lighter thread for the weekend. we all have the moment where a relative asks what you do and you have to decide how honest to be. what’s the weirdest, funniest, or most awkward way you’ve explained this job to family?
i told my mum i “do digital marketing for entertainment websites” and she now tells everyone i work in Hollywood. haven’t corrected her in three years.
mate i’d let her keep believing that, it’s a better story than the truth. i tell people i’m in online media and analytics, which is technically true and makes them stop asking. my nan thinks i fix computers. last christmas she asked me to look at her printer and i actually fixed the printer. so now i’m the family IT guy AND secretly running adult sites. double life, both halves equally unglamorous.
As a creator this one’s heavier, honestly. I’ve told a few close people the truth and kept it vague with everyone else, I run my own content business online, because the judgment is real and it’s my business, not theirs. The funny part is the relatives who’d disapprove loudest are the ones most impressed that I’m self-employed and doing well. Same facts, different framing, opposite reaction.
My family is in another country so it is easier for me, I just say I work in internet media and they are happy. But my cousin visit once and see my second monitor full of thumbnails, and his face. He never say anything, but now when we talk he is very careful not to ask about the work. We both pretend it didn’t happen. It is our little agreement.
told my family i do online marketing. they think i make banner ads for shoe shops and i’ve decided not to correct them.
haven’t had to explain it to family yet because i haven’t made a cent, so there’s nothing to explain. give it time i guess.
Honestly, let her believe it. I will not be taking questions. The truth just buys you a very long dinner that nobody at the table enjoys.
ha, mine just settled on “he does something with websites” and i never corrected it. easygoing wins. soon as you try to explain the actual business there goes your whole afternoon.
“online marketing” is my go-to too. it’s the follow-up that gets fun, “marketing for what?” i just say small businesses and change the subject before anyone can dig.
banner ads for shoe shops is going on my tombstone. the trick is an answer so boring nobody asks a follow up. the second it sounds interesting they start digging and then youre stuck explaining.
something with websites has carried me through twenty years of family dinners. never explain more than you have to. the vaguer and duller the answer, the faster someone changes the subject for you.
i just say online advertising and change the subject fast. still low key dreading the follow up question at christmas though. reading this thread for better dodges.
internet media is such a good vague one. true enough, boring enough, and nobody at a dinner table digs into it. i use almost the same line and it has never once got a follow up.
i actually run some mainstream too so online marketing isnt even a lie, it just isnt the whole invoice. technically honest and completely boring at the same time is the sweet spot.
told my mum i manage websites for advertisers and she nodded and moved on. thats the whole goal. an answer thats true enough to not be a lie and dull enough that nobody asks a second question.
after twenty years i just tell people i run websites and let them fill in the rest. the ones who need to know already do, and the rest dont actually want the details. at a family dinner the vaguest true answer is the best one.
One of things what i doing is promoting mobile offers, so i can just say how i sell mobile apps which is partially true.
its the veteran answer because its true, boring, and it ends the conversation before anyone asks a follow-up. the point of the explanation isnt to inform, its to satisfy the asker enough that they move on, and run websites does that perfectly. the people who get into trouble either overexplain till it gets weird or say something so vague it invites more questions. flat and dull and true beats clever at a family dinner.
That one is a small work of art because every word of it is true and none of it is the whole truth. It is specific enough to sound like a real job, boring enough to kill curiosity, and accurate enough that you are not actually lying to your mum. The game was never deception, it is about handing people a frame they can file and forget instead of one that makes dinner weird, and advertising is the perfect neutral bucket for it.
as the beginner in the room i have not had to explain this to family yet and this thread is weirdly useful preparation, because i had been dreading exactly this. i think i had been overcomplicating it in my head, imagining i would have to either confess everything or tell an elaborate lie, when apparently the move is just a boring true phrase like i-run-websites and let it go. it is reassuring that the veterans all landed on the same low-key honest non-answer rather than anything clever or evasive. filing away run-websites and manage-sites-for-advertisers for when someone at a family thing eventually asks. good to know the answer is mundane truth, not a cover story, because i am a bad liar and would definitely fumble a cover story.
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