Most of the time, I think of experience as a catch-22 — you need experience to get experience, but there’s no way of getting it without having it. (Or working one of those unpaid internships that are so notorious.)
But recently, I’ve been thinking of experience as a fallacy. Why is the publishing industry dying? Because the old people who run it are afraid of technology, and they’re in charge, and therefore, technology and publishing aren’t being embraced the way they should be. But young people — the ones without the experience — we know more about technology and running a blog/website/whatever than these big CEOs who are running newspapers or magazines or publishing houses. Anyone who knows anything knows that the Internet is the way to go; it’s colonizing the way people do business, and if you can’t or won’t incorporate it into your business, then you’re going to get left behind.
So in this case, it is actually experience — being stuck in the same experienced way of doing something, sticking to the same role you’ve always had, doing the same things experience has taught you to do — that is the problem. We can’t do things the way experience has taught us to in the past. We have to try a new, experimental way now. We have to think of new ways to incorporate the Internet, we have to set up these stupid Twitter accounts, we have to publish on the Internet, take advantage of what is out there.
And to do that, you need — need! — the inexperienced youth who have so much expertise with technology. Because in this area, big CEOs and companies who won’t give me a job, in this area, you are the inexperienced ones.
(Oh God, someone please give me a job!!!!)
And just to show experience is an arbitrary distinction of knowledge we’ve already collected: Six Writers who Accidentally Crapped out Masterpieces. Enjoy.
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Wow. Ali, I love you and your writing, but I could not read this piece without commenting on how terribly wrong you seem to be. Your cynical nature shines through to make this piece readable, but your logic seems to have totally missed the point. Even though I – also an all-too-soon to be graduating student – agree with the fact that experience can be an overrated factor when on the job hunt, too much experience is far from what sunk the publishing industry.
You yourself admit that we young people are more experienced with the ever-changing world of technology, but too our advantage – and yes I understand the point you are trying to make about the changing face of the publishing world. Your equation of of stodgy old white newspaper barons, and you not being able to find a job in the publishing industry directly out of school as some sort of secretary that serves coffee is absolutely ludicrous.
Additionally, please take that link down because it is insanely damaging to your ability to make your point. Honestly, I stopped reading after the Hunter S. Thompson section because it became obvious that whoever wrote it had either: a) not read the book to which he was referring, b) was extremely unfamiliar with the journey that Thompson took before publishing “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” (he was on assignment from “Sports Illustrated” not “Rolling Stone”) or c) hasn’t read Thompson’s other sports journalism pieces, namely “The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved,” which was published before he even ventured to Las Vegas.