Death by Overwork Is a Worldwide Problem, Especially in the Ad Industry

The glorification of hustle culture is leading to dangerous, unlivable working conditions

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In an industry that increasingly worships the constant hustle, it’s all too easy to get caught up in the rat race—much to the detriment of our mental and physical health.

The pressure to seem happy and successful on social media is no longer exclusive to picture-perfect influencers with wavy blonde hair and bronze-tanned skin. These days, it’s easy to feel like a failure or an imposter if you don’t work on three side hustles after your full-time job.

Turning a blind eye to the glorification of the grind is becoming nearly impossible. Hustle culture and social comparison are pushing young people in advertising toward increasingly unlivable working conditions.

As a 24-year-old junior creative in a country with relatively strong laws on limiting work, it may be surprising to hear that I already know of a number of professionals whose mental and physical health has suffered due to immense pressure at work. They’re all younger than 35.

Three of these individuals work at the same creative agency. When prompted to talk about their experiences, they all declined to comment to avoid sliding back into feelings of depression, anxiety and emotional exhaustion. It’s clear that the industry desperately needs to change.

The rise of meritocracy

To some extent, we may all be guilty of upholding this culture—using our precious free time to partake in more serious hobbies like writing and blogging and rarely hesitating to share our victories on social media.

But that is something completely different from the myth of meritocracy that self-proclaimed hustlers still hopelessly cling to.

While the idea has existed for centuries, the term “meritocracy” was only coined in 1958 with Michael Dunlop Young’s book, The Rise of the Meritocracy. Written as a dystopian satire, the book warns against meritocracy as a political and economic system .

Some people seemingly missed the “dystopian satire” memo. They interpreted the book as an ideological basis for the perfect society, not as the satire it was always meant to be.

These meritocrats believe that power, money and social class are awarded to individual people based on their individual merits—talents, achievements and efforts. Simply put: Work harder and you’ll make more money.

In a world where a pandemic doubled the wealth of the top 10 richest men and lowered the incomes of the bottom 99%, that’s hard to believe. In reality, the link between merit and outcome is negligible and indirect at best and a deceitful pipe dream at worst.

Death by overwork is a worldwide problem

To some, overwork is more than simply a means to an end—it’s a status symbol that keeps them going, a badge of honor for those who glorify the grind. To others, it’s a necessary evil to survive working in advertising. We have normalized pleasing demanding clients and managers at all costs, and creatives are coaxed to join the industry by the promise of tempting fringe benefits and elegant job titles.

In Japan, this culture of working under tremendous pressure too often results in karoshi—or “death by overwork”—proving that the system is, quite literally, unlivable. One particular case of karoshi occurred on Christmas Day 2015, when Matsuri Takahashi, a young Dentsu employee, took her own life as a direct result of working more than 100 hours of overtime in the preceding months.

The advertising giant was fined a measly ¥500,000 ($4,400) for forcing its staff to work illegally long overtime—a disappointing drop in the ocean for a titan of industry with over ¥930 billion ($8.1 billion) in revenue in 2020.

Death from overwork is a worldwide problem—working more than 55 hours a week killed 745,000 people in 2016. To put that into perspective: More people died from overworking than from malaria. It’s high time we call this what it is—a global health crisis that does not get nearly the attention it urgently needs.

As two industry professionals I spoke with emphasized: It is the agency’s responsibility to nurture, educate and respect its creatives and not treat them as commodities. If your employer doesn’t actively put effort into fostering a healthy work environment, it may be time to reconsider your priorities.

The new generation of marketers is pushing back against the industry’s outdated mentality of letting unreasonable client or management requests dictate their work-life balance and mental health. ​​Instagram accounts like @corporatenatalie, @workinsocialtheysaid and @agency_insider are using memes to raise awareness about toxic agency culture. Young people are moving the industry in the right direction, but there is still a long way to go.

Most of today’s entry-level creatives value having a fulfilling personal life outside of work far more than they could ever value any paycheck or corner office, and that’s a good thing. Unclench your jaw, take a breath and get a cup of tea. The hustle can wait.