{"id":14617,"date":"2021-07-16T03:25:34","date_gmt":"2021-07-15T19:25:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/?p=14617"},"modified":"2025-01-14T00:20:50","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T16:20:50","slug":"feral-free-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/feral-free-agents\/","title":{"rendered":"feral free agents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’m not a fan of the word “unemployed”. First of all, it’s come to imply that the default state is “employed”, meaning to be an employee<\/strong><\/em>, meaning to have an employer<\/em><\/strong>. I am not a fan of the conventional employer-employee relationship \u2013 I don’t think it’s good for me, even when I have a great boss (which I was very blessed to have for 5+ years in my 20s.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social class interacts with “unemployed” in an interesting way. Hardly anybody describes wealthy people as unemployed, even if they don’t have an employer. They might be described as investors, asset owners, landlords and so on. “Unemployed” is a bit of a dirty word for the underclasses. Sometimes you might hear a wealthy person joke that they’re “funemployed”, which is something that a poor person couldn’t possibly describe themselves as, because there’s nothing fun about being unemployed when you can’t pay your bills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2731 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t really like the word “freelancer”, either. It originally<\/a> meant “hired mercenary”, and now to me the word brings up the image of someone who’s doing small jobs for other people. I find it too… provincial. It doesn’t really inspire you to dream big. While it’s not quite as clearly “underclass-coded” as “unemployed”, you would never hear a wealthy person describe themselves as a freelancer. In fiction, The Witcher could be described as a freelancer. Because he doesn’t have a lot of money himself, and he lives from gig to gig.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Witcher might seem like it\u2019s about fantasy and magic and swordfighting but really it\u2019s about the struggles of being a freelancer<\/p>— Visa is doing marketing consults (see pinned!) (@visakanv) December 26, 2019<\/a><\/blockquote>