the faux romanticism of the freelancer

& what the f to do if you're feeling jaded by your creative industry.

FIRST OF ALL?! Thank you to fashion week and back for supporting me and DIGITAL FRUITS. I cannot express what an incredible impact your support has made on my quality of life, access to essential healthcare resources, and ability to continue writing this publication.

I started DF’s Substack just shy of 2 months ago, and there’s already 4.6K of you at the time of writing.

Honored and humbled to be queening out and crashing out with you.

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This edition of DIGITAL FRUITS is dedicated to the local, freelance nepo baby who’s advice on breaking into the industry is “You just have to take the leap and do it <3” and “Quit your job <3”

… Kind of the rich-kid-cosplaying-as-humble version of a doctor telling you to “Do yoga <3” when you have an autoimmune disorder.

Hi, it’s me. The one-of-many divas who broke into freelancing thinking the film industry was about making movies and the fashion industry about fabulous clothes. LOL.

May I be so real right now?

Freelancing is only easy if you come from money, are able-bodied, and don’t hate authority. And frankly, I haven’t yelled on the internet about that enough. (We are changing that today <3)

This all might sound a little cynical Miranda Hobbes-ian. Apologies. There’s a reason I periodically dye my hair red.

But only in the name of helping you, and me, feel less crazy. I promise, this piece ends with a big dose of hope, and an antidote to feeling jaded in your creative industry. We’re carving out the hottest creative path regardless of what your industry expects.

So, I know, freelancing being hard for most people that don’t directly come from privilege is not a revolutionary thing to say. But honestly, no one is saying it!!!?

Something happens when you find yourself on the creative freelancer path in your ‘20s: you run into the people- your age, going for the same gigs- who come from money, are able-bodied, and don’t hate authority. And it is nearly impossible to not compare yourself to them, or just assume you need to be going at the same pace.

Freelancing sounds kind of romantic and easy-breezy, no? Sexy even, in the way the internet romanticizes uber-optimized, productive morning routines. Wake up at 5am, do yoga, grab a matcha, answer emails, moodboard, shop for samples, head to the studio, do a Zoom call, quick lunch salad before a fitting, prep for tomorrow’s shoot, and then plan your 4 week trip to Italy (because after tomorrow’s shoot, you’ll have 2 months off, just because you can).

And sometimes it can be like that! We love! I’m always excited when I’m on set, or when a project that I pitched is in motion. I periodically do yoga or something. Matcha is great. I won’t claim being a morning person, but I’ve come to appreciate the days where I’m a busy-working-girl.

But (1) I don’t even like the fact that I find myself valuing myself more on days when I’m productive. Because I know that value isn’t entirely mine, it’s the capitalism worm in my head that values you based on how much you’re accomplishing. Or the voices of peers from my past who valued work ethic above anything else (they probably haven’t realized that that value isn’t necessarily theirs yet, but rather the aforementioned capitalism worm’s).

And (2), the romantic, sexy, girlbossing too close to the sun lifestyle isn’t sunshine and matchas all the time. Especially when you are breaking into your passion field from square one.

For me, my early (and, still now) freelance years looked like:

• Feeling like I couldn’t tell colleagues that I had a chronic illness or had ADHD because they would passively discriminate against me.

• Being passively discriminated against for having the aforementioned chronic illness or ADHD.

• Working more hours than the ones I was getting paid for because if it needed to get done, it needed to get done.

• Having to take breaks from going after freelance work because I financially couldn’t sustain the dry months (frozen freelance winter).

• Being socially punished for having firm values and not “playing the network game” with people I didn’t ethically align with.

• Not being able to turn off “work brain”... or not being able to turn it on because I entirely burned out (which I experienced in a few different ways– creative burnout, ADHD burnout, physical burnout, and work burnout. Fun!).

• Not sleeping, not taking care of myself, ordering Doordash too much and draining my fleeting bank account because I didn’t allow time to cook for myself. Allowing my life to be dictated by other’s expectations of me and the goals I had for myself (and the way I was taught those goals had to be met).

• Being EXPECTED to let work take over my life. EXPECTED to have martyrdom complex. And if you don’t, they’ll find someone who does.

• Feeling like I was SO behind (Spoiler: I was comparing myself to people who had a headstart, more resources, et cetera).

• Associating my creative identity with my career identity beyond what is good for my creative health.

And if I can be so completely real, I was HUMBLED in my early years. Humbled for not coming from money, not being able-bodied, and hating authority, of course. And I spent a few years after the first few pretty jaded. For awhile I didn’t want to create anymore at all, not even independently. I was just so incredibly frustrated that the film and fashion industries were so painfully… inaccessible in so many ways. Dare I let anyone know I was chronically ill, or didn’t think it was ethical (or cool, since the martyrdom complex in creative industries is a flourishing ideology people wear like a badge) to work 18 hours days back-to-back. I work hard, and I love my creative work with a feverish passion. But I would also like to live past 47. Anyways, it felt like the art of it all was simply a nuisance. Teenage, slightly naive me was heartbroken at the thought. And I can only imagine how many young creatives have their inner artist killed off when they meet this side of their respective industry too.

I work hard, and I love my creative work with a feverish passion. But I would also like to live past 47.

So there I was, a few years in to my creative freelance path, now with an allergy to the grindset-hustle-culture creative industries proposed as the standard, but the real beast? The financial instability (especially as someone who, as aforementioned, didn’t come from money and/or has conditions or needs that cost money) of breaking into the industry- that is not only anticipated but encouraged! By people with money! (Re: the aforementioned local nepo baby advice to quit your job.)

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So, now what? What happens after you meet the ugly side of your industry and early freelance years? What did I do when I met that side and burned out? How do we carve a path that feels… good? Or rather, how do we allow ourselves to feel good on, and about, our creative freelancer path?

Let it be known I still hate the inaccessibility of the industries I find myself in (clearly, lmao), and the hustle of it all is stupid too. That hasn’t changed, and probably won’t. But something that did change was my perspective on my place as a creative. Which I hate less.

Through the ickiness of feeling like I was a cog in a machine that masqueraded as creative, I learned what I value in the creative space and the kind of teams I want to work with and foster, and was able to address some negative feelings about myself. I also allowed myself to create a path that was functional and sustainable for me, even if it was unconventional and not standard.

And through this jaded-burnout-hate-it-all-maybe-I-do-just-want-stability period of my freelance life (which I have lovingly rebranded to my “healing my creativity era”), my psyche sneakily let some core negative beliefs flourish; beliefs about myself that frankly, weren’t even my own. They were my sixth grade teacher’s, the weird shitty photographer’s, my ex’s, the industry’s, the world’s, or the aforementioned capitalism worm’s. Fears that I had developed, or that had reignited, through my first few years in the freelance space. Fears that were literally preventing me from reclaiming my creativity and directing my portfolio into a space that felt aligned with my style. And realizing this was a huge, healing turning point for me and was one of the keys that kept me going.

Through learning about what I valued, what kind of creativity I was hungry for, allowing myself to REST (a brief, intentional “giving up” period), and learning how to turn up the volume on my inner world and turn down the volume on voices/opinions that weren’t my own (about who I should be and how I should do it)... I came back home to myself, refreshed and ready to wander down my creative path again. These lessons gave me structure, it helped guide me in figuring out how to edit my routines, my values, and my goals.

Be audacious and let the creativity and confidence follow.

You’re allowed to take the reigns and make it work for you. You can create an accessible, beautiful path. It will be a little messy and frustrating sometimes. But that’s just the character building every starving artist is granted the pleasure of experiencing.

Mostly I write this piece to say, you’re not crazy for feeling like this feels impossible. It might feel like that sometimes. It might feel like you’re fighting tooth-and-nail: to let yourself let your creativity take control, to cold email clients all the time, to pitch yourself when you’re just getting started, to build your portfolio when it feels misaligned or nonexistent, to allow yourself to work with what you have while constantly seeing others create with more resources than you currently have.

And you might need to take breaks.

Creating stability in your life, even if it means pausing your freelance grind or slowing it down, is ultimately what creates sustainability (which I think is the smarter path for everyone anyways!). And frankly, audacity counts for a lot. And that’s free, if you let it be. Be audacious and let the creativity and confidence follow. If it hasn’t been done before, know that it’s possible for you to be the first one to do it- to be an example and a guiding light for those in positions and circumstances as before. Learning to trust your gut and your aesthetic eye is everything. Learning to not compare your path, or let the path of others foster tumbleweeds of fear in yours, is everything else.

Mostly I write this piece to say, you’re not crazy for feeling like this feels impossible.

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So, with all that said, whether you’re 5 years in and feeling insane, or just getting started and want to protect your beautiful incredible hot sense of ambition and creativity, here’s my mini-guide on navigating creative freelancing, un-jaded-ing yourself, and not going cuckoo bananas. These are the pillars that helped me recover from my creative burnout and dive into my creative work with clarity (and a little more sanity).

a mini-guide to freelancing— for hot, creative people who have a problem with authority and/or capitalism, et cetera: