The Real Video

That was the line that hit me like a ton of bricks yesterday. Why?

Because, for the life of me, I could not find a way to answer the question.

Let's start from the beginning. It's simple, I just have a huge muscle pain in my neck from moving some heavy boxes. Well, that's what may have happened - along with other things in my life like too much stress, long hours working and some big changes in my life. I guess it was all too much emotions in a couple of weeks and my body went: Fuck you. Pain started a couple of months ago and when yesterday I couldn't take it any longer, I went to the doc.

So as I was sitting there getting my hit of good old medicine, my doctor started asking me from where did I learn about him. I told him that he treats RestrictionsApply and that he recommended him to me, that we used to work together and that we were great friends, yada yada yada. Oh, he said, what do you do? Advertising.

And then he asked the question: why is it that all of you ad people have so much stress?

As I sat there with a needle going in my back, I was more in pain with the fact that I could not answer him right away than the injection. I could not, for the life of me, tell him a decent reason. I vaguely answered that we work under limited time - but honestly, that is a shit excuse. He laughed, told me that stress usually manifests itself in sickness and strained muscles, that I needed to chill and that he would see me in two weeks. Great. Wonderful. Now I feel great but confused.

I went home and asked my boyfriend the same question. He also works in advertising and, you guessed it, he could not really find a decent answer. He voted for the "it's the bosses and clients' fault" - and he also knew that it was not a decent reason.

We sat there in silence. We don't know why ad people have so much stress. In fact, we do know some of the causes, but it's all bullshit:

• We have a small amount of time to do the creative.
Sure, why not. But sometimes we do have quite a lot of days to do our jobs. Maybe it's the fact that we're fucking around with our toys and watching some idiotic videos in YouTube and THEN we have a small amount of time to do our shit.

• Our clients demand too much out of us.
Who doesn't demand a lot from any person in the world? A patient demands his doctor to treat and save his or her life, for God's sake! How in the world can we actually say this without shame? They demand a lot because it's completely normal!

• Creative work is usually a mental exercise, therefore we drain ourselves.
Come the fuck on. Being an engineer is exactly the same. Christ, even working in Burger King demands some sort of thought process. Telling people that we have to think way more than any other profession is a turd of an excuse.

• If we make a mistake, it costs a lot of money.
Yeah. Sure. Great! Try comparing your job, your average stupid job of making a tv ad, a print ad or a boring radio spot to this: try to operate on a man who has cancer and try not to make a mistake - or you will KILL HIM. Ok kiddies, listen up: there is NO TYPO that compares in cost to losing a life. So... another shit line down the drain.

If you really think about it, and I mean just take a breather, sit down and try to explain in a decent manner that actually makes sense to someone that doesn't know crap about this industry why the freaking fuck are we so stressed out all the time.

I mean. For what? What can possibly be so stressful about making a print ad? Does life in this world depend on this full page full color? No, man! And it's the same for any other campaign! Why are we thinking that the world depends on our creativity or why do we channel all our energy to the point of sickness to this really normal job we call advertising?

It's just an ad!!!! What is wrong with us??????????

Much love from a very confused Me.