Is this play NOT about us?

A bitch is back with complaints about her commute.

Maybe I’m spoiled by the algorithm—that all-knowing god that tells us what we like so we don’t have to worry our pretty little heads about it—but targeted ads are something I’ve grown pretty used to. My demographic isn’t hard to figure out: urban white millennial, married but no kids, house, or other trappings of previous generations’ adulthood. The platform that knows the most about me is probably YouTube, and the ads I get there reflect that: meal prep subscriptions, buy and sell clothing apps, the occasional pet insurance pop-up. Most of us proudly say we don’t click on ads, hoping that means something virtuous about our susceptibility to them. But the fact remains that I can recite the taglines to Blue Apron like a trained dog.

Despite my resistance to the concept of targeted advertising in general, I’ve noticed a new side effect of the Generation Me treatment recently. It’s all the more jarring when the ads I’m being served are so clearly not aimed at me. It makes me feel like I’m trespassing somehow, inhabiting a medium or space that I’m not supposed to take part in. And that feels so familiar to me that I didn’t immediately clock the feeling.

Imposter syndrome is talked about a lot in workplace settings, particularly for women—studies show that women are more likely to underestimate their abilities or sell themselves short. It’s the feeling that you are just faking it—an imposter in your job, personal life, or anywhere else—and you have everyone fooled into thinking you know what you’re doing when in reality, you’re winging it hard. I’m used to feeling like this at work, where I teach side by side with colleagues who hold doctorates and decades of academic experience and I am not infrequently mistaken for a student.

I was less prepared to come across this feeling in my chosen entertainment. As a commuter and NYC resident, I listen to hours of podcasts per week. I would say my interests vary somewhat—I like comedy, but also creative writing advice, narrative fiction, fantasy football analysis, and the intersection of tech and the social sciences. I was a big fan of Reply All before it’s cancelation and now keep up with both hosts’ individual projects. None of these topics feel particularly unusual for my demographic—an intellectually curious non-expert with creative leanings and an occasional need to just giggle.

But the ads tell a different story. The most common one I get, by far, is for Indeed. Now, if you’re like me, you know Indeed as the job board that has never once gotten you a response from an employer. So it makes sense that the company needs to advertise relentlessly to convince job seekers that it is not entirely useless. But the ads I get aren’t for job seekers—they are explicitly for job hirers. My fantasy football podcast warns me that hiring the wrong person can harm my business. NPR gives me tips on how to “manage my team’s workflow”. My publishing program lets me know that they can get my job ad in front of job seekers, pronto. And I can’t help but wonder—cue Carrie Bradshaw voiceover—is this where I’m supposed to be in life? When did I fall so far behind?

The pattern stretches beyond my headphones and onto billboards and subway ads, most of which are either inscrutable B2B marketing jargon or software for HR employees, with the occasional ad begging people to become cops. My morning ride consists of brightly lit panels telling me they know where to invest the money that is apparently piling up uselessly in my bank account.  Once, I turned off an episode of Hidden Brain because the actors in my headphones were fretting about whether or not they could send a third kid to college or afford a second home. I was sipping an iced coffee I was still feeling bad about buying at the time as I commuted an hour and a half home from my part-time teaching gig.

I can tell myself that I’m not alone in this, that there is no way I’m the only one on this subway car without a substantial investment portfolio whose job title is a confused conjunction of jargon. But the effect is still isolating. Even as I assure myself that I’m doing ok, the nagging feeling of being left behind persists. When did everyone suddenly develop middle-management experience and why wasn’t I invited?

We are taught in this country to factor the free market into our assumptions about corporate decision-making. We are taught to assume that if a business makes a choice about advertising, it is because that is the best, most effective way to advertise. Surely, if a company is willing to spend big on subway ads aimed at employers, HR, and investors, it must be because that is the best way to wring money from the masses. Somebody, somewhere, must know what they’re doing, right?

Well, yes and no. I can’t speak to how effective each subway ad for HR workflow efficiency is at actually selling their software. But I can speak to the impact, which feels like erasure. It is directly in the interests of the capitalist powers at large to make job seekers, or even job holders whose work is traditionally devalued (education, care work, etc.) feel like the problem is them.

You are struggling, the billboards tell us, because you aren’t reaching far enough, aren’t working hard enough. 

Your peers are sitting on vacation houses, the podcasts croon, why are you so far behind?

The system is working for us, the subway banners hiss, so what is wrong with you?

None of this is true, of course. As of 2024, the top 1% of households in the US held 30.5% of the country’s wealth. The bottom 50% held 2.5%. Federal reserve data shows that same bottom 50% of wealth owners experienced no net wealth growth since 1989, while the top 1% have seen their wealth grow by almost 300% in the same time period. Federal minimum wage in the U.S. remains stagnant since 2009 at $7.25 per hour, culminating in a princely salary of $15,078 annually (which, in 2009, was equivalent to roughly $22,627).

Instead of confronting this reality, America has fallen back on its favorite strategy—blaming individual actions for systematic failures. A system that can make the individual feel isolated, one that tells them that their struggles are a direct result of only their choices, and that they are uniquely alone in their suffering, is one that can uphold its fundamental brokenness.

I am not advocating for advertising as the solution to capitalist collapse. But I do wonder what a landscape of honest messaging would look like. Imagine a world of ads appealing to educators on how to get a side gig, because their essential profession simply doesn’t pay enough. Picture budgeting apps marketing themselves on the assumption that rent is 50% of your income. PSAs about the dangers of predatory payday loans. Would any of this solve the underlying problems? Of course not. But it could shift the shame and stigma from the individual to the culture itself—if someone finds it distasteful that their kids’ teacher needs to deliver pizza, they can’t soothe themselves with the idea that they’re the only one.