What Happened to All the Sexy Jobs That Aren't Sex Work?

Just wondering....did I miss something here or are the only jobs available "road kill cleaner operator" for VDOT which requires a masters now?

Just wondering...

So I was scrolling LinkedIn last night—aka anxiety scrolling through the "Congratulations on your promotion!" feed—and I had a sudden realization:

Did all the sexy jobs disappear?
Not sex work, which is frankly thriving (OnlyFans creators are out here buying homes while I’m refreshing my inbox for a ghosted freelance pitch).
I mean the other kind of sexy jobs—the aspirational, Instagrammable ones.
The “Oh, cool!” jobs that made people nod in admiration at dinner parties in 2013, even if they didn’t know what the hell your day-to-day looked like.

Where did they go?

Within one month of moving to Florida, I landed a job as an ophthalmic photographer—something I had previous experience in—worked weekends as a Feng Shui gardener, and became a certified recovery coach at an addiction facility, putting my psychology degree to use. Here in Virginia? That just doesn’t exist. In this conservative state, opportunities like that are nearly impossible to find so easily.

Yes, I can do photography. But as someone with mental health challenges, I was told structure and routine are crucial. Photography isn’t guaranteed work, and people like me need a steady, reliable source of income. Fluctuating gigs just aren’t enough. Also, When I say mental health challenges, I’m not talking about intellectual ability—I graduated college and am far from incapable. (Said without sugarcoating, even though an ex “whatever” from Oklahoma once smugly told me, “Even someone less capable <his word: mentally retarded>could make more money than you.”)

Still, say the words “mental health” in Virginia, and a snobby lawyer might personally tell you to your face he’d never hire someone like you because you’d be a “liability.” Again, don’t seek answers in places you don’t want the answers to.

Trust me, I tried—but even then, I was told to leave the one state where I could find some real financial leverage, ie independent survival. That kind of opportunity just doesn’t exist in Virginia.

Remember when we graduated and this was the fantasy?

Back in 2013, the world told us that if we got good grades, built a decent resume, and knew how to make a decent cup of pour-over coffee, we could land something cool. Not necessarily lucrative, but culturally hot. Socially high-status. Sexy.

Let me take you down memory lane:

• ✨ Food and Fashion Travel Blogger for Condé Nast Traveler — ideally the niece of Cindy Crawford, but a dream’s a dream.

• 🍄 Healing Reishi Guide at a Mexican Hacienda Wellness Retreat — you led mushroom ceremonies at golden hour, wore linen caftans, and called it “somatic entrepreneurship.”

• 📱 Phone Concierge for a Tech Unicorn — your job was basically to say “I’ll connect you” in a glass office with a kombucha tap.

• 🧘 Certified Recovery Coach at a Celebrity Addiction Center in Malibu — deeply healing, spiritually nourishing, and also, there were infinity pools.

• 🎧 Podcast Producer for a DTC Eyewear Brand — talking about “storytelling through lifestyle content” while living in a pre-gentrified warehouse in Echo Park.

• 🎨 Creative Strategist at a Boutique Agency With No Website — your job was vibes. You were paid in direct deposit and compliments.

• 🍷 Social Media Manager for a Natural Wine Brand That Doesn’t Ship to Your State

• 💼 Culture Writer at an Online Magazine That Wasn’t Yet Owned by a Private Equity Firm

• 🧳 Brand Evangelist at Away Luggage — you got free travel and a $70/day per diem to post selfies in Lisbon.

I’m not making these up. These were real things. People made rent off them. Some even had health insurance.

Because here’s the part they didn’t tell us:

Almost all of those sexy jobs? They went to someone's cousin. Or their roommate. Or their Pilates instructor’s niece.

Nepotism wasn’t a dirty secret—it was the operating system.
It wasn’t about “who works hardest” or “who has vision.” It was “who was already in the room at the Soho House pre-launch party because their godmother’s ex-husband funded it.”

And the rest of us? We were watching it unfold on Instagram, wondering why our pitch got ghosted while someone’s micro-famous friend landed a full-time position with a title like Brand Empath Director.

Now, it feels like anyone who gets to say anything at all—on a big platform, in a public way, with legitimacy—has to have a net worth of at least one million dollars.
Because if you don’t already have the wealth to buy the mic, the followers, the production quality, and the time to curate your brand like a lifestyle mood board? No one’s listening. You’re just yelling into the void between shifts, hoping someone likes your Reel.

Even public administration and politics have now tasted the poison—the poison being the complete surrender to social media. It’s driving a collapse in collective sanity, rewarding idea theft, inauthenticity, and a fixation on surface-level appearances instead of anything genuinely nourishing for the soul. It feels like an accelerated crash course in everything we were raised to question or resist—except now it’s on steroids. A kind of spiritual warfare, unfolding in real time. Or rather, reel time.

The truth is, you can be wildly talented, say things that are honest and true—but if you don’t package it just right, if it doesn’t fit the aesthetic of marketable relatability, or if it’s too raw in a way that isn’t Instagram-quirky or palatably vulnerable, then it won’t land. It won’t matter. You won’t matter.

I'd say we're living in a deeply unwell society right now because of all this.

Rather than push back, people eagerly climb aboard, justifying it with that familiar cop-out: “Can’t beat ’em? Join ’em.”

What choice do people really have? It’s either sell yourself online or end up cleaning blood off the highway.

Before long, there will be no collective memory of life before this—no recollection of how people accomplished things without these addictive, imposed changes to how we communicate, live, and exist.

It’s like we’re trapped in a tragedy of the commons: each of us, acting in self-interest, surrendering a little more of our shared humanity for momentary gain. We all had a choice, but instead of protecting the common ground of authentic connection, we’ve allowed it to be poisoned—bit by bit—until one day, it may be gone entirely, lost to a digital

haze where nothing real remains.

But now?

It’s like the job board flipped upside down and shook out every last sexy listing.

Now I’m seeing stuff like:

• "VDOT Road Kill Removal Technician – Master’s Degree Required"

• "Data Entry Clerk for AI Training (Must Be Okay With Repetitive Tasks and Existential Dread)"

• "Digital Brand Ambassador (Unpaid, Must Supply Own Ring Light)"

• "AI Prompt Quality Tester – Must Pretend You’re a Dog Talking to a Pizza"

• "Virtual Events Coordinator for a Wellness MLM"

• "Chief Vibes Officer (internship only, no compensation, unlimited exposure)"

And yes, it’s not lost on me that there are deeper forces at play here—tech layoffs, media consolidation, the collapse of digital publishing, remote work killing IRL office glamor, the economy generally turning into a haunted carnival ride, etc.

But even before all that, there was a shift. The sparkle dulled. Somewhere around 2019, the vibe changed. And now in 2025, it feels like we’re either overqualified for glorified assistant jobs or underqualified for “strategic alignment optimization specialist” at Oracle.

So... what happened?

The glamour economy is shrinking

Let’s face it: the “cool job” market was always a pyramid scheme. A few people lived it out; the rest of us romanticized it while living off coffee shop wifi. The industry internships were unpaid, the entry-level salaries were insulting, and most of those companies ran on nepotism and vibes.

But there was something magical about thinking those jobs existed.

Now, between algorithmic curation, mass layoffs, and the death of arts-adjacent work, it feels like there’s no cultural oxygen left for anything unless it scales or goes viral. No one wants to hire a “content curator” anymore—they want an AI that can do it for $0.00003 per hour. And forget “travel writer”—they’ll just scrape TripAdvisor reviews, thanks.

What really happened is far more political than we care to admit. Since the year 2000, the normal machinations of our society were hijacked, rebranded, repackaged, and sold back to us. When the results they wanted didn’t come, they decided to reset the whole damn globe. And in that reset, you might find yourself one day on the same poverty level as the people your fifth-grade teacher told you to say prayers for—and send old, packaged pasta to.

All the while, the same people guilting you just for being middle class or lower—who were secretly rich the whole time and made you feel like shit for everything—feel nothing of it.

And sure, being an entrepreneur sounds great—you get to create your own world. But let’s be real: it takes far more capital to get started in your chosen field than most care to admit. If you have one health hiccup, one life interference, and you’re the only sailor steering your ship, chances are it won’t be strong enough to weather the storm. One bad hit, and your little bubble, your dream—it’s gone. Finished.

There’s almost no protection for people who take these risks, especially in the creative world. Add to that the fact that sexual assault and other toxic workplace scenarios often go unchecked, with no HR or legal safety net to turn to—just me, a silly old photographer, left navigating a sea of lost sheeple.

Soon, there will be no collective memory of life before this—no memory of how people got things done without these addictive, forced changes to how we communicate, exist, and relate. It’s like we’re caught in a tragedy of the commons: each of us acting in self-interest, surrendering a little more of our shared humanity for momentary gain. We all had a choice, but instead of protecting the common ground of authentic connection, we allowed it to be poisoned—bit by bit—until one day, it may be gone entirely, lost to a digital haze where nothing real remains.

So what do we do now?

Honestly, I don’t have an answer. I just wanted to ask the question. Loudly. In public. On the internet.

Because if you’re like me—feeling nostalgic for a time when you thought you’d be the next Anthony Bourdain meets Jenna Lyons meets Jack Dorsey’s cooler cousin—you’re not alone.

The sexy jobs might be gone, but the delusion is eternal.
And maybe that’s the most millennial thing of all.

Because maybe the truth is this:

No one really has money anymore.
The few people who do are either hoarding it, inherited it, or got very lucky. And everyone else who’s remotely creative is stuck in a kind of selfie-stick isolation, trying to “make it as an influencer,” while secretly crumbling behind the scenes—burned out, underpaid, overexposed, and completely uncertain about the next six months.

Mental health is an epidemic.
Structured jobs with real leadership and actual vision are rare.
And if we’re being honest, most of us don’t even want to be our own "girlboss" anymore—we’re exhausted. But the alternative seems to be some soul-crushing job with managers who speak in corporate gibberish and believe in none of the things we care about.

And when I have believed in something? When I have gone all in?

Like the time I was basically the de facto manager of Sharkey’s Big Bite Café—getting it off the ground myself. I bypassed managerial red tape, handled hiring, set up digital workflows, organized staff, ran the social media—all without AI or shortcuts. Just effort. Heart. Strategy. I poured myself into it.

And then?

The owner had a breakdown. Closed it all down overnight. All that work—gone.

It’s like I keep trying to build something real, only for it to dissolve before it even gets a chance. It makes you wonder:
Why does it feel like my luck is this bad?
Why have I poured so much energy into fruitless tasks?
And yes—on the worst days—it makes me ask the question I know I shouldn’t:
Am I just... broken? Defective? Messed up beyond repair?

But maybe asking that isn’t weakness. Maybe it’s just clarity. A hard truth that a lot of us live with and don’t say aloud.

The sexy job isn’t real. But maybe something else can be.

So no, I don’t have a tidy moral. There’s no “and then I figured it out” paragraph.

But maybe there’s value in saying it straight: the sexy jobs are gone. The world changed. The vibes shifted. And we’re out here still trying to build something in the ruins—without a clear blueprint, and usually without help.

But if you’re feeling this?
If you’re asking if it’s just you?
If you’ve ever been the one to carry someone else’s dream until they dropped it without warning?

It’s not just you

.

You’re not broken.
You’re just building in a time when nothing feels stable.
And maybe that’s the bravest kind of sexy job there is.

Still scrolling job boards as an act of self-sabotage,
Clelia

P.S. If you're currently a Road Kill Technician for VDOT with a master's: respect. I mean that. Also, instagram to Sharkey’s Big Bite Cafe, the failed endeavor: https://www.instagram.com/sharkeysbigbite/