My Apologies to NASA (#sorrynotsorry)

Carrie Cutforth
Sep 7, 2018 · 3 min read

(from my Twitter Feed/ an apology and a rant)

Last night I made an unfair tweet towards a job call at NASA for a “web producer/social media master/designer/skilled communications professional” in which I called the call ‘ridiculous’. It was unfair as I stupidly rt’d the OP rather than a link to the call and I gave no context.

This led to misunderstandings because I did not justify the assertion as I simply lack the spoons to do much more than scoff at things I find problematic, which is not fair to anyone.

In acknowledging I still lack spoons to give this discussion justice, I’m going to attempt a better job at ‘mangling’ it.

The greater context is not that there are not great capable media producers who have a latitude skill set that can fill great opportunities at stellar organizations such as NASA. Bully for anyone who can fill such a great opportunity.

But we are remiss in overlooking the greater social-political context, particularly in specialized labour when we become content at filling positions that uniquely fit our skill set WHEN what used to give US edge is rapidly becoming an industry norm in a sector not unionized.

I say this as a pioneer in digital: I contributed to this issue as much as anybody in the heady day of the internet’s youth, and could not understand years ago the pushback I was getting from older media professionals who were threatened by the breadth of my skills.

The internet was the great disruptor. And all we talked about then was disruption and breaking down silos. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: what we mostly did was disrupt livable wages for the creative class.

A very practical example in terms of how my gen fucked things up for our industry: Yes, there were many problems with the stratified positions afforded by the unions. However, it used to be if someone wanted a video production you would have hired several people…a cameraman, a sound engineer, and editor and on and on. Each with their respective day rate. Now an award-winning cameraman in the industry is expected to perform all positions for one day rate or in most cases now LESS than they made five years ago OR they are aged out.

Unionizing as digital content creators is very difficult because this extreme level of generalization. As someone who co-founded a national non-profit professional association for web creators: I KNOW THIS FAR TOO WELL.

There was an assertion in the thread last night that because NASA is NASA it demands a high standard of generalization which is utter nonsense. I saw the same job ad from K-TELL records 5 years ago.

And where does it end? First, there was the collapsing of several highly employed union positions to one single video production that devalued the overall rates commanded. Then it became video-production/writer/web expert/SEO expert + on and on and on.

And each year there is more fit in as technology rapidly changes. This has had real adverse impact on boomers and late gen-x’s who are aged out but also Millennials/Gen Z’s who are expected to have several areas of expertise for ENTRY level positions.

While it is great for some of us who have lateral minds & modern-day media-producing polymaths NOT EVERYONE can be all things for all people. So we all should be concerned when our ability to afford a ‘great opportunity’ at stellar organizations adversely impacts the sector overall, but also our futures.

To put it another way: TALK TO ME IN 5 YEARS when you are no longer general enough to produce video, write copy, master coding, editing, SEO, etc. because you haven’t added AR/VR/blockchain/cryptocurrency etc. under year belt of specializations for the purpose of extreme generalism AND we still don’t have unions to protect your specific areas of generalization because WHERE DO WE EVEN BEGIN?

And I say all this as someone who was very much at the forefront of creating this problem, and have MANY regrets.

Carrie Cutforth

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