Millennials make money from what they love

The argument

The charge of laziness rests on what millennial work looks like from the outside rather than on how much of it there is. Someone who loves video games can find people to pay them to live stream their play; someone who loves travelling can write about it in a blog and make money from it. Neither occupation resembles the jobs that used to define a working life, and that unfamiliarity is what gets mistaken for idleness. Monetizing a hobby is not a way of avoiding work. Millennials devote a lot of time to it, and the time goes into building an audience, producing material consistently, and making something other people will actually pay for — none of which has an employer to structure it or a guaranteed income attached. That the work is enjoyable does not make it less demanding. It means the effort is being spent on something chosen, rather than working hard for some random mundane job. The scale of that effort shows up in what has been built. Millennials have already launched twice as many businesses as Baby Boomers, and starting a business is the opposite of the behaviour the stereotype describes: it means accepting risk, working without supervision, and continuing through a period when nothing yet pays. Within those businesses they lead large teams, which carries responsibility for other people's livelihoods as well as their own. So the evidence runs the other way. They work hard and they put the work in; what has changed is the direction of the effort rather than its quantity. The generation is being judged by the form of its employment instead of by the labour inside it, and on the labour itself the charge does not hold. Millennials are not lazy — they simply do it for what they are passionate about, not just for the sake of it.

Context

Other generations see Millennials spending time doing what they love. This makes them think they are lazy or unwilling to work for something they aren't fully invested in. In reality, millennials are masters at making money from what they love.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Doing hobby jobs robs Millennials of life skills like communication, teamwork and business etiquette. Professional gamers and bloggers might have a job now, but what about when the market turns? What will they do when they are middle-aged and there is no demand to watch them play their outdated games?? Millennials will be forced to enter the workforce without valuable face-to-face communication skills and without an understanding of a traditional workplace. They will be ill-equipped to handle the rigours and stress of a “real” job. Being hardworking isn't just about working hard at your hobbies. Everyone can do that. It is about putting in the work when you don't want to. Millennials, in their unwillingness to work hard at things that don't interest them, are, therefore, not hardworking. They are lazy.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] Working hard at a hobby doesn't mean they aren't lazy. Real hard work means working hard at something you are not passionate about.