Working in entertainment media seems like pure fun: you spend all day reading about movies, watching trailers, and chatting with celebrities. But sadly, when a hobby becomes a profession, everything changes. Work no longer brings joy — it becomes routine with daily deadlines, schedules, and KPIs.
At Zoomboola’s https://zoomboola.com/ editorial team, we’ve faced this problem firsthand. Over the years, each of us has gone through periods where the desire to write about even our favorite things completely disappeared.
But we’ve learned to cope with burnout and even prevent it. We’re sharing our experience. Perhaps it will help not only our fellow industry professionals, but anyone who has turned their passion into a career.
Blurred Boundaries – How to Fight Them?
The most insidious aspect of our profession is the blurred line between work and leisure. A regular office worker can come home and completely disconnect from work. But we watch movies even on weekends, often not because we want to, but because we “need to stay current.”
The first sign of approaching burnout is when you turn on a new series and think not “I wonder what this is about,” but “how could I write about this.” When you’re in a movie theater automatically calculating how many likes a post about this film would get.
We realized it’s important to keep some movies and shows “for ourselves.” Everyone on the team has a guilty pleasure — films we watch purely for enjoyment and never discuss at work. Someone secretly loves Turkish dramas, someone rewatches old comedies. It’s a kind of “safe zone.”
Information Overload
In entertainment media, the information flow never stops. Every minute brings new trailers, interviews, and production news. It feels like if you miss something important, you’ll lose an exclusive or fall behind on trends.
We spent a long time trying to cover everything and constantly felt like we were falling behind. FOMO (fear of missing out) in media is a real problem. You constantly check news feeds, afraid to miss an important message in the work chat, and even track news during vacation.
Relief came when we divided responsibilities and areas of expertise. Not every writer needs to know about everything. One follows Marvel news, another covers Korean cinema, a third specializes in TV series. This not only reduced the workload but improved content quality — diving deeper into a narrow field is more interesting than superficially covering everything.
Deadlines and Constant Stress
Media always operates on tight deadlines, but the constant race for speed is exhausting. We noticed that during peak periods, the team was working themselves to the bone. Everyone wants to be first, no one wants to be late with important news.
The solution was a priority system. We realized that not every story requires an immediate response. Yes, major announcements need to be covered quickly. But analytical pieces, interviews, and reviews are better done thoughtfully, without rushing. Readers value quality over speed.
Criticism and Hate
Working in media inevitably involves being public-facing. Your articles are read by thousands of people, and not all of them agree with your opinion. In entertainment, this is especially noticeable — everyone has favorite movies and actors, and criticism of them is taken personally.
Negative comments, especially early on, really sting. When you write a review of a popular film and get hundreds of angry messages, you start doubting your own professionalism. You want to either stop expressing controversial opinions or leave the profession entirely.
Experience brings understanding: you can’t please everyone. Our job is to be honest and professional, not popular. We accept and consider constructive criticism; we simply ignore toxic comments. Support from colleagues helps too — when you know the team understands you, others’ opinions don’t seem as important.
Work-Life Balance
The main secret to fighting burnout is learning to disconnect. Everyone on our team has hobbies unrelated to movies and media. Some exercise, some cook, some study languages.
We also established a rule about not working during certain hours. Yes, sometimes we have to break it due to breaking news, but overall we try to maintain boundaries. Weekends are weekends, vacation is vacation. The entertainment industry won’t stop if we step away from the information flow for a couple of days.
Working in entertainment media isn’t just about glamour and red carpets. It’s a serious profession with its own challenges and difficulties. But if you learn to handle them, it can bring real satisfaction. After all, every day we do what we love and share that love with thousands of readers.
