Thank You, Olivia Rodrigo, For Calling Out Dudes with Fake Jobs

On Friday, Olivia Rodrigo’s fourth studio album came out, so I sat my old ass down and listened. The album, “You seem pretty sad for a girl so in love,” details her love story with actor Louis Partridge, from first kiss (“drop dead”) to breakup (“less”) to getting back out there as she recovered from heartbreak.

On the 12th track, “Expectations,” Rodrigo sings about going back into the dating minefield with higher expectations for men, because the bar was on the ground for far too long. In the song, she jokes that now she “won’t settle for a guy with a fake job / They seem so desperate for loving / But baby I’m not.” While it’s nice that Rodrigo’s is finally demanding the love she deserves, it’s even better that she is drawing attention to a larger epidemic we have on our hands: dudes with fake jobs.

What is a fake job?

A fake job is one that requires more than 30 seconds of uninterrupted speech to describe, is full of ums and ers, and relies on vague metaphors to describe, like, “we’re like if Palantir was Wendy’s” or “Chief Vibes Officer.” Ideally, you should be able to describe your job in one sentence, like “I build airplanes, or “I teach children algebra”, or “I operate the Tower of Terror at Magic Kingdom.” If were to ask you what you do and you started talking about synergy or “maximizing shareholder value” or whatever the fuck verticals are, I’m going to freak out and ruin everybody’s night. Your job is fake, and you are a spy. 

In March, Rodrigo appeared on the cover of British Vogue ahead of the album’s release, when she first opened up the discussion. In the interview, she revealed that she once experimented with the invite-only celebrity dating app Raya, and all she found were a bunch of dudes claiming to be “creative directors.”

“I didn’t even see anyone cool! I thought I would see, like, ooh, some really hot actor guy. I don’t even know any of these people…It’s [always] some weird ‘creative director.’ Like, you just don’t have a job.” Correct. “Creative director” means everything and nothing all at once, but most likely it translates to wannabe content creating, making amateur music videos, or reselling deadstock on Depop.

STOP TRYING TO BE CONTENT CREATORS !!!

WE NEED WELDERS, PlUMBERS AND ELECTRICIANS !!!!!

— Tori_ (@Toribabieegirl) June 1, 2026

Anyway, thank you, Olivia, for bringing much-needed attention to this matter. Enough with the creative directors! Learn a trade! We can’t all be creative directors. We need welders and Tower of Terror ride operators too.