I saw the email, like, a notification banner across my screen, you know? And the subject line was just... *too* big. Like some corporate algorithm decided it needed to scream. The brand name, I won't even type it. But you know it. EVERYONE knows it. The one that churns out enough polyester to choke a goddamn whale every week, the one built on... well. All that shit I rage-posted about for years. My whole feed, my whole persona online, the stickers on my laptop, the *zines* I made, all of it just… *gone*. This was the opposite of everything. And the money they were offering was… obscene. My student loans could actually disappear. The offer came through this agency, a friend of a friend situation. The kind where someone says "hey, I know a guy who knows a guy," and suddenly you’re on a Zoom call with three people who look like they’re airbrushed in real life. They talked about “synergy” and “brand alignment” and all these words that just, like, *dissociated* from my brain as they said them. My attention was fixed on the number in the contract, a string of digits so long it practically vibrated on the screen. It was enough to get out of this fucking apartment, away from the shitty commute, away from the neighbors who always ask what I "do" with that little judgmental head tilt. The ones whose lawns are always a little too perfect. And then I did it. I clicked "accept." The click itself felt… nothing. Just a mouse going down. But then later, like an hour later, this weird physical sensation hit. It was a coldness, spreading from my chest outwards, like someone had poured a liter of ice water right inside me. Not panic, not even really shame yet. More like a clinical observation of a physiological response to a morally questionable act. My brain was just like, *ah, yes, the body registers the betrayal*. My body, the stupid sack of meat and nerves, just *knows*. The work itself is… precisely what you'd expect. Endless rounds of revisions on font choices, the exact shade of beige, the placement of a pocket on a digitally rendered top. I’m designing their new “sustainable collection” campaign. Sustainable. It’s like a bad joke. Every pixel I push, every mock-up I create, feels like I’m chiseling away at… I don’t know. Whatever was left of my convictions. I see my old posts sometimes, pop up in a "memories" feed. My righteous indignation, my carefully crafted arguments against this exact kind of predatory consumption. It’s like looking at a different person, someone who had the luxury of… believing things. I still drive past those billboards on the way to the office, the ones with the sleek, smiling models. I used to feel a jolt of disgust. Now… now it’s just work. Just a thing I’m doing. It’s not even that I’m trying to justify it anymore. There's no grand narrative, no "I'll do this one thing and then go back to being pure." It’s just… a payment plan. A mortgage. Student loan statements that won't make me want to throw my phone across the room. I don't feel good about it. I don't feel bad about it either, not really. It’s more like an amputation. The part of me that cared about all that, it’s just… gone. And sometimes, late at night, I wonder if that’s worse. Not feeling anything at all.