Our generation grew up amid rapid changes in technology—and society—and with new technologies like AI, what’s left for those of us who dream of a creative career?
You might remember a more analog childhood, when the internet was spelled with a capital “I” and was a place you actually logged out of to do non-digital things in a largely offline world.
Amid consoles you either plugged to TVs (do you still have a TV?) or powered with AA batteries, there were also certain dream jobs that inspired us, thanks in large part to the popular media that accompanied those good ol’ days: Magazines like W.I.T.C.H, Candy, Reader’s Digest, and National Geographic, publishing houses like VisPrint and Adarna making darn good Filipino komiks, TV Channels like MYX and Animax, and seeing our ates and kuyas visit indie music hubs like Route 196 and Today x Future, to name a few career-spos.
Some of us were considered lucky to get internships in the above companies even as students: junior jocks in stations like and Monster RX, courtside reporters (hello, noona Gretchen Ho!), and guest contributors to *ahem* pubs like Scout.
Many of these companies still run today but only because they’ve largely adjusted to a media and technology landscape that was disrupted around the time we were finishing high school and college
Many of these companies still run today but only because they’ve largely adjusted to a media and technology landscape that was (sorry for the buzzword) disrupted around the time we were finishing high school and college (looking back, “disrupted” now takes an ominous meaning, huh?).
Nonetheless, we can’t be complacent, as misused technologies like AI threaten not just the existence of the above industries, especially creative fields, but the economic ecosystem as a whole. “New jobs will emerge,” optimists say, but isn’t the whole point of automation to “cut costs,” in this case human “capital”? Those of us who took business classes might remember that businesses should balance 3 Ps: people, planet, and profit, but in practice, it seems the last P is growing at the expense of the first two.
And anyway, isn’t an economic system based on infinite growth in a finite planet kinda messed up? But that’s for another discussion. Here, we sat down with three young creatives with three different stories, each a glimpse into how we can thrive—and not just survive—in this economy.
Melissa Luz Lopez: Passion doesn’t always have to be profession
“It’s rare to see one story change everything, but if you’re working for a bigger picture, it’s not useless,” Melissa Luz Lopez smiles as she takes her last slice of carrot cake. It’s a few months shy of 10 years since her 2014 graduation, and the former BusinessWorld reporter and CNN broadcaster embraces her full-on titahood by holding our interview at a Mary Grace Cafe, sparkles and all.
Today, she considers herself more of a professional academic, almost done with her master’s in economics at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, (UPD) where she also finished her undergrad with a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. She hopes to publish studies that can influence public policy.
“It’s rare to see one story change everything, but if you’re working for a bigger picture, it’s not useless,” Melissa Luz Lopez says
In a way, it’s a full-circle moment as she was in the math club for all of her high school years. While she looked up to journalists like Jessica Soho, Mel Tiangco, and Ed Lingao (who eventually mentored her), she only considered the profession during her last year of (pre-K12) high school when her essay-writing teacher asked out loud if she was in the school paper.
Back then, she was always submitting papers early as writing tests weren’t taken home but finished in the classroom. The school year was in full swing, and she couldn’t leave the math club, but when college apps rolled around, she immediately signed up for journalism courses, eventually getting into UPD.
There, she found out she had much catching up to do as her course peers joined the “Palarong Pambansa equivalents of journalism” before college. She joined Tinig ng Plaridel, one of the campus papers, and became editor-in-chief in her senior year. For her internship, she worked for Vera Files and, considering herself lucky for landing a paid internship, decided that journalism really was for her.
Upon graduating, she began covering politics for BusinessWorld (“My first salary was P19,000, feeling ko ang yaman-yaman ko na!”), eventually moving to CNN Philippines where she finished as a camera-facing broadcaster. It’s been a roller coaster since.
She left the field in 2022, around the time of the national elections, “easily the dirtiest coverage I’ve ever done.” By then, many threats to the field were in full-swing, from armies of anonymous trolls using disinformation to sway the general public to red-tagging any journalist (or citizen, for that matter) reporting on critical information related to the administration and its allies.
Long before that time, however, she was already considering jumping ship as the pay wasn’t sustainable for a breadwinner taking care of a retired, single mother, an accountant who dreamed of becoming a journalist. “I’m not after luxury,” Lopez says wistfully, “but mom deserves some ease, right?”
Melissa Lopez left the field in 2022, around the time of the national elections, “easily the dirtiest coverage I’ve ever done”
Her resolve to leave deepened when the attacks on the profession spiked during Rodrigo Duterte’s administration from 2016 to 2022. Her mental health was taking a toll, all as she recounts that her own cousins didn’t believe what she was reporting. “You report the facts, but suddenly the facts are now weaponized [often] against you. It’s basically shooting the messenger.” She didn’t mind the trolls regularly flooding her inbox, but it stung when the shots hit close to home.
Nonetheless, the opposition campaign was a spot of hope and Lopez told herself she might stay if they won. We all know how that turned out.
It was all trauma, however. The light is easily what keeps us coming back. Lopez recalls one election story where she interviewed an elderly man paralyzed on the right side of his body. He had to climb the stairs backwards in his voting precinct because he didn’t make the PWD registration deadline when his stroke hit. He told Lopez that “My vote means as much as a rich person’s” as they wept.
Suffice to say, Lopez is happy to contribute to journalism even as an economist and academic. She presently writes part-time for an economic quarterly in Europe and local online magazine Bilyonaryo. Since journalism stopped being her main job, she’s since found herself able to take more time and deeper dives with stories.
It’ll always be a part of her, and she will always be part of it, albeit in a different capacity.
Sarah Santos*: Give from greener pastures
Sometimes, it’s all right to move to new pastures to support old loves in a new way and from a better place.
Just like Lopez, Sarah Santos also jumped ship after initially practicing as a journalist. Unlike Lopez, however, Santos, who graduated from UPD journalism in 2018, is no longer practicing as of press time. She continues to support former classmates and colleagues in the field while being an avid reader of longform and watcher of documentaries.
Just like Melissa Lopez, Sarah Santos* also jumped ship after initially practicing as a journalist. Unlike Lopez, however, Santos, who graduated from UPD journalism in 2018, is no longer practicing as of press time
She plans to get more subscriptions to quality journalism; understanding that the paywall bemoaned by many can actually support media practitioners and other workers in the field, from drivers to translators to graphic artists.
Growing up in a province south of Metro Manila, Santos’s case was love at first sight.
Her father, who loved to read, was an avid subscriber of Reader’s Digest and the Philippine Daily Inquirer. “He continued to subscribe even when the physical paper increased its prices through the years.”
All of it, from the children’s drawings at the Sunday Comics to the daily homilies of Fr. Jerry Orbos to the critiques of Conrado de Quiros accompanied her formative years. It was Patricia Evangelista who stood out for her most. “I liked her brand of narrative journalism—pwede pala magsulat that way?” all as young Santos cut and saved clippings of her articles.
She left journalism as the take-home pay wasn’t sustainable despite increasing responsibilities, work hours, and emotional labor
By her junior year of high school, she was features editor of her campus paper and “like most journ’ grads, I chose my course thanks to well-intentioned advice” from her teacher, who, standing confidently “well-spoken with her pink lipstick,” the paragon of a woman Who Made It, told Santos the she had a future as a journalist.
“My world deepened after graduation.” After applying for a number of media outlets, Santos was eventually accepted in the Philippine Bureau of an ASEAN-focused business news company. “I enjoyed reading the reports of different companies,” and this likely set her on the path of business communications.
Eventually, she became an editor, handling a team of reporters, some of whom were her seniors. The nuances of word choices and their impact on business and policy was even more pronounced. She recalls mistakes made in managing people: Writing and reading was one skill, bringing the best out of people was another thing altogether. But she looks back humbly, without a trace of regret.
Her idealism never left, it just manifests now from different quarters, from a more stable place
Similar to Lopez, she left journalism as the take-home pay wasn’t sustainable despite increasing responsibilities, work hours, and emotional labor. Another factor was the realization that media outlets could also serve as propaganda arms of certain nations at the expense of poorer countries.
It was back to square one. After drifting for a while, she decided to “get serious” and sent many applications (and faced many rejections), around 100+, to government agencies before landing in the economic cluster. Back then, the pandemic—and layoffs—were in full swing, and only the government could more or less hold on to its employees. The stability appealed to her.
Today, she works as a government communicator, making policy digestible to the general public, among other tasks. She still applies many of the skills of her former trade albeit in a different setting. More importantly, there are times when she feels she’s still contributing to nation-building.
Her pay now allows her to enjoy food she couldn’t before, rent out a decent condo, and send support home to her parents. She dreams of a better life for them, for a lifestyle, for trips they were not able to experience during her girlhood. Time to give back.
Lopez shares that finances are no joke, acknowledging her relative privilege. Santos, who came from a humbler background and whose parents are both retired, had a calculus weighing heavier than Lopez’s. But more than personal survival, Santos notes how she also values the “predictability and quantifiability” of reporting for the government, seeing a more direct impact on the lives of people.
Her idealism never left, it just manifests now from different quarters, from a more stable place.
Jill Arteche: Bearing the torch
Growing up, Jill Arteche had the full support of her family behind her art practice. “I was never told that there’s no money in art,” she recalls, now a full-time artist under DF Art Agency and also a professional illustrator.
She was in the campus papers of both high school and college as a graphic artist, and immediately after graduating from Ateneo de Manila University in 2017 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Information Design, she dove into ad agencies before becoming a full-time freelance illustrator and artist in 2019.
Google Search now autofills her name on the URL tab, attaching the label “illustrator” next to it. She’s worked with brands like Decathlon, Nike, GCash, Ayala Malls, and Fete de la Musique, to name a few. She’s also done some numbers with children’s publisher Adarna.
“The movie ‘13 Going On 30,’ by Mark Ruffalo, that’s the life I wanted,” Jill Arteche beams, and it seems she’s lived up to the dream
“The movie ‘13 Going On 30,’ by Mark Ruffalo, that’s the life I wanted,” she beams, and it seems she’s lived up to the dream, working sometimes from home, and sometimes from her condominium along Katipunan Avenue, which increasingly serves as a bodega for her paintings.
“Admittedly, mine is a rare and privileged story,” Arteche smiles. This did not mean though she didn’t face the challenges almost all visual creatives face. For one, there’s the tightrope walk between artistic inspiration and jealousy and insecurity, brought by the double-edged sword that is social media, which connects one to community and clients while also leading to spirals of creative paralysis.
“Comparison is a rabbit hole. And there was a period that I was so paralyzed by the thought that my peers, and even my idols were better than me that I didn’t work for six months. Thankfully I had some savings during that time.”
How did she get out?
“My dogs! But for real, I took a step back from art and taught myself to stop associating myself with my brand. And don’t take it too seriously, make spaces for play, for curiosity. Use the time spent stepping back from work to step back into your oasis, your hobbies, your advocacies, people you love.”
Being a freelance creative is that after all: You are your own brand, and while this is a nauseatingly romanticized slogan, this also means you haul your own weight, pay your own taxes, are your own HR and Admin, and accept the fact that never-ending backlogs are a part of life.
Admittedly, it’s not for everyone, as the structure and predictability of a corporate setting works for many a creative while also providing enough income so they can work on projects on the side, the most famous examples being poet Charles Bukowski, who worked blue collar jobs, and in the Philippines, the creators of the komiks series Trese, who worked on the project after hours.
And then there’s the recent mass-adoption of AI (which is not without its flaws, even in terms of workflow and quality output). Arteche is anxious, but unfazed, echoing chef Nobu Matsuhisa in that “You can copy my style, but you can’t copy my soul.”
***
In any creative field, workers find themselves in a balancing act between practical and idealistic concerns: the financials inform how we approach the emotional element of the job. All this as tools like social media and artificial intelligence can both help or harm one’s career, depending on how it’s used.
That very factor, how it’s used, confirms the agency of humans in most every societal issue we face today. We’re not facing a monolith beyond our control, but the sum of human action, something which, while difficult, is more actionable than the former.
The human factor: Something honed and shaped by daily action, something which no machine can replace, even if others want to insist otherwise.
*Named changed to protect privacy