With the pandemic shuttering businesses and keeping workers at home, everyone is looking for a little side hustle and we totally get that. But oh Christ, Jen just added “entrepreneur” to her bio and that could spell disaster for my timeline.
I’ve known Jen since college and she was always the kind of person that you knew would go places someday. Yet now she’s putting all that energy into a multi-level marketing scheme that will almost assuredly engulf her entire social media presence. I’ve seen this happen before to so many great friends, but quarantine is turning what used to be a manageable annoyance into a far more sinister beast.
And everyone is doing it! Just look at these posts from my newsfeed and the “employment status” of my Facebook friends:
“Running a business is hard. Please donate to my Patreon so I can figure out how to do it without losing any of my money.” – Sam Granger, community college student and entrepreneur.
“Hey ya’ll. Just put a second mortgage on my house so I can quit my job and start a podcast network! So, if you have any food at all please contribute. We tried ‘going on the pod and hashing it out’—the way most disagreements are handled—but they’re still hungry for some reason.” – Jim Kline, part-time father and entrepreneur.
“VENMOMENOWPLEASEKTHX” from venmo: NikkiHines789346, actor, model, musician, comedian, photographer, and, you fucking guessed it, entrepreneur.
I can’t help feeling like I could have intervened, at least with Jen. I could have reached out when I saw her update her bio to “Ask me how to make money from home and kick ass doing it” with four exclamation points and two moneybag emojis. I could have commented “This is fucking insane” on her posts touting the herbal benefits. But now it’s too late, and I will live with the consequences of my inaction until she finally comes for my PayPal account.