High heels, high hopes, hard realities. The year was 2008, when Jennifer Garner’s character, Jenna Rink, in 13 Going on 30 subconsciously gave me the roadmap to my own glow-up. Her character transforms from an awkward teen into a thriving 30-year-old magazine editor with a corner office, a designer wardrobe, and a dreamboat boyfriend—what’s not to aspire to in this life? As a hairy teenager with bushy eyebrows and questionable crushes, I had already envisioned my luxury apartment, an office romance with the sports writer from the same publication, and a body that was carved on a reformer. Little did I know, I was being sold a beautiful life— one that would shape my generation’s career expectations and ultimately lead to collective disenchantment.
Then, as a high school student, I stumbled upon the gold mine of disillusionment: Carrie Bradshaw. The way the Sex and The City star convinced me that a weekly column she wrote funded her spacious apartment in the Upper East Side is the reason I chose a career in fashion. This pipe dream found its permanent advocacy from Andy Sachs, played by Anne Hathaway in The Devil Wears Prada. Her meteoric rise at Runway and her ugly-duckling-to-swan makeover, involving Chanel boots from their 2005 fall collection, convinced me my life would color in the lyrics of KT Tunstall’s, Suddenly I See. Pop culture of the late ’90s and 2000s left no stone unturned in painting creative careers (especially those at glossy magazines) as the one-way ticket to a life straight out of a fantasy— of course, with economic stability.
While these fictional portrayals were meant for entertainment, their influence ran much deeper. It is difficult to quantify the exact impact, but career counselors and industry professionals have closely observed the effect of media representation on job aspirations, particularly in fields like fashion, beauty, and lifestyle journalism due to its inaccurate treatment on screen.
In the West, Hollywood got audiences hooked on the high-octane Manhattan magazine glamour. Closer to home, notably in Dubai, a similar media dream was taking flight. Regional editions of international titles like Harper’s Bazaar Arabia, Grazia Middle East, and ELLE Arabia laid their foundations in the city in the late 2000s— with Vogue Arabia joining the ranks in 2016. Dubai was officially the region’s sturdiest media hub. It came with a promise of careers that offered the same Western creative prestige, doused in Middle Eastern luxury.
The city’s rapid transformation into a global luxury destination further fueled the fantasy. The towering skyline easily mirrored the aspirational lifestyles showcased in these magazines. D3 (Dubai Design District) and Media City became the epicenters with plush offices, harboring an ecosystem that rivaled the real estate of the Western media capitals. Young and ambitious professionals from across the GCC and South Asia saw this rapid ascent and took up every opportunity to get their foot in the door. New York may have sown the aspirational seed, but Dubai offered a logistical bridge to seek Andie Anderson’s How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days kind of lifestyle.
The reality, however, is quite different from the rose-tinted silver screen fantasy. According to the Northwestern University in Qatar’s Media Industries in the Middle East report (2019), print publications across the MENA region have undergone a substantial decline, resembling global trends, as consumers shifted to digital platforms. The digital shift had dramatically changed the landscape. Print advertising revenues continued to fall across the region, resulting in downsized teams. Titles that spread across multiple floors were now operating with smaller teams, within limited space.
The disparity between the media fantasy and reality is the most prominent in Dubai. The pressure to maintain appearances is directly proportional to the city’s ostentatious lifestyle. Individuals working in the media industry often succumb to the pressure of painting a lifestyle that is well above their pay grade. The annual Arab Youth Survey by ASDA’A BCW has repeatedly highlighted how social media plays a pivotal part in altering perceptions and aspirations among young people in the region. Personal branding becomes a professional requirement for those working in media and fashion— further aggravating the disconnect between your online presence and reality.
Media professionals in the region are often seen attending luxury fashion, beauty, and lifestyle events at plush locations, where they are sharing spaces with global celebrities positioned as VIPs. Rubbing shoulders with Kendall Jenner at the most expensive hotel in the world isn’t for the weak.
Now let’s talk about relationships, shall we? The narratives of the Western media have found their own unique expression in the Dubai context. Media professionals were baited in with the promise of a cosmopolitan dating scene— thriving with ambitious expatriates ready to sweep you off their feet at fancy beach clubs and rooftop after-parties. The reality is a tad bit more complicated than that. According to the official UAE statistics, 90% of the UAE’s population is dominated by expatriates, creating a transient social environment. Despite the city’s eclectic social scene, the annual InterNations Expat Insider Survey has consistently ranked social connections as one of the challenging aspects of an expatriate’s life in the UAE.
Little time or emotional energy is left for building meaningful relationships when the city’s work-hard-play-hard culture (coupled with the pressure to maintain appearances professionally) has you all-consumed. The irony? People find themselves living in paradox. Despite being surrounded by the glitz and glamour of flourishing social events, they experience profound isolation.
Burnout is the one aspect of the magazine fantasy that translates uniformly across cultures. According to global workplace studies, media and creative professionals show higher levels of stress and job insecurity compared to other sectors, primarily since the digital facelift reshaped the industry. High expectations and a rapid pace of development are the common demands across every Middle Eastern media outlet. Employees at all levels are expected to navigate multiple forms of content creation across platforms and languages— all while keeping up with a luxury market that moves at a breakneck speed.
Multiple factors play a part in the collective burnout: the 24/7 demands and urgency of digital media, and the pressure to produce time-sensitive plus evergreen content with smaller teams. Lastly, the financial anxiety resulting from the lack of pay parity and industry instability. In Dubai, the pressures of walking the tightrope between balancing cultural sensitivity and adapting a global language of creativity is also a tedious task.
The collision between The Devil Wears Prada fantasy and the economic reality has left a whole generation of creative professionals recalibrating their expectations. The silver lining? A new vertical of independent media is emerging in the region, beyond the glossy titles. These story-led platforms and content studios are incubating individuals and teams that are unearthing narratives beyond the superficial surface. Instead of looking at the West for a template, the new-age idea is to look inward, take up space, and cultivating stories that are more culturally resonating and grounded in humanity.
Even with this sliver of hope, many creatives are still reconsidering their career paths. Perhaps, it’s time to retire the glamor myth in both Dubai and the West. Ultimately, even in the city of superlatives, not everyone gets to stay 30, flirty, and thriving forever.
