Pros
-Cool coworkers (excluding senior management). You're obviously working at HB for a reason and so you'll be working alongside a group of people who get what you're passionate about. -Sometimes you get to meet famous people/influencers
Cons
-Culture vultures. The entirety of this company has profited off of black culture (most of the media has imo). When the entire BLM movement arose again recently, this company did the bare minimum to address the issue. They posted a passive IG post (out of obligation), thinking it would “solve” them from any immediate drama. Not many protocols were taken on behalf of upper management to address the issue, no notable actions were taken at all. They stood on the sidelines like cowards, avoiding the drama because they know that by not taking a stance, it allows for no one to criticize them. Nope. No proper company announcements or statements from the CEO at all. That man does not care about anyone but himself. Well just know, not taking a stance & not addressing it IS taking a stand. A stand of apathy. This company does not care for anyone. Even when backlash was given from the public, they did not care to address it. Instead of waiting for your black employees to finally say something or instead of relying on them to constantly be the “voice” why doesn’t upper management get a backbone to stand up? When ignorant things are said and you’re in a position of power you have the ability to say no, don’t wait for the person that it’s affecting to say no. What’s worse than hate? Apathy. Look it up. -Lots of gender discrimination & racial microaggressions. This company rarely has women + people of color (aside from asians - but this company’s based in HK) in positions of power. The men in upper management should take responsibility for the amount of creepy behavior, mansplaining, microaggressions they have implemented on women & others. They often lecture women here or tell them they don’t know enough about streetwear or tell them to change their personalities. Note...that every man in power in this company is single or not married. Lol says a lot much? They truly do not understand the perspective of a woman. Not that that would help the cause, but it says a lot. -All they care is about dropping product after product, making money, and giving more power to the rich upper management so they can go on their expensive golf trips and ignore the actual problems of today. -This is a company that will always prioritize the male audience over anything else. Supreme over everything. They don’t care to diversify their audience. They care very little about women & important Black voices. They only care about what hype stuff will get the young male audience another b0ner to spend their parent’s wallet to buy them another supreme drop. -Cliquey & nepotism, extreme favoritism. This company favors asian men who like bape, japanese designers, murakami, medicom toys, gaming, cars, call of duty, etc. Every thing that those rich asian hypebeast’s are all about, you name it. Those are the men who are in power “driving culture forward.” They don’t know actual culture. Sometimes managers will favor people over others and take pretty girls out to lunch, sometimes upper management will go on their special golf trips or take special people out to drinks & karaoke, sometimes upper management will grab drinks on a hotel rooftop while the rest of the staff gets paid under a sad 50k and struggles to get promoted, after endless hours of working at this soulless company. This is not a company to work for if you think you’ll get a promotion, raise, etc. They completely neglect employees here. -No voice/personality. This is a company that prides itself on being “fair.” They refuse to have editors or anyone in the company have a voice or refuse to put them as a “face of the company.” They never want to give an opinion like highsnob, vice or complex does. They fear anyone getting too big from HB and that you’ll quit after gaining some “clout.” They never tag or credit the employees here, never feature our faces or the people who do all the work bts. They just want to give drops, news & occasional features, but it’s 2020 and things are political and people want to hear opinions. How are you going to work in media and not have an interesting voices in the company? The longer you run this style, the faster the company will burn out. If you want to work like a robot and have no soul, this is the place for you. -HR has no idea what they are doing here. They’ve made so many unforgivable mistakes. -There are a lot of senior employees or people in upper management who do nothing. Literally nothing. They have some type of weird “tenure.” They didn’t get their positions because they were qualified, but more so cause they were at the company for so long. Positions of power given out of pity? -Certain managers have no idea what they are doing. A lot of incompetence & people in charge of huge accounts with many followers... -A lot of great employees have quit and HB does not care to retain them. No matter how much you’ve done or how long you’ve worked, you’re replaceable. You are just another # in their figure to be presented to their publicly traded stocks. -Tone deaf company. I repeat, they do not care about anything but money. -This is the cheapest company I’ve ever worked at. Happy Hours are spent in the kitchen, the office is ridden with mice, lack of ventilation, broken ceilings, old snacks, rotten fruit, bad coffee. Pay is shockingly low. They literally will not give a budget for employees to have decent equipment like a studio, camera, proper video equipment etc. Just to do your own job, you have to constantly nag for it. -No backbone & flakey - upper management has no backbone to stand against the CEO. The CEO has so many random ideas and a lot of them make no sense, so it’s upper management to gauge them & say no/yes when viable. But they don’t & can barely come up with better ideas. So many times employees have given their best to start projects that were assigned to them, only to have them torn down and canceled months later, because the CEO or upper management is not patient enough to let the project grow. They treat projects like skittles. Get every taste of the rainbow. -Save your time. You’re better off at Complex, Highsnobiety, Vice, GQ, etc. At least those companies have addressed the current issues of 2020 properly. Don’t work for a company that is run by cowards. Once again you are literally a robot here, they do not care if you complain or threaten to quit. You are replaceable. -Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking this review was emotional.