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Little Robots: How Our Generation of Young Business People Are Trying to Kill Themselves Before 2012

In 2012, the world is supposed to end. ‘Get Rich Quick’ schemes never looked so inviting. Why waste your time with preserving connections and work relationships when in two years, your ass will be caught up in the rapture, literally. No Anita Baker. If you aren’t fancy to believe in 2012 being the Earth’s end, you can’t dispute the economy being in shambles. Between these two haunting ordeals, the entrepreneur has grown from being a cute idea to a mission.

You see, I’m of the generation that saw Russell Simmons, Sean ‘P.Diddy’ Combs, Jay-Z, and Master P (don’t act like you didn’t have a P. Miller jean-set!) become moguls. That made it look easy and cool. You had as much control as selling drugs, as much money as a basketball player, and needed as much talent as Charlie Sheen after a cocaine and Nyquil binge. Essentially, they made it look easy and legitimate to be able to run your own business and consequently be rich and famous. That birthed a generation of t-shirt designers, fashion stylists, rappers with a brand, singers with events, bloggers with a mission, and a slew of other contrived professionals all looking to create their hobby into empire. Of course, there are a few struck gold, but a vast majority slipped through the cracks because, plainly, there is too much hay and not enough horses. If my Dr. Phil analogy left you confused, even plainer, there are too many motherfuckers trying to do the same shit that there’s no audience for because the audience/consumer is trying to sell and produce something to the same empty room. I’m no fool, I know a simple article on statistics riddled with tasteless jokes won’t stop the ‘hustle, grind’-generation of young business people. My beef isn’t with the ambition. Besides, time will separate those with good ideas versus those with half-baked brands and illusions of grandeur. No, I’m not here to crush dreams or schemes; I’m here to save souls and personalities. See, faithful reader, I’ve been saved and enlightened!

I do plenty of things and I’d like to be known for it. So, I guess, in some circles I ‘brand myself’. I go to events and talk to people I don’t care for. I’m strategically apart of different projects. I accept random interviews asking me horrible questions. There’s even a cartoon version of myself running around the internet. Yeah, what was once saved for a cow’s ass is what I am trying to do to my entire career. Brand it. That was until a friend of mine, for this article’s purpose we’ll call her Fate, had such an opposition towards me using the phrase, let alone actually doing it to myself. Fate thought it sounded contrived and un-relatable. I quickly disagreed and told her that’s how you become successful, known, and understood to the general public. Branding is something you have to do, I explained. The conversation quickly dissolved into another like an ice-cube in a glass of room-temperature Carlo Rossi.

About a week later, I was watching “The Wendy Williams Show” (only God can judge me) and the guest of the day was Lil’ John. There, in all of his crunk bliss, he was loud, abrasive, incoherent, and embarrassingly promoting his latest stint on “Celebrity Apprentice.” While I was sipping my green-tea and watching him make a fool of himself, he spoke to Wendy and said something that I didn’t see coming. Lil’ John explained to Wendy Williams how he worked hard to brand and market himself, so he’ll stay working and garnering products like ‘Crunk Juice’. I felt cheated. How dare Lil’ John trick me! Here I am, believing he really was as ignorant and crazy as I see him on television or hear on the radio, and all along he was just ‘branding’ himself. My lovely friend, Fate was correct. In that instance, I found Lil’ John very contrived and unbelievably un-relatable.

So, I thought of how many of my ‘on my grind, hustling’- peers constantly talk about branding themselves. I thought of how the most successfully things branded are the most simplified things. What’s the first thing that pops into your mind when you think of Coca-Cola? Soda. How about Heinz? Ketchup. Genius branding, brilliantly simple. But are humans meant to be simplified? Why would you want to be a person identified with by one thing or even more than one thing? Humans are entirely too layered and diverse to be branded. We’re not an inanimate object or smartly packaged product. How do you brand something that bleeds, cries, loves, fears, dreams, and believes? How do you market something to an audience that has a history, opinions and needs? Yet, my generation is steadily attempting to make it happen. The sad part is, the simplification of a generation of hustlers is actually happening. Having no depth is in-vogue and a business requirement. If our mogul fore-fathers started as little engines with heart, we’re simply little robots with brands. The end is really near.

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