“I was so upset and disappointed in myself because growing up, I was told that if I get an education, if I go to college, then I’ll be successful,” Santos told Business Insider—and she’s not the first Gen Zer to complain about feeling tricked into pursuing further education.
Just last month, 27-year-old Robbie Scott similarly went viral on TikTok for insisting that Gen Z isn’t any less willing to work than generations before. Instead, he said, they are “getting angry and entitled and whiny” about the prospect of having to work hard for the rest of their adult life, only to “get nothing in return.”
If she has degrees in communication & acting, that is to say (no judgement implied ofc) that she is a trained liar, and you really shouldn't believe anything she says.
This is in fact her jobs pitch, because she wants to work in the media, she did not in fact hand out resumes to minimum wage jobs and has no intention of working one, probably everything in the article is false these kind of 'experience/perspective' pieces usually are.
edit: perhaps 'storyteller' is a more polite way of saying it. But aside from that ("I'm a story teller & have always wanted to be one, in fact I studied how to tell storys and give performences, now let me tell you a true story about my experience - I even cry") the fact its reported in Business Insider, Fortune dot com, Daily Mail, should really tell you its wholesale fabrication.
Newspapers don't generally run pieces featuring anyone below the kind of 'minor gentry' class in a sympathetic light like this. They do run pieces (often fabricated) from people of their own class who are supposed to create a relatable crafted narrative for the lower orders.
At this point I assume any viral video featured on a big news source is a setup. It's either someone trying to get in on a grift, or it's a pre-existing grift and some money got juiced into it somewhere. I never thought I'd miss the days of genuine cranks getting popular.
But you're right, this video felt the same as those headlines like "Millennial buys $1.2 million house with their own money by drinking water instead of avocado juice"
It is another example of modern media mistaking anecdotes for data (see also: political nutpicking).
They take one highly personal example that seemingly aligns with their predetermined conclusion or narrative of an issue, and extrapolate to imply it is somehow emblematic of a broader trend.
I'm not sure it is, anecdotes (testimony) can be useful if true, and statistics can be employed to tell lies about data just as well. Also, media has always done this, since mass media came about.
I mean, its just fabricated - not a highly personal example, but rather no example at all. Therefore, any narrative is also false.
But it does align with predetermined notions (themes) for various audiences (like any story) I agree.
Every account I've seen from anybody who has been featured in a news story has said that the truth was ignored, and the media misrepresented what happened, embellished, ommitted, lied etc. Of course in this case, the lies are already told by the 'social media personality', to further her own career - to sell her performances, to an prospective audience but also to prospective employers. So its more of a two-way relationship.
I don’t think there’s a psyop, the media has always had a bias for young white people who come from ´acceptable’ backgrounds.
that is a psyop itself, one that reinforces class hierarchies.
its like shakespere, where all the aristos talk in an overblown 'dramatic' manner, and all the commoners are comedic relief bumbling about being stupid or savage. The concerns and experiences of those of the higher classes are treated with dignity, even if tragic or foolish, while those of the lower orders are not. You can find similar in ancient Greek or Roman drama too. I use examples of fiction, because this article, and the woman's story, are a fiction too.
media literacy is very important, and one aspect of that is to understand that its storytelling. Storytelling works by repetition - variations on a theme. In this case, it doesn't need to be an explicitly crafted psyop as such, just so long as any narrative about jobs and employment is one that doesn't cause people to examine the issue in a way that might threaten the current order - to think about the economy in any depth or breadth.
I'd expect (for example) a biscuit making factory & company that'd been around for a century to be very efficient & knowledgeable about making and selling biscuits. The media is the same, its very good at what it does - even if it looks incompetant, frivolous, or you can't immediately grasp the point of something its doing - this is because you're not, in the analogy, an experienced biscuit maker.
Many hours of labor, and huge sums of capital, and vast institutions, are dedicated to the production of everything that falls under the category of 'media'. Of course, storytelling is a natural human activity, but so is eating or 'spirituality' and the same applies to food production and religion. You can't be cynical enough - its certainly the case that the elites care a great deal about which storys are told. Of course, media organisations are saturated with intelligence agency operatives and assets, this is well documented.
So in conclusion, yes its a psyop of one kind or another. You can find the same in all entertainment - why is wrestling so popular? Because its a soap opera for people who like gladiators. But the stories told aren't 'organic' in the sense of coming from the masses, they're mandated from high, the same being true for other less physical soap operas, or any tv serial, any hollywood film. People who work in the media don't just pick up a pen and decide to write a story, they get told what to write about and how, and then the story goes through approval processes via editors. Its not some impulsive, 'organic' process, but a highly organised and ordered one.
edit; from your other comment on this thread, schadenfreude is one of the intended reactions to this story...