.guru domain names? That’s so 2006. Why not .rockstar, .ninja, or .zombiecloudevangelist? How am I supposed to be a pretentious expert on the internets with only one vanity TLD to choose from?

No, I’m not really here to whine about top level domain names, but I am going to rant nonetheless. And this rant has been a long time coming, so sit back (or run away).

This whole industry is sick – and I mean the whole thing – broken. I hate this.

I hate that being a web designer means you have to belt out the same tired “San Francisco startup” website, or the “Cupertino frosted glass flat UI” look. I hate that if you try to stray from these two designs, some turtlenecked UX team lead will throw your portfolio in the trash.

I hate that being a backend developer requires you to learn some unproven language that got invented last month so the CTO can impress people in his mentor circle. I hate that the industry, after all these years, is still focused primarily on esoteric concepts like programming languages, as if syntax will make any measurable difference in your project’s outcome.

I hate that being a frontend developer has turned from an artform to a Bootstrap and Angular lovefest. I hate that I like Bootstrap and Angular.

I hate that startups have become wild idealist utopias for urbanites to pretend they’re making a difference while funding their caffeine addictions. I hate that I don’t want to live downtown simply because the fixie-obsessed fake people who live there make me feel dead inside.

I hate that being a designer means you have to put mustaches and birds all over everything dang thing. I hate that the art of design has been all but lost in the fits-all world of One Right Palette. One Right Framework. One Right Strategy.

I hate that we’re all visually screened in Skype interviews to make sure we wear an ample amount of man-scarves, facial hair, or nerd glasses. I hate that I somewhat fit this description.

I hate that we take orders from Chris Coyier, James Padolsey, and Jony Ive like they’re some kind of warlords that will lead us to a happy rainbow battle. I hate that your own ideas are garbage until they copy off you, at which point it becomes genius.

I hate that I build stuff nobody asked for, with no research to back up its purpose. I hate how it all gets thrown out in the end, with maybe a shred or two left to the Github wolves.

I hate that analysts play up the death of the desktop, while ignoring the soon-to-come trend of mobile burnout once the market hits saturation. I hate that this is all becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I hate the mobile-first ideology that is responsible for ugly, uninspired desktop experiences. I hate that these are being created and championed by people who call themselves user experience experts, who know how to create great responsive websites but choose to be lazy.

I hate that every website wants to present me with some kind of dizzying parallaxed nightmare because there’s a jQuery plugin on one of Smashing’s top 10 lists that makes it easy. I hate that I wrote one of those plugins.

I hate that designers are forgetting the art of good design and selling out to the marketing science and tech whimsy. I hate how every self-proclaimed internet ninja fancies themselves social marketing experts.

I hate that when ideas are born in the industry, the first question is, “how much could I beg for this on Kickstarter before Google buys me?” I hate how I can’t remember the punctuation rules for that last sentence.

I hate that Big Data is driving every new management decision. I hate how nobody really knows what Big Data is.

I hate SCRUM worship. I hate lean worship. I hate the worship of one-size-fits-all ideas.

I hate how we’ve gotten caught up in this gold rush of “the next big thing.” I hate how the tech media is trying to invent the need for wearables and the internet of things.

I hate all this interdependence on random cloud APIs. I hate how these APIs keep getting rewritten or disappear altogether.

I hate that I have to delete my voicemails without even listening to them, due to sheer magnitude of job recruiters contacting me even though I removed my resume listings months ago (because Career Builder sucks). I hate how, 5 years from now, I’m going to look back at that statement and shake my head.

I hate how I’m expected to move to The Valley if I want to be someone in the industry. I hate how, in the age of the Internet, this somehow matters.

I hate that I’ve had this iPad for over a year and can’t figure out what to do with it besides watch Cookie Monster sing Tom Waits songs. I hate that I faced an epic inner conflict about whether or not to target=”_blank” that link.

I hate how nobody really knows what I do. I hate how my industry job title has changed four times, but I’m still doing the exact same job.

I hate how “innovation” doesn’t stand for anything anymore. I hate how it has been reduced to another corporate buzzword, or to describe peanut butter flavored Pop-Tarts.

I hate the fakeness. I hate the pointlessness.

I hate that I wrote this, and I hate that you had to read it.