I’m Done Reading Get-Rich-Quick “I Made X Dollars Writing About Y” Articles
Blog Rewind: This one was published a while back in 2022, when I got sick of these types of articles. Nothing has changed except I’m no longer disappointed because I avoid them.
Before the internet, before “hustle culture,” there were print and classified ads. These ads were a mix of anything. Some read simply, “Send me a dollar and I’ll tell you how to make $100.”
When you sent in your dollar, the reply you got — the secret to making money — was to repeat the process. Do what the person who placed the ad did. The advice? “Put an ad in the classifieds that reads, ‘Send me a dollar and I’ll tell you how to make $100.’”
Cute, right? Very neat, very circular.
Now, let’s come back to the present. If that trick sounds familiar, it’s because a lot — and I mean A LOT — of hustle culture articles remind me of that.
I guarantee you’ve seen them. Like me, you probably clicked a few. These blog posts hint that you too can make money writing for the internet. If you just write articles about writing on the internet.
I don’t have a problem with people wringing every last penny out of SEO trickery. If a website is going to be lazy and pay people to write the same old stuff, fine. Maybe they’ll even have AI compose the article for you. It can’t be hard for predictive text to assemble marketing articles that tell you how to write marketing articles. Fine, make that cash. Exploit that algorithm. Work the system.
Just don’t expect me to read it. Ever again. That’s why I’m done.
Here forward if an article’s title is something like “I Made X Dollars Doing Y” or “I Made X Dollars Writing for Website Z and You Can Too” or some variation, I’m avoiding it. Maybe I’ll block the person sharing it, maybe I’ll even avoid the site it’s on.
Just for kicks I went on a bender and read dozens of hustle culture articles. I can’t remember one that gave me an insight beyond, “Write a lot and publish a lot. When you have between one hundred and one thousand articles, you’ll make money.”
It’s likely true. If you have one thousand articles, and they each pay a penny a day just from random clicks, that’s $10 a day. Ten bucks a day for a month is not bad at all. Again, if that’s your gig, do it.
I would advise everyone I know not to bother reading it, but hey, you do you.
Now that we’ve come to the end of this rant, I regret to say I sound a bit like those annoying social media posts where people make a point to announce they are un-following an account or leaving a group.
As if their absence (or in this case, mine) will be cause for alarm. Let me say I realize it’s not. I’m just sharing why I dislike internet filler.
And I will be careful not to let the door hit my ass on the way out. Thank you.