Fiverr’s new advert is pretty bloody depressing
You may have noticed Fiverr’s new ad campaign popping up around tube stations and in magazines.
It runs on the tagline ‘in doers we trust’, promoting their freelance services. Get it? Because they like people who do things for money?
One advert in particular has p*ssed off quite a few people on the internet – and for good reason.
It shows a tired woman looking at the camera, with the words: ‘You eat a coffee for lunch. You follow through on your follow through. Sleep deprivation is your drug of choice. You might be a doer.’
The "gig economy" is literally killing us.— it's B! Cavello️ (@b_cavello) March 9, 2017
Now, there are a lot of problems with this advert. But basically, they boil down to one damaging idea: working yourself ragged and forgoing sleep, food, and self-care so you can work harder.
This advert suggests that it’s aspirational to ‘eat coffee for lunch’ instead of taking a proper lunch break and, well, actually eating lunch.
It suggests that depriving yourself of sleep is cool, that it makes you a ‘doer’.
It’s exactly the kind of damaging work culture that we know is making us stressed out, unhealthy messes – so why is Fiverr promoting it as something desirable?
The advert is especially concerning considering what Fiverr is actually about – getting paid (and not getting paid very much, might we add) to do services free of a contract or job security.
It’s encouraging the idea that you should be working non-stop, that picking up extra jobs and losing sleep is the path to success.
And that’s bloody awful.
To be clear: it’s not cool, clever, or a marker of success to be running on no sleep, to be skipping meals, or to make every waking hour about working.
You need to be looking after yourself, and you shouldn’t trust any company that suggests self-care isn’t a priority.
Source: http://metro.co.uk/2017/03/10/people-are-not-pleased-with-fiverrs-deeply-depressing-advert-6500359/
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