Beyond the Buzz: Rethinking Hustle Culture
- Mayrose Munar
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
Featuring artwork by Matt Willey (https://www.thegoodofthehive.com/)
“Bees never forget that they are part of something bigger than themselves… their hive is a part of them. What if we embodied this idea? What if we got curious about the world and each other again instead of intimidated by it? This is why I turn walls into windows—to remember that we are all connected… that separation is an illusion.
— Matt Willey, Artist
Hustle culture has been on my mind lately as I’ve returned to conferences after a long stretch of relative solitude. Recently, I attended a gathering that brought together people from different industries and geographies. I arrived alone, which gave me the luxury of observing the social dynamics without obligation. What fascinated me most was not the programming or the lectures, but the way people interacted—the subtle choreography of ambition, identity, and attention.
Before the event even began, the buzz had already started online. Several WhatsApp groups were formed weeks in advance. Participants introduced themselves, shared travel plans, and gradually began signaling their presence. As the event approached, the messages accelerated—introductions, professional biographies, links to projects and websites. The conversation began to resemble a swarm of bees, each message adding to a steady hum of activity that suggested momentum, visibility, and perhaps even a bit of competition.
Perhaps my reaction had something to do with my own recent reentry into the digital world. For several years, I had almost entirely stepped back from social media. Most of the apps had long since been deleted. Only recently did I revive my LinkedIn profile to reconnect with a handful of people whose work and thinking I genuinely admire. Returning after that hiatus, the group chat struck me as something more than a logistical tool. What began as coordination slowly evolved into a stage—an informal space where participants signaled who they were, what they were building, and occasionally what they hoped others would notice.
Curious, I decided to participate in the experiment. I posted a link to my newly built webpage and shared a recent blog entry. Within hours, several people reached out to schedule meetings. Since many attendees were traveling from out of state or overseas, I added suggestions for local trails and Pilates studios—small gestures of hospitality that seemed to align naturally with the buzzing conversation. Predictably, a few participants emerged as particularly enthusiastic performers in the chat, appearing determined to win the informal contest for attention.
Hustle.
Yet when everyone arrived in person, the atmosphere shifted. Between sessions and during lunch, the dominant activity was small talk. Lots of it. Pleasant, harmless, and somewhat memorable and authentic. After searching for a deeper conversation and not quite finding it, I slipped out earlier than planned.
As a writer and observer of human behavior, I found myself wondering whether the performance surrounding networking had begun to overshadow the purpose of conversation itself.
That question led me back to the word hustle. Merriam-Webster defines it in several ways: as an excited or showy activity, as an energetic effort, and—less charitably—as a form of scam. The range of meanings feels oddly appropriate. For much of Silicon Valley’s history, hustle meant sustained effort: long hours, difficult problems, serious work. People built things, failed at them, rebuilt them, and occasionally changed the world in the process.
The newer version of Hustle seems to operate at a different frequency. Beneath it all lies something symbolic—an idea that proximity to certain rooms, people, or institutions somehow transfers status through association. For a brief moment, the room itself becomes the credential. And yet beneath the spectacle, the reality remains simple. Most of us are simply humans trying to understand our place in the room.
This experience reminded me of something a close friend of mine began doing years ago. Like me, she has very little patience for small talk. Her solution was simple but surprisingly effective: she started inviting people to dinner. But these were not ordinary dinners. Around the table, she introduced what she called deeper conversations. Poetry was often read aloud, and thoughtful prompts guided the discussion. Small talk simply wasn’t invited.
The effect was remarkable. Those evenings brought forward the real thoughts, feelings, and identities of the people sitting around the table. Of course, participants had to be willing. And it probably didn’t hurt that the food was exceptional and the wine thoughtfully chosen. Even Oprah eventually caught wind of the gatherings and wanted to experience one in person.
The idea emerged at an interesting moment. Around the same time that the peak of hustle culture was colliding with broader cultural and political shifts, many people were quietly searching for something different—spaces where conversation could return to something more human.
Just people together.
To this day, a small group of us continues the tradition—over lunch instead of dinner. The conversations remain deliberate. No performance, no signaling, no quiet competition for attention. We start with meditation, share, hear, end, and move on with our lives. Refreshed.
Over time, this practice has quietly reshaped how I think about conversation itself. It has reinforced the importance of steering clear of the hustle and focusing instead on intention. The question shifts from What can I get from this interaction? to something far more interesting:
How can I listen? What can I hear? And what can I share that might actually matter?
Terry Gross, the longtime host of NPR’s Fresh Air, once described the complexity of conversation in a way that captures this tension perfectly:
“I learned that I never really know the true story of my guests’ lives, that I have to content myself with knowing that when I’m interviewing somebody, I’m getting a combination of fact and truth and self-mythology and self-delusion and selective memory and faulty memory.”
Every conversation, in other words, contains a bit of performance. Everyone wants that myth to be mythical, to stand out from the masses. We establish our brand identity, and we enforce it in our conversations, often forgetting about the audience, the person listening on the other side.
The key here is understanding the difference between trying to impress the room and trying to understand it.
Let’s face it: hustle culture increasingly resembles the like-and-follow economy of 2015. Signals of attention replace attention itself. Visibility becomes its own currency. Interactions can begin to feel like speed dating—moving rapidly from one conversation to the next, scanning the room for opportunity, measuring value by what can be gained rather than what can be understood.
Long before social platforms existed, masters of human interaction had already observed this pattern. Dale Carnegie wrote in How to Win Friends and Influence People: “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”
He offered an even simpler reminder: “If you want to be a good conversationalist, be a good listener. To be interesting, be interested.”
From a business perspective, the hustle mentality can sometimes raise red flags. From a human perspective, it signals something else entirely: very little curiosity about the person standing in front of us. Which raises an interesting question. Is hustle really about productivity, or is it sometimes just another wall we hide behind?
Carnegie offered one final piece of advice that feels particularly relevant today:
“If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.”
Sometimes the most meaningful conversations begin when the buzzing stops.
And someone simply decides to listen.
