As if the pandemic needed to further prove to people that working for minimum wage just ain’t worth it, City Girls comes along with a twenty-first century anthem called “Jobs” (from their latest album) that only accents the fact that in order to make any kind of adequate money, one is better off seeking the level of fame that comes with OnlyFans/TikTok virality. After all, if lessons of “hard work” have taught millennials and Gen Z anything, it’s that it rarely pays off–and if it does, it can be ripped from you at any moment (see: the 2008 financial crisis–and oh, right now). So why not relish the instant gratification that comes with getting a follow (or better still, paying for a bundle of follows to get the ball rolling) that will ultimately help build your “brand”? That brand being, of course, you. Though, for most women, their bodies. But, as we all know, a woman shaking her ass for the cash is a tale as old as the oldest profession.
Opening on a shot of Sunday’s Eatery, the blasé attitudes of the employees inside, Yung Miami and JT, match the one on the exterior (after all, this is a “restaurant” in a strip mall). “I’m tryna place an order,” one of two customers inside tells Yung Miami. Irritated that he’s interrupted her conversation with JT, she walks up to him and says, “What you want?” The customer demands, “Let me get an order of boneless wings and some collard greens.” Yung explains, “I keep tellin’ yo ass we ain’t got collard greens on Wednesdays or Thursdays.” She turns to JT to make her point with, “What day it is?” JT replies, “Tuesday.” The customer bumbles with a replacement to his original order, at which time JT says, “You takin’ too long,” waving him away. Out back, the duo continues to gab amid cleaning supplies and propane cans, the perfect tableau to emphasize the thankless conditions in which the average service worker finds herself.
Their conversation is once again interrupted, this time by their boss, who snaps, “I got another customer complaint about y’all. What’s the problem?” Yung instantly hits back with, “The problem is I’m tired of this motherfuckin’ job, we smell like collard greens, it’s hot behind that register, like, I’m tired.” Her decision to mince no words, unsurprisingly, gets both of them fired. “Y’all can go,” he repeats to the unflinching dyad until they walk away like it’s no big deal.
Cut to: the girls on the balcony of a deluxe-looking Miami abode as Yung muses, “I can’t believe we got fired today.” As they try to figure out what to do for money next without ever reducing themselves to applying for yet another low-wage bullshit service job, one of their friends (pointedly gay, as though Yung Miami is still making amends for her previous controversial comments rooted in homophobia) offers, “Y’all need to fill out an OnlyFans account… Y’all don’t work jobs, bitch y’all is the job.” So it is that the mantra of the twenty-first century “worker” a.k.a. marginally “famous” moneymaker is crystallized.
No more kowtowing to a grind of a schedule involving waking up early and leaving late–shit, no more leaving the house at all (again, something that COVID-19 only emphasized to people who already knew that shut-in life was preferable in the first place). That’s the marvel–the freedom–of being a cam girl. Directed by Daps, the video quickly becomes a glorified ad for OnlyFans (which Beyoncé already recently bolstered with her mention of it on the “Savage” remix with Megan Thee Stallion–in addition to CashApp, also mentioned in “Jobs”) as Yung Miami touts, “Nasty but classy [again, a Megan Thee Stallion-based aphorism]/Birkin bag me/Spend a couple thousands on my titties and my ass cheeks.” Establishing the running theme of the record–that Yung and JT are only looking for men who can advance their bag, whether by contributions to their closet or physical appearance–the two stress the adage, “I don’t work jobs, bitch, I am a job.”
Produced by Kiddo Marv and COMPOSE, the backbeat for the song’s tempo is easily traceable to something straight out of the Drake oeuvre, except bolder and more visceral in how willing the rhythm is to get with its sweltering moodiness. As Yung poses in her boudoir here and posts a picture of herself on Instagram there, JT primps in the mirror before twerking on her pink bed while she’s filmed by another friend.
In the final scenes of the video, she gets into the car with an affluent man who opens the door of his neon green (Delorean-inspired) car while Yung continues to roll around in her own cash pile on the bed. Bottom line: these girls know better than to waste any more of their precious time working “honestly.” Which, for too long, has been synonymous with being debased and degraded for tax-pillaged pennies. And even if Yung, JT and the generation they represent are using the internet to get more of the same, at least it’s on their own damn terms and for better pay (which should really say something about how unjust the wages offered by major corporations are).
