Now Available: What Is Anticareerism? + The Anticareerist Reading Room (Keyholders Group)

Today I'm releasing "What Is Anticareerism?" — a short explainer piece I wrote in 2019. It's the first of 10 curated personal essays from my now-retired project The Anticareerist, which was probably best-known under its original name: Why Work (whywork dot org).

These writings will be slowly released in our shop as name-your-price digital downloads both individually and as a special retro collection: Best of The Anticareerist.

From the preface (in the digital file):

"Now that I’ve put down digital roots in a protected space in the Dark Forest that minimizes the risks of enshittification and virality, I’m establishing what I hope will become a digital archive of my life’s work — safely out of sight of the scrapers, data harvesters, drive-by internet bullies, and other risks of today's internet."

Toward that end, I've uploaded 33 essays and blog posts from the 25 years the project was active (1998-2023) into a gated group. See the full table of contents below.

Only the 10 best-of writings will be turned into digital downloads. But readers can now join the keyholders-only reading room in the Studio Slowcore DFOS space to read the full archive (plus bonus extras, including unreleased writings) by purchasing a Professional Anticareerist key in our shop.

Name your price, make a one-time payment, instantly gain lifetime access, and read at a slowcore-friendly pace.

I'm still digging through the ephemera from the heyday of the project, so there will likely be more uploads in the months ahead. Group members get notified about all new additions.

A note on the design and layout (also from the preface):

"...once our studio survives the shoestring-budget stage of bootstrapping, I hope we can enlist a pro designer, pay them fairly through the DFOS treasury, and eventually offer upgraded versions gratis to all early collectors.

"Thank you for collecting the first release in minimum-viable-design format, complete with open source fonts and public domain art. Let’s build a thriving underground reading economy in the Dark Forest."

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Table of Contents - Best of The Anticareerist#

1. What is Anticareerism? (2019) - now available as a digital download
2. "Earning a Living" and the Dilemma of Unpaid Work (2017)
3. Note to Self: When You Fear You’re Not Productive Enough (2017)
4. Note to Self: You Don't Have To Do It All Yourself (2018-2019)
5. Why We Need an Anticareerist-Unjobbing Movement (2018)
6. On Doing Nothing: Laziness and the Inner Work of Unjobbing and Dejobbing (2018)
7. Reading Room: Writers as House Cleaners; David Frayne on Employment Dogma; Bartleby, the Scrivener (2018)
8. On the Meaning of Buying Time (2018)
9. A Monstrous Job Culture and What it’s Cost Me (2019)
10. Building a Consensual Work Culture (2019)

Table of Contents - The Anticareerist Keyholders Group#

All the essays listed above, plus:

1. The Cult of the Job (1999)
2. What I Learned When I Quit My Job: Part One (1999)
3. What I Learned When I Quit My Job: Part Two (2000)
4. What I Do For a Living: A Rant (2002)
5. What is Radical Unjobbing? (2010)
6. On the Leisure Track: Rethinking the Job Culture (unfinished book manuscript, 2010)
7. Success, Dependency, and Alienation - A Discussion With a Reader (2011)
8. I Am A Radical Unjobber Because... (2011)
9. Money Vs. Real Wealth (2011)
10. Your Attention Is a Gift (2011)
11. Rethinking the Job Culture (name change explainer, 2011)
12. Is Nothing Sacred? Thoughts on Leisure and 'Doing Nothing' (2011)
13. On Hypocrisy and Being a 'Faker' (2011)
14. On Financial Independence: A Rant (2012)
15. Why I Don't Offer Personal Advice On Living Without a Job (2013)
16. Writing Is a Performance Art: On the 'Fan Mystique' (2013-2014)
17. Gift-Model Crowdfunding: Why I Love Patreon (2016)
18. On the "Lazy Bums Who Refuse To Work" Rhetoric (2017)
19. Why I Switched From Patreon To Substack (2018)
20. Not a Public Figure: Why I'm Leaving Facebook and Twitter (2018)
21. A Flourishing of the Arts: Kate McFarland Interviews D. JoAnne Swanson (2018)
22. Yes, I Actually AM a Professional Anticareerist. Ha Ha, Only Serious. (2021)
23. A Brief History of The Anticareerist (2021)

Also see footnote (2) below.

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FOOTNOTES#

(1) Lifetime Access Note: Keyholders must abide by the group's code of conduct to retain their lifetime access if they choose to comment inside the group. A link to the code of conduct will be sent upon joining the group, but I'm happy to send a preview in advance via DM.

(2) The Tables of Contents may change slightly as I continue to dig through ephemera from the project.