ve got support from elsewhere.
tl;dr, only the rich can afford to be poor artists.
With respect to, “real rich kids”, I’d say it’s all relative.
The children of college grads much more likely to graduate college than the children of non college grads. More then 2:1. Among college students, the kids or degree holders are 2X as likely to attend a highly selective college than their first generation counterparts.
Finally, college educated households are 4 times wealthier than non college households.
Put it all together and we have this: graduates from highly selective schools come from dramatically more wealth than the average American. Even if they’re underemployed.
I gotcha. And rest assured, I only break these stats out online. I promise I don’t make a hobby out of telling underemployed art school grads how much better off they are than most people because like you said, it’s little comfort.
In medicine you’ve got six-figure loans and by the time you actually make money you’re locked into roughly the same salary as a teacher for several years, typically at least into your early 30’s.
People who went into tech or business often tell me we’re idiots for accepting this. I think they’re right.
Yeah there are some job practices right now that aren’t even market driven. Or rather, the markets only work that way for insane reasons.
The median post doc salary is $71.5k. Not exactly matching Audi A8 in 4 car garage salary, but that's a really far shot from "poor".
If you marry another academic on the same track, that'd put your household income in the 150k/yr range. Or double the median household income.
Even on the West Coast that income makes you very solidly middle class.