Introducing The Soft Labor Questionnaire: Hilary Eden
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The Soft Labor Questionnaire
We’re introducing a new feature, The Soft Labor Questionnaire, which is simply that: A brief series of questions we’ve asked comrades in the field to answer about their own working experiences. We'll run this one from time to time.
Today’s respondent is Hilary Eden. Hilary is a creative director at a major (here, unnamed!) tech company where she works with advertisers on the strategy and creative development of their social media ads. She’s also a writer, narrative filmmaker, and photographer. Her 2023 film short, "Bellybutton," held its New York premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Tell us about the first job you ever did for money.
My first real job was working in the Rare Editions section of my college’s library, cataloging John James Audubon prints. The thing I remember most about the job was that one of the fraternities sent pledges to the library as a part of the hazing process and made them memorize old texts about the college’s history. When I wasn't organizing rare bird prints I spent a lot of time helping fratty boys find old books. Sometimes they would ask me to quiz them, which I enjoyed doing.
Is your current work related to what you studied in school? If so, how? Or, how not?
Yes and no. I studied art history, which I was drawn to because I love to look at and think about beautiful things. And this still is a part of what I do in my professional work and personal creative practice.
What cultural touchpoint—music, art, literature, etc.—has informed your practice the most? How?
Well I’m obsessed with girlhood and I am in a lot of ways stuck as a 13 year old girl. I think about the photo book Girl Culture by Lauren Greenfield all the time—the way her pictures really tell the story of how shaped we are by the culture we are exposed to as children. I want to explore that in my own art.
There is a short story called “Girl Trouble” by Holly Goddard Jones that I re-read pretty often as it perfectly captures that pivotal moment of adolescent awakening in a girl's life and how tragic it is to grow up.
A final one I’ll mention is a video clip—I can’t even remember where I first saw it I guess it must have been YouTube—of Sofia Coppola on the set of The Virgin Suicides. She’s walking backwards in front of Kirsten Dunst and the rest of the girls, holding what looks like a Pentax point-and-shoot camera. She is taking pictures of them and the whole group is laughing—all limbs and long hair and pleated skirts—as they skip arm in arm for her as she takes snapshots. It made me think that creativity doesn't need to be this painful, overly-intellectual, highly technical thing: It can also be about following your instinct, making images you like and exploring your own tastes.
What is the most rewarding aspect of working in your industry? The most challenging?
Working in tech allows me the freedom to self fund a lot of my personal creative work. It's kind of a cynical answer, but it’s true. And the people tend to be very smart.
Has AI impacted your work? How?
It has. Professionally, it has put a lot of pressure on people to reach maximum productivity and efficiency. Because we have these tools now that can get one 40-60% of the way there with a creative idea or execution, there is a lot more emphasis on volume and speed, which of course is not always the best thing for developing meaningful work that rises above the noise.
In my personal practice it has changed my work in that I find more and more that I want to do things the slow way, by hand. I want to shoot film and edit without any AI shortcuts, just to know I still can.
What advice would you give to someone starting a career in your industry?
If you want to work in advertising creative, the best place to start is an ad agency. An agency is a hard place to work and the industry is under more pressure than ever, but there is no other place in the business where you will learn as much as a junior person. Don't start your career as a creative at a big tech company, no matter how tempting that is as you will never really appreciate it; you won’t learn enough; and it will ruin you for every other job. Most importantly: Don't worry too much! You will make work you like. You will make some work you really don't like. It will all be fine.
What are you obsessed with that has little-to-nothing to do with "work"?
Collecting original 1990's editions of the kids horror book series, Goosebumps, by R.L Stine. And banana splits, the king of ice cream desserts!
