Being a pundit is not a real job. Yes, you read that right. I respect the shelf-stocker at WalMart infinitely more than I do Skip Bayless or Ben Shapiro. The shelf stocker at WalMart, especially as we saw during the early stages of the pandemic, provided a useful service to society. Contrast that with the studio talking-head, who’s constant stream of garbage takes does little more than pollute the societal airwaves with their utterly useless drivel.
Next, being a pundit isn’t a real job because there are no penalties for doing a horrible job. Furthermore, there are no set criteria as to what doing a horrible job as a pundit even is in the first place (outside of viewership, readership and the like). The pundit can have their predictions fail to pan out an endless number of times and enjoy nonstop employment. Contrast that with the entry-level shelf-stocker at WalMart, who is invariably judged on both speed and accuracy; the consequences of poor job performance being severe. Put simply, if you cannot get fired for poor performance, it’s not a real job. Period.
I struggle to see why one would want the job as a pundit in the first place anyways. In this modern golden age of file-sharing, social media and other advanced technologies; there is no shortage of uninformed masses giving their unsolicited $0.02 on just about any topic. It’s baffling why anyone would want to enter a profession that has a vast ocean of competitors. When there is an endless supply, the market price of that good (if being a pundit can even be labeled as good) becomes a race to zero.
Similarly, there is no inherent skill involved with becoming a pundit in the first place. Outside of being able to maintain the gaze of idle channel-surfers and other captive audiences, there is no barrier to entry to spewing misinformed-and often amateur-opinions into the void. Often many of these talking heads are naturally charismatic individuals, who needed to endure little toil to becoming a pundit in the first place. Such a low barrier to entry should be commensurate with an equally low level of status assigned to the profession.
If this argument sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Admittedly, I’m recycling the old tactic used by society at large to shame and belittle sex workers. Those formerly employed in that line of work often face ostracization in the job market and a constant social stigma regarding their past career choice. While I do not condone such ostracization, I also do not condone double-standards. Because society at large has chosen to not lift the stigma, we can at least demote pundits to the same lowly strata. Once John Oliver or Jim Cramer retire from their talking-head gigs, society ought to render them nigh-unemployable. He has no actual job skills, all he can do is spew garbage hot takes!
There is another uncomfortable truth that nobody seems to acknowledge within the realm of pundits; the lack of female representation. Being a pundit is a heavily male-dominated endeavor, where female pundits are often not given the same limelight as their male colleagues. The field of punditry is an inherently sexist one. Unfortunately, the answer is not We need more female pundits. The real answer is Nobody should be a pundit in the first place because pundits add nothing to society. There is equality if both sexes become a pundit at 0%.
While pundits offer nothing of value, that isn’t to say they don’t expend a lot of energy-akin to a hamster on a wheel. Functional members of society typically have a set of core issues they care about, and usually economize or pay no mind to arenas outside of their interests. The pundit however, does not have this option. The pundit must be prepared at all times to have a opinion-no matter how uninformed-ready to go, on an endless range of issues. The war in Ukraine? The pundit must respond! LeBron’s all-time legacy? The pundit must respond! Inflation? The pundit must respond! The price of NFT’s in correlation to drownings of men named Steve on Tuesdays? The pundit must respond! The pundit is rarely allowed to sleep, spend time with loved ones, enjoy hobbies or vacations, or little else beyond basic survival and opinion-spouting. One could almost feel pity for the pundit, up until the realization that this is a self-inflicted curse sets in (and that point, no pity is warranted for the difficult life of a pundit). Contrast that with asking the Average Joe at a pub watching a basketball game his take on the NFT market and his appropriate response of I don’t know or care. In a way, the Average Joe knows a freedom that the pundit will never enjoy. I found it personally liberating to have a concentrated few number of cares to give, and letting the irrelevancies of the NFT market fall into the I don’t care category. This is the stance that made Mark Manson a best-selling author (side note, his book The Subtle Art of Noy Giving a Fuck is a must-read). The pundit must care, for if he doesn’t, he will lose his audience to a competing pundit who does care and will offer a spicy take on the situation.
The takes of a pundit cannot be tame. It is not enough for Stephen A. Smith to hypothetically say Derrick Henry is a good running back. No, instead the pundit must throw his show notes in the air, yell to the point he inadvertently spits, slap the studio desk whilst proclaiming I DERRICK HENRY IS THE GREATEST RUNNING BACK IN THE HISTORY OF THE AFC SOUTH AND COULD EASILY OUT ARM-WRESTLE A POLAR BEAR. SAQUON BARKELY CAN’T SAY THAT in a ridiculous manner. The pundit must do so because he must compete against the ruthless arms race that is capturing the attention span of the American market. Look no further than Jim Cramer on his special Mad Money, in which he frequently needs to put on a large show of bombast while he makes his stock picks.
While I started this article denouncing the world of pundits for their inability to lose (a critique I stand behind), I must also confess for the reasons mentioned above (the cartoonish displays, the burnout, the misinformed takes, the systemic problems in the pundit industry) there is no winning either. Becoming a pundit is a never-ending purgatory of needing to constantly be On while somehow always being just a little off. So for the love of whatever higher power you claim to worship but refuse to donate to, don’t become a pundit. It’s a terrible way to waste a life.
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