{"id":4683,"date":"2023-01-24T11:37:10","date_gmt":"2023-01-24T10:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kingkong-mag.com\/les-slasheuses\/"},"modified":"2023-02-10T09:38:30","modified_gmt":"2023-02-10T08:38:30","slug":"les-slasheuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kingkong-mag.com\/en\/les-slasheuses\/","title":{"rendered":"Career slashers, pigeonholes for people who don\u2019t really fit them"},"content":{"rendered":"

\r\nIn 2021, Camille Toussaint and Caroline Renaudi\u00e8re created a slightly off-the-wall Instagram account, half-written, half drawn. Adopting a very opposite perspective to that of the slasher, a character involved in a number of inspirational activities, each week the project shares the wild imaginings of two freelancers on a quest to find meaning. \r\n<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u00a9<\/strong> les.slasheuses<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

If you read KingKong, it is likely that you are a part of this large community of people of indeterminate status, carrying out various types of often very varied work for numerous clients, which I have called freelancers. If that is the case, you might be familiar with the term \u2018slasher.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If not, it might be of interest to you that the word simply comes from the English \u2018slash\u2019 (not to be confused with its Belgian homonym<\/a> to which, however practical both might be, there is absolutely no connection), that is to say the oblique diagonal which separates the words in a list (\/) and refers to a person who has several occupations on the go at the same time, and which on the face of it are not linked in any way<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not very innovative, you may well say, and working several jobs at the same time has always been a thing. But with the difference being that the slasher emphasises the hype<\/em> version of the notion. Understand it more in the sense of \u2018I am a consultant \/ jewellery designer \/ retraining organic market gardener\u2019 than in the sense of \u2018I need to do two jobs to pay my bills.\u2019 The \u2018slasher\u2019 is thus a concept very rooted in the real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because whilst the term initially aimed to foreground people with multi-skilled profiles, often undervalued in the world of work, the notion, by way of #dreamjob<\/em> and other Instagram-friendly successes, quickly veered off towards a concept which seemed to imply that when you are involved in several professional activities, you are automatically hyper fulfilled, hyper busy, hyper confident, that everything is going amazingly well, and everything always goes to plan at the first attempt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s enough to throw any self-respecting freelancer who is a little lost into an identity crisis, even though they have been a slasher from the outset, or at some point or another in their career. At that point when, between two projects, they clumsily try to find a logical connection between their various occupations, are beset by latent imposture syndrome and are dreading hearing, in the middle of a procrastination crisis, the fatal question: \u2018And how about you, what do you do<\/em> in your life?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And it is precisely this condition of being a slasher \u2013 second interpretation, by which is meant a freelancer who is always weighing things up \u2013 that Camille Toussaint<\/a>, an illustrator, and Caroline Renaudi\u00e8re, a scriptwriter, look into with their eponymous Instagram account<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept is simple: publications made up of a comic strip, on the one hand, and of a story on the other, talking about the everyday existence of two freelancers who are a little undecided and unsettled. Successes and failures, rash negotiations, existential questions \u2026 all so many themes which the two roomies humorously look into, each week, or thereabouts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launched in October 2021, the project at present has 1,600 subscribers. So it\u2019s not going to bring about a revolution on the web, but that figure is enough to confirm that many people recognise themselves in the SOS messages sent out by these freelancers (occasionally) in distress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u00a9<\/strong> les.slasheuses<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Slashers \/ roomies<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Caroline and Camille met one another on the benches of the IHECS (Institute for Higher Social Communication Studies in Brussels). From being a journalist paid by the piece who drew in her spare time, Camille little by little became an illustrator. If you spend time in the Brussels illustration world, perhaps you have come across her linocuts of Brussels<\/a>, or maybe l\u2019Emoustille<\/a>, the newsletter she co-created. For her part, Caroline has resumed her studies in screenplay writing, after a Belgo-Spanish career journey fluctuating between writing and cinema (she in particular has to her name the casting of the Normal<\/a> series), miscellaneous training programmes and varied projects. A somewhat scattered life of wearing several hats is thus one the both of them know very well. In 2021 they became roommates, their apartment becoming a witness to their spicy procrastinations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The birth of a slash<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Wanting to work together, they, first of all, considered a comic strip on rap. \u2018But neither of us knows a great deal about rap<\/em>.\u2019 The idea of mixing writing and drawing nevertheless germinated, and took shape when they jointly responded to a call for proposals involving working on a project with a magazine. For both of them it was their first joint application, which they only just missed out on, but it led to something clicking into place. \u2018We came second. It was disappointing, but then we said to ourselves that we could also get something going with the two of us, without waiting for a request from the outside. We simply had to establish some signposts, a rhythm, and stick to them<\/em>.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The subject of slashers was one which came easily to them. \u2018We found it funny as a word, and above all absurd that it was used in such a serious and professional way, to talk about a situation which we experience every day and which there is nothing very glamorous about sometimes. Us, we also \u201ccarry out several activities concurrently,\u201d but we also spend a large part of our time staring at the ceiling, getting stressed that we don\u2019t have enough projects and wondering what we are going to do with our lives<\/em>.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has to be said that they don\u2019t spend a long time staring at this ceiling, because one week later, the first publication came out, and one year later they are still there. And there is a good place to be: testament to this is a sizeable community, their taking part in a writing residency and a published comic strip project in progress. Not too shabby for two avid enthusiasts of procrastination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Une publication partag\u00e9e par Les slasheuses (@les.slasheuses)<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/blockquote>