The d-bag tipping point
The advertising industry has it’s fair share of d-bags. I’m sure other industries do as well, but there is something about the combination of creativity and salesmanship that seems to act like a magnet for pretentious wannabes.
They’re okay in small doses. You can avoid them for the most part. And when their d-baginess is too spectacular to ignore, you can rest easy knowing you have a large support network of normal people to join with you in pointing and laughing at them.
Then, one day, it all changes. Suddenly you realize you’ve crossed the threshold. You’ve passed the d-bag tipping point.
How did it go so wrong? What happened to your fun group of co-workers who smiled on occasion and had uninteresting haircuts? Who let in all the sour-faced semi-talents with Peter Pan complexes?
Perhaps you missed the signs. Here are some of the behaviors you should be on the lookout for if you want to avoid seeing your agency become a haven for humorless d-bags.
- You nod hello to someone in the hallway and they look at you like you missed a spot on their Aston Martin at the car wash.
- You mention how you like a commercial that didn’t win any awards last year and you hear a collective “pfft” throughout the agency.
- You start seeing fedoras on guys throughout the agency and you haven’t recently time-traveled back to 1960.
- You start hearing co-workers talk about how unimpressed they are by people with significantly more talent than themselves. “That director who shot that award-winning campaign is average at best. Have you seen these sick banner ads I just created?”
- You start work on a TV commercial and everyone around you keeps calling it a “Filmic Experience”.
- You mention a movie you saw recently and someone inevitably chimes in about how they were on a set with the movie’s biggest star recently.
- When speaking of said movie star, your co-worker only uses their first name. “I was on a shoot in Bali for a month with George. We had drinks with Julia one night. Epic.”
- You notice that people are using the word “epic” a lot.
Take a look around. Do you see the signs? If it’s early enough in the transition phase, you can still right the ship. Find a fellow normal person in a position of power and pull them aside. Let them know that their agency is on the precipice of an irreversible slide into d-bagdom. Work together to bring more like-minded people into the fold and reset the normal-to-horrible ratio back to a manageable level.
If your agency is already hopelessly mired in d-baggery, run. You’ve lost. Call up your pleasant friends and find a safe haven where your unrefined palate and imperfect music taste won’t be met with scorn.
Better yet, start your own agency, with a zero tolerance, no d-bags policy. Just be sure to set up a rigorous screening process to keep the awful people from slipping through the cracks.
Those d-bags can be pretty crafty.