Your side-eye won't pay the rent
In defense of the affiliate marketer's hustle
I’m always asking you to look at your feed, I know. But go ahead and take another look at it and scroll for 30 seconds.
What do you see?
A perfectly curated coffee, steaming beside a laptop adorned with a cheeky sticker you suddenly crave? A sweater, impossibly soft-looking, draped on someone laughing in golden-hour light? A gadget, promising to slice your avocado *and* julienne your fries, demonstrated with near-religious fervor? Chances are (high) that someone is making a few cents if you tap that link. And chances are, equally high, someone, somewhere, is rolling their eyes. "Another ad." "So cringe!!!" "Make.It.Stop."
Stop. Take a beat and rewind that judgment. Can we talk about what we're REALLY seeing??
What we are seeing is the visible tremor of a vast, shifting economic landscape. It’s alchemy, pure and simple: the transformation of attention into groceries, into rent, into pediatrician co-pays, into keeping the lights on.
The critique of the "shameless" affiliate poster feels increasingly hollow, perched atop a crumbling edifice of old-world job security. Remember stability? The gold watch after forty years? The pension? For millions, that feels like folklore whispered by grandparents and great-grandparents who bought homes for 5-figures. What exists now is volatility. Layoffs ripple through industries like seismic waves and wages stagnate against inflation's relentless riptide. The traditional 40-hour structure often fails to accommodate the complex realities of modern life: the single parent swimming in daycare fees, the caregiver begging for flexible hours, the new grad drowning in debt, the individual simply yearning for a buffer against life's inevitable shocks.
Enter the smartphone. Enter Amazon. Enter TikTok. Enter the affiliate link.
Taste didn’t disappear overnight, and commercialism isn’t the full story. What we’re seeing is survival coupled with agency. When the factory shuts down, the office trims staff “for efficiency”, or the part-time job can’t keep the heat on, people start searching for whatever levers they can still reach. And here, on a platform buzzing with billions of eyeballs, exists a lever. A potential to monetize one's taste, one's small audience, one's ability to say, "Hey, I tried this, and it actually works!!"
Call it "shameless"? We should tryyyyyyy to reframe that. It’s resourceful. It’s adaptive. It’s taking the tools available: a camera, a personality, a platform built on virality, and forging an income stream. Is it glamorous? Often, no. It’s someone in their living room after the kids are asleep, filming a review of a $10 kitchen tool they hope might resonate. It’s someone styling the same pair of affordable jeans six ways because the commission might help cover a textbook or two. Or maybe it is someone sharing their genuine love for a K-Beauty serum, knowing that love might translate into actual dollars that buy actual food.
The flood of these posts doesn’t necessarily reflect unchecked greed. I think it’s a glaring signal of deep, unmet economic need.
This is the digital equivalent of a crowded job fair.
Every trending lip balm, every gadget demo, every cozy sweater showcased represents someone trying to bridge a gap. Stay-at-home parents seeking financial autonomy without sacrificing childcare. Students are desperate to mitigate the crushing weight of loan burdens. Laid-off professionals are piecing together income streams. People are saving for security deposits, a medical procedure, or yes, maybe even a trip. (The desire for respite, for joy, for experience, is not a moral failing either!)
Who are we, comfortably scrolling, perhaps insulated by different circumstances, to deem this hustle "cringe"??!?
Where does this disdain originate? Is it perhaps a discomfort with the visibility of struggle? A reflexive recoil from the overt merging of recommendation and remuneration? Or worse, a lingering classist snarl at those who must visibly monetize their digital presence?
The reality is that this labor is labor, friends. It requires a lot of time, effort, strategy, and often, a thick skin against the very judgment we’re discussing. Sourcing products, understanding trends, filming engaging content, navigating platform algorithms, building trust with followers…this is an invisible assembly line. Dismissing it as "just cringe!!!!" ignores the skill and resilience involved. It’s easier to label it tacky than to acknowledge the economic desperation or ambition that fuels it.
Is the feed saturated? Undeniably, 1000%.
But this saturation is less an aesthetic nuisance and more a profound economic indicator. It screams: People need work. People need money. People need options. The traditional avenues are constricted, fractured, or simply unavailable to many. Affiliate marketing, for all its quirks and “can you believe the difference?!” clichés, represents a democratized access point. It requires no corporate ladder climb, no formal interview, no specific degree. All it takes is initiative, drive, and an internet connection.
I’m not saying every tactic is perfect. I’m saying the urgency behind them is real. Authenticity and transparency build trust. The audience isn’t stupid! They recognize genuine enthusiasm vs. forced promotion. The best affiliate marketers understand this. The issue lies in the absence of honesty, not in the fact that people earn through sharing. The critique should focus on deception, not on the fundamental act of earning through recommendation.
The next time you see that 10th video about the same spinning floor mop or collagen-boosting night mask, take another beat before the eye-roll. See beyooooooond the product. See the person. See the rent payment being assembled link-click by link-click. See the grocery bill being covered. See the attempt to carve out stability in an unstable, wobbly world. There’s profound dignity in working to provide. There’s nothing shameful about using the tools at your disposal to feed your family, pay your bills, or simply secure a little breathing room.
Our feeds are flooded because the ground has shifted and continues to shift. People are adjusting to a world where steady work no longer guarantees stability and an affiliate link can be a way through. It’s a modern form of exchange rooted in something timeless, and in many ways, it’s the need to turn effort into survival and voice into survival. Safety nets are thinning. What some call cringe is often a display of grit.
Let the alchemists work, their gold keeps real lives going.