Side Hustle: On Work & Identity
How the side hustle mindset has moved from a niche trend to a defining feature of our culture.
It feels like everyone has a side hustle, some extra gig or passion project on top of their main job. Over half of Americans (54%) picked up a side hustle within the last year just to supplement their primary income. Open TikTok or Instagram and every other video is telling us how to monetize our hobbies or earn passive income. The hashtag #sidehustle alone has billions of views on TikTok. It’s clear that the “side hustle mindset” has moved from a niche trend to a defining feature of our culture.
Where Did This Hustle Come From?
How did we all become entrepreneurs in our spare time? Part of it likely comes from living through economic uncertainty. We had the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, and then we all got hit by the COVID-19 upheavals. We were taught that you can’t rely on a single company or job for stability. We watched our parents, friends, peers, etc get laid off, or saw entry-level salaries stagnate while rent and student loans skyrocketed. Seeking a second income became not just an ambition, but a safety net. As one commentator put it, “Cost of living has gone up… life is just a lot more expensive than it used to be,” so plenty of folks are hustling “just to get by”.
The gig economy and the rise of apps within that economy also changed the game. Anyone with a car or a spare room could become a micro-entrepreneur. Uber and Lyft made it normal to drive strangers around town for cash. Airbnb let us rent out our living spaces. TaskRabbit let us freelance our handy skills. Etsy gave us a whole marketplace where creatives can turn their knitting, jewelry making or graphic design hobbies into income streams. These platforms lowered the barriers so much that if you have an idea (or just a need for extra cash), there’s likely an app or platform to help you launch a side gig immediately.
Social media poured gasoline on this fire. On TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, we’re constantly served inspirational (or aspirational) content about hustling. Everyday people brag about how they made thousands selling digital products on Etsy or flipping stuff on eBay. TikToks claim that “making $10,000+ a month is not that hard”, and they get 15 million views. We start thinking: if they did it, why not me? Meanwhile, #hustleculture and #riseandgrind memes make relentless work seem like a badge of honor. With so many influencers touting “grind now, shine later,” it creates the social pressure that if you have free time, you should be using it to build something, not “waste” it. Even the informational content is everywhere. Blogs, podcasts, and online courses teach you how to start a business or earn passive income. As a result, hustling has been culturally embraced and normalized. Nearly every hobby or skill can be reframed as an opportunity. Have a knack for photography? Sell prints online. Good at driving? Turn your car into a taxi service. Enjoy crafting? Better open that Etsy shop. We start to internalize the message that every moment and talent should be optimized and monetized.
Identity: Always Be Grinding
The constant hustle has consequences for our sense of identity and self-worth. Maybe you’ve caught yourself introducing in conversation not just your day job, but also your side projects, almost as if what you do in your off-hours defines your ambition. Our culture now often equates being busy with being admirable.
“Hustle culture equates busyness with productivity, exhaustion with accomplishment, and, most dangerously, self-worth with professional success.”
If we’re not pushing, not creating, not grinding in some way, we can start to worry that we’re falling behind, or even that we’re being lazy. The irony is not lost here: the same generation once jokingly called “Lazy Millennials” are now obsessed with monetizing every hobby and always being on the grind. We’ve made workaholism a kind of status symbol. Having a single 9-to-5 job and then actually disconnecting in the evenings can almost make you feel guilty when everyone else has a hustle. Rest starts to feel like a character flaw.
Unlike past generations who might have defined “making it” as having a stable career and a comfortable life, today there seems to be greater pressure to always be reaching for more. Much of Gen Z and younger millennials don’t dream of a 40-year tenure at one company with a pension at the end. They often prize personal fulfillment, creative independence, and multiple income streams over old-school stability. In a way, that’s liberating. We want lives that reflect us, not what a corporation dictates. But it also means our benchmark for a good life has shifted upward and outward. It’s not enough to have one calling; you’re kind of expected to be a hyphenate (marketing manager–podcaster–Etsy shop owner–Uber driver). You might feel like you have to prove you’re maximizing your talents and time, otherwise you’re settling. If you’re not spinning plates and exploring every passion commercially, are you lacking drive? The modern ideal for many is to be a “sidepreneur”, someone who’s always got an extra enterprise on the side.
The Good: Empowerment and Autonomy
This mindset does have some real upsides, both personally and culturally. It can be incredibly empowering to take your financial fate (even a small part of it) into your own hands. For many people who felt stuck in dead-end day jobs, their side gigs have become creative outlets that rekindled their passion. One might start posting her art on Instagram, which can lead to opening an Etsy store, and then to actually making decent money and, more importantly, feeling a sense of creative autonomy she never had at her 9-to-5. Another might drive for Uber a few nights a week and love that he can decide when to work, instead of begging his boss for overtime hours. Stories like these abound. That sense of financial relief and pride can be huge. A hustle can be a lifeline and a confidence boost.
There’s also the aspect of skill-building and entrepreneurship. Having a side project forced you to learn new skills, from basic coding to marketing to customer service, that you might never have touched otherwise. Many people see side hustles as a way to sharpen talents or pursue passions that their day jobs don’t utilize. And sometimes, the side gig morphs into a main gig. We’ve all heard about the TikToker who turned making videos into a full-time career, or the Etsy crafter who grew a small shop into a serious brand. Social media and online platforms have democratized who gets to start a business. With a smartphone and an idea, you can launch something. Over 40% of young entrepreneurs say platforms like Instagram or TikTok are their primary marketing tool and key to their business success, meaning anyone can reach customers now, not just those with big budgets. Hustle culture carries an entrepreneurial spirit that says you aren’t stuck in the role society handed you. You can create opportunities on your own terms, whether it’s a personal brand, a small biz, or freelance career. There’s a sense of freedom and agency in that – “I’m my own boss for once.” For those who feel marginalized or underpaid in traditional jobs, side hustles can offer a path to empowerment and extra income that’s theirs to control.
Gen Z and millennials are rewriting the rules of work, showing that the standard 9-to-5 isn’t the only way. They’re building “Generation Hustle,” and we’re all seeing how this might lead to new definitions of success. These ventures could lead to greater financial resilience, multiple income streams to catch you if one falls through. Many hustlers say they feel more secure with a backup plan in play. And side gigs can inject joy if they align with passion, like the corporate analyst who feels alive during weekends working as a photographer. A side hustle can be a form of self-expression and liberation, not just labor.
The Bad: Burnout and “Always On” Anxiety
All that being said, the hustle mindset, taken too far, can be toxic. The risk of burnout is very real. Humans aren’t meant to be on the clock 24/7, but when you juggle a full-time job and a side gig (or two), that’s often what happens. Many people work 8 hours at the office, then 4-5 more on a side project at night, plus sacrificing weekends. You might scrape together one day off if you’re lucky, and even then you’re fielding Etsy customer messages or brainstorming TikTok content. This can lead to exhaustion, stress, and health issues. Overwork (50+ hours a week) is a major risk factor for problems like heart disease and stroke, but we are often still glamorizing extra work on top of regular work. Mental fog and irritability often comes with burning the candle at both ends. We’re often running a marathon that never ends. There’s always another goal to chase, another task on the list.
The “always be productive” ethos erodes leisure – pure, purposeless, restful leisure. Hobbies used to be things we did for joy or relaxation.
“so long are the days of taking photos solely for enjoyment or crocheting pillows without putting them on Etsy.”
The side hustle mindset tends to commodify our downtime. If I’m reading about a topic, I start wondering: could I blog about this and build an audience? When you’re baking cookies, friends joke “you should sell these!” It’s well-meaning, but it shows how deeply the monetize-everything mentality has sunk in. The result is that it’s harder to simply exist and recharge without feeling guilt for not capitalizing on every moment. Psychologists are noting that our society increasingly measures a person’s value by their output and hustle, which warps our relationship to rest and play. The joy of doing something just for the love of it is put at risk by the grind.
All this work and worry inevitably affects our wellbeing. Chronic stress, anxiety about performance, feeling you’re never doing enough, these are common side effects of hustle culture. Your brain races with side hustle to-do lists, making genuine relaxation or family time way more difficult. Burnout doesn’t just drain your energy. It can leave you emotionally numb, sapping the enjoyment from even the success you do achieve. And people are waking up to the toll it takes on mental health. We see admissions like “it stole my joy and left me empty”, harsh lessons in trading wellbeing for constant productivity. That might sound extreme, but the warning signs are there when we overcommit. We become short-tempered, detached, and just tired. The freedom of side hustling can become another kind of shackle if you’re not careful, one where you’re both the driven boss and the overworked employee in your one-person enterprise.
Our Relationships
Constant hustling can also affect our relationships and community life. When everyone is busy maximizing their time, it can be hard to simply be present with one another. Many of us have probably turned down catching up with friends because we felt we “should” use the evening to work, or responded to client emails from our Etsy shops while half-listening to a family member on the phone. The side hustle mindset can lead you to prioritize work over people in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. We start viewing time with loved ones as something we have to “fit in” around grinding, rather than the core of a fulfilling life.
It’s not just time scarcity; there’s also a shift in how we relate. Sometimes hustle culture breeds a transactional view of interactions, networking over genuine connection. On LinkedIn or TikTok we see people implying you should curate your friends based on ambition, or only socialize with people who inspire or can help you professionally. That’s a bit uncomfortable. Our friends and family shouldn’t all be business contacts or cheerleaders for our hustle. They’re people, not stepping stones. But when you’re deep in grind mentality, you might start seeing relationships through that lens of self-improvement or utility. Even the concept of networking has trickled into every social sphere. If you go to a party and meet someone, a part of you might immediately wonder if this connection could benefit your projects.
Volunteering, neighborhood gatherings, lazy Sunday picnics…these require people to have free time and energy. If every spare hour is devoted to personal hustles, our broader community engagement can diminish. It feels like fewer people are volunteering or taking up collective hobbies (like joining a sports league) because we’re all too busy building our own thing. Over time, that can erode the social fabric and our support systems. The irony is that we chase side hustles partly for security, but we may be weakening the very relationships that provide emotional security. We might try to be more intentional about carving out protected time for friends and family where we’re not distracted by work thoughts. It’s not easy to switch off the “producer” mindset, but if we don’t, we risk ending up as just lonely achievers without many bonds.
What Is “A Good Life”?
The side hustle phenomenon has undeniably influenced the answer to this question for many of us. Culturally, we here in the US have long had an ethos of the American Dream. Work hard and you’ll prosper. Hustle culture took that into overdrive. It sold us a vision that a good life is one of entrepreneurial success, financial abundance, and ceaseless self-improvement. On social media, the “good life” is often depicted as this hustle-fueled narrative. You start a grind in your 20s, you build multiple income streams, you maybe retire early with loads of money, or you become a CEO of your own brand. It’s a life of ambition and more, more, more. Even our leisure is expected to be somehow productive (the “optimize your morning routine” and “read 50 books a year” kind of pressure). We’ve merged the idea of a good life with the idea of a profitable, optimized life.
But that’s likely not the whole story. What used to be considered a good life in simpler terms was enough income to be comfortable, meaningful work but also meaningful time off, loving relationships, hobbies just for fun, and a sense of contentment. Hustle culture risks turning life into a checklist of achievements and income streams, which is very one-dimensional. There’s a growing pushback to reclaim balance. Behaviors like “quiet quitting” have risen as a reaction against the grind 24/7 mentality. People are starting to say, maybe the good life is one where work knows its place.
There is still the idea of a life that’s “rich” not just in money, but in time and experiences. A good life is having evenings to cook with family, weekends to go hiking or read a book (for no other reason than enjoyment), and a career or side projects that are fulfilling but not all-defining. Success could be measured in happiness and health as much as in dollars. Our collective imagination might be slowly shifting again. There’s more talk about mental health, about the importance of rest, even about embracing idleness as a way to spur creativity. Ideally we’ll continue to learn how to integrate the best of the hustle (the creativity, the empowerment) without sacrificing our humanity for the sake of productivity.
Finding Balance
The side hustle mindset arose from real economic needs and was amplified by technology and culture in ways that made us more entrepreneurial and resourceful. There are genuinely beautiful success stories and personal growth that came from people betting on themselves outside the 9-to-5 mold. But there is a hollowness that creeps in when you start to live only for productivity.
Burnout teaches us that running on empty helps nobody, and that sometimes doing nothing is extremely important. It feels almost rebellious to do so sometimes, but it’s a rebellion that can keep us sane.
This mindset will evolve as new generations and technologies come into play. The hope is that we act as human beings, not just human doings. The value of a person cannot be measured in how many hustles they juggle or how much money they make in their sleep. A successful life is one where you have peace of mind, people you love, and the freedom to enjoy both work and rest in equal measure. It’s one where we give ourselves permission to step off the treadmill.
This idea started in my brain, was hashed out with AI, and then heavily edited by yours truly.