I Used to Write for Sports Illustrated. Now I Deliver Packages for Amazon (2018)

I listen to a lot of retrogaming and retrocomputing podcasts, ANTIC and Retronauts are my favorites. It turns out ANTIC interviews quite a few people from the old computer magazine and book industry, and retronauts is mostly made up of struggling video game journalists who cycle between the same magazines and being jobless or freelance. A few of them, especially the more senior folks basically have thrown in the towel and now work for other companies entirely within the video…

I was finished HS seventeen years ago, about an hour northeast of where the author was delivering packages. I distinctly remember an English teacher, trying to get us excited about the possibilities of longform print journalism, breathlessly telling the class how some of the best writers in the world work for Sports Illustrated, and that they make "good money." I feel a sense of loss when the "biodiversity" of what appear to be financially viable careers is declining.

I always feel bad seeing seniors working. It feels wrong in some way. I can't put my finger on it.