Recently I was talking to someone who worked at a music store - they said his friend started messing around with music synths as a hobby but started really getting into it - to the point where he got his professional certification for doing so. Apparently he is now making $300,000 a year, working for Microsoft as the "hardware guy".
I do love hearing stories like these because it's a validation of creativity's "practical" side - that making music and art often translates into real-world skills that can, in fact, be "useful". I can relate to that story somewhat - my background in music composition definitely helped with my ability to code and understand technology (according to experts, composition and coding uses similar parts of the brain), my various experiences running ensembles and bands directly translated into my later involvements with startups (herding cats 😹) and eventually getting certified in product management. A lot of my paying jobs actually came from people I've met through my creative projects too - in a way, these jobs were just more "gigs" for me to do - not that much different from playing music, or doing anything else, really.
To a lot of people, $300k feels like a lot of money - to folks making above that margin, probably feels like "not enough". But the reality is that in today's inflated economy, an household would probably need to make at least that much to start a family and feel "comfortable". So the music synth guy is a middle-class success story, not of the 1%. It's important to make this distinction because I think stories like his are what going to define what it means to "survive" over the next few years, as the United States continues to progress through its economic upheaval - which will affect things both in the political and cultural arenas as well. Things are changing rapidly - for the worse in many ways - but also some things for the better - which is the part less talked about, especially in the media. It is not the end of the world but an end of an era, and if you want to stay relevant to the times, there's a few difficult skills that a lot of people will have to learn - staying adaptable, and learning how to change their mind - especially about the important things.
The Fall and Rise of the Middle-Class
When I was involved with the Andrew Yang's presidential campaign in 2020 (I was a local volunteer in the Los Angeles area back then), we often talked about the 4th Industrial Revolution and how Universal Basic Income (UBI) would be a necessary tool for American citizens to survive the transition - something which I still believe to be is true. Yang did a really good job boiling down a complex idea (originally conceived by think-tanks in Washington about how to "deal" with political instability) to the "1000 bucks a month, no questions asked" slogan that was easy to most people to digest - again, $1000/month feels like a lot to a lot of people, but to most middle-class Americans, that was just the right amount to where they could feel like it would bring some relief, but not be totally dependent on it.
We got a lot of flak for pushing UBI - it was greatly popular with most people (70%+ in favor in most polls) but deeply unpopular with the politics of both parties. The right accused us of socialism, while the left argued that it would trigger inflation, leading to higher prices - which is sort of ironic, given that both things happened anyway, with or without UBI. (Socialism is more popular than ever now, and inflation has gotten so out of control that it started affecting food prices - which is usually a symptom of deeper troubles brewing underneath.) So while the Yang Gang was successful in getting people to talk about it - the folks who wielded the levers to actually put it into practice was unwilling to do so - and resisted it every step of the way. They started a few "pilot programs" for select participants around UBI just to get the voters off their backs, but that was basically it - it was neither universal nor reliable ("basic"), which defeated the whole purpose of the idea to begin with.
But Andrew's popularity largely came from the fact that he "diagnosed" the problem correctly - people liked him because he dove into the reasons why Donald Trump won - which had more to do with the economy than anything else - it was a less of a vote for the candidate (a lot of Republicans actually hate the guy) but more of a vote against the status quo, in a much broader sense. Biden's victory in 2020, and Trump's re-election in 2024 seem to confirm that this was the case - people are voting against whomever happens to be the incumbent at every turn.
This wasn't always the case - before Trump, the pattern was for presidents to serve two consecutive terms - which made the political system more stable and less partisan - some might disagree with that sentiment but I think it's pretty clear that politics then was at least less volatile than it is today. It was sort of ironic because Obama was actually the one that started talking about the "disappearing middle-class", and part of his campaign talking points was that American families were "one emergency away" from falling off track completely - something that both the media and politicians eventually just stopped talking about completely. (And it's not because the problem got "fixed".)
Having been born and raised in Hawaii - it was kind of painful to see Obama sell himself out this past cycle - and losing, on top of that. It was also disappointing to see Yang endorse the candidate that lost for basically the same reasons he meticulously outlined in his book "War on Normal People" - he lost sight of what initially made him popular to begin with and became part of the problem, at the end of the day.
But he wasn't wrong about UBI, or the 4th Industrial Revolution - he was actually spot on about the fact that it was coming. Yang talked a lot about Artificial Intelligence during his campaign - this was before GPT was released to the public so he was definitely way ahead of the curve on this one - but I do think something is "off" about the way AI is talked about right now - it's effects aren't going to be what most people think.
The main feature of industrial revolutions is the fact there are labor standards that are rapidly shifting - which is something that is definitely happening, but not in the areas that are usually talked about. During the crypto boom of 21'-22' - a lot of companies went "all-in" on the idea that people would never leave their homes again and instead choose to reside in the metaverse (one big company changed their whole brand because of that, in fact) - and after that failed spectacularly - they looked for something else to replace it - oh, this AI thing that's been sitting around a while? (LLMs have been around for a few years at that point - and honestly was performing around at the same level even back then, too.) Yeah, let's put that thing out there, now!
I can sort of see a movie-esque scene where the data scientist is pleading with their boss that the device "is not ready" and shouldn't be put into production yet - but the boss, being the American exceptional that he is, overrules the opinion of the "experts" and does it anyway. In the movies, the asshole in this scene is usually the protagonist and gets vindicated in the end, but reality doesn't quite work in the same way, to say the least.
If you read between the lines of the AI industry's marketing and published "reports", there's a tone of desperation to it that is actually quite evident - the main reason being that after the boon of 21'-22' most tech companies were overoptimistic and over hired in virtually every department, a decision that they're regretting right now as the industry continues to cut costs and lay people off. Even though AI has yet to prove that it can "replace" labor in the way its brochures claim (even with menial and entry-level tasks), but it is a nice story that tech CEO's can tell to investors of their plans after firing all those people (AI will replace them, don't worry!), and the people who got fired themselves (it's the robots who took your job, not management!).
But like I said - AI is coming from a place of desperation, not curiosity or growth - which will eventually lead to its bubble popping, once the hype fades away. Not to say that the technology itself couldn't potentially have serious applications - as with the crypto boon and bust cycle (the blockchain is still a proven technology with lots of potential), the biggest problem was that most of the money/attention went to the projects that were largely fundraising for its own sake, rather than building real products. And unless someone comes up with something that makes it past the "pilot program" stage and into something actually useful (or at least profitable), it's going to go up, and then down, just like everything else.
Where the Real Culture Wars are Happening Right Now
(This article will now shift towards talking more about art, culture, and tech - especially crypto and NFTs.)
So going back to the music synth guy making a respectable income in this day and age - at least in terms of money earned from salaries (wealth generation from assets are a different issue), a lot of that has shifted in favor of blue collar jobs over white collar jobs - the latter which has become oversaturated as a whole. Plumbers, electricians, truck drivers, nurses, construction workers, manufacturing workers, IT - all have labor shortages and often offer decent salaries enough to start families - but are often jobs that people trained for white collar work will not even consider. (Many of them, frankly, believe that that sort of work is "beneath" them, despite its better pay.) The pattern in both the economy and labor sectors of the US can be characterized as "administrative bloat" - everyone wants to be the boss, but no-one wants to pick up the skills to do the actual work - even to the point of financial ruin. But as with everything in the world, supply and demand still exists - we now live in a world where there are many PhDs living near the poverty line - while the guy plumbing the toilet is probably making several times more than the person that hired them to begin with.
Politically, this makes most things very unpleasant - largely because human nature is built in such a way where power projects its own problems as if it were the problems of all - as society became more unequal, both politicians and the media became more and more "out of touch" and the depictions/descriptions of blue collar work in the mainstream media started to take a turn for the negative. When Clinton called Trump supporters "deplorables" - that was the beginning of the class war that has largely continued since then, much in the same way as almost a decade ago, now.
But the folks at the top aren't doing that well, either - the number of seats for the "top positions" that are well-paid as well as respected, have gotten more and more competitive, and even among the elites, not being able to secure your place in an ever shrinking system basically means you get thrown out of the bubble - sometimes all the way down. Hollywood used to at least occasionally lionize working-class protagonists in their narratives, but in recent years it's taken a different tone - zombie movies tap into people's fears of "falling" and becoming "one of them" - i.e. someone who has to actually do hard work for a living. (The classism and racism embedded in many zombie and apocalypse flicks are pretty evident and not very subtle, honestly.)
You have the brains (education), they want the brains (for a better life), and they're all after what YOU have and will not stop, at any cost! (Unless you shoot them in the head, of course.) Worse still, if you're "caught" by them, you too, get turned INTO them - a fate worse than death indeed. Like these movies themselves, these fears are based more on fiction than fantasy (having to get a "real job") but if you imagine someone who has no familiarity with such a world, the fear is real, nonetheless. (The rich's #1 fear is losing what they currently have, after all.)
A lot of that "middle-class sentiment" started moving into other mediums - many of it in film/content made abroad, or in video games - most famous one being Mario - who is literally a plumber by trade. But again - it's pretty rank-and-file for traditional media to denigrate the gaming community as being "degenerate" - and the war continues, to this day. (Even that is triggered by money - the gaming industry surpassed traditional media in terms of market size a long time ago and there are no signs of that ever turning around any time soon.)
Some will probably accuse me of going overboard with this "interpretation" but art speaks the truth in ways words often don't - and the implications of what has been going on culturally over the last few decades are pretty clear - especially when paired with the various economic trends and policies that were going on at the same time - and the data tends to speak in my favor, for the most part. And so, we now have a situation where people at both the top and bottom aren't feeling too good about where they are, both economically and socially. As a result, most of what you see in politics these days are vehemently negative - fueled both by class and social envy - both at the top, middle, and bottom as a whole.
Cryptocurrencies: The Great Equalizer
As the subtitle says - well, that was the intention of it, anyway. It's not a coincidence that Bitcoin was birthed somewhere around 2009-2010 - right after the sub-prime loan crisis, which threatened to unravel America's financial systems at its core. Satoshi (whomever they may be) saw what was going on and realized that there was something wrong with the idea of money in itself, and sought to create an alternative. The words "decentralization", "transparency", and "peer-to-peer" have somewhat become buzzwords these days, but where did the need for such ideas come from? It was the disappearance of the middle-class, small business, and the autonomy of individuals as a whole. For a lot of people, Bitcoin was the "spiritual awakening" that the world needed at the time - and still needs today. Is Bitcoin a cult? Well, in a technical sense, no. But in a cultural sense? Probably yes - the belief in crypto goes far beyond just another payment system, after all.
As someone who has been living off of crypto for years now, I share much of this sentiment - crypto paid off my student loans, helped me get through a financially difficult time, and gave me enough savings to live comfortably and support creative projects here and there that I happen to be around. I was lucky - and very grateful, of course - but over the years I began to notice that initial spirit of equality started to fade over the years - particularly in the most "successful" chains out there.
As corporate and wealthy interests started becoming more involved - meaningful developments on these platforms stopped - with the fees becoming the nail in the coffin for any chance of either Bitcoin/Ethereum viable for mainstream use. During the last crypto hype of 21' I saw Ethereum's fees go as high as $1000 PER TRANSACTION, which, well, doesn't feel very "middle class" to me, to say the least. (Now it's down to a mere $10-20 per transaction - imagine if you had to pay that much of a surcharge per credit card transaction?)
So as it stands now, much of the "big" coins in the crypto space has been coopted by the middle-men (not the middle-class) that it tried to disrupt - folks openly salivating over charging fees over a product that largely doesn't do anything right now. At some point, that will also burst - though as with all bubbles - these things will take some time. What makes me nervous about Bitcoin and Ethereum in particular is the fact that they stopped talking about development or meaningful product features and started to lose their appetite for real change - all the talks around it seem to be about politics now, and they're likely going to get left in the dust as other projects (like Tezos) makes progress in the space, both economically, culturally, and technically.
Bitcoin maxis avoid talking about anything specific going on in their space and might as well be a cult as this point - and the saying going around the Ethereum ecosystem right now is that "ETH is Money" - as if trying to remind themselves of the few things the project actually has going for them right now. It's hard to get excited about those chains anymore if that's all its followers ever talk about...which is why I pulled out of them completely, a few years ago.
Though much of the intentions behind Bitcoin was co-opted and diluted, the idea behind it is still very much valid - and just. Small business communities are decentralized by default - it's peer-to-peer business networks, after all. We need to focus on projects that are actually willing to tackle the "big problems" of society - something that the status quo seems unwilling to do right now. A lot of people would probably say that it's unwise to go against the grain at this point in time - but have you looked what's going on outside? It's pure insanity - and it's only getting worse every day. At some point, the script is going to flip. And we really just want to be prepared for when that happens - and most of that involves talking about the middle-class - the long-forgotten identity of America that is more than ready to make a come-back.