I remember sitting in the theater in 1996 in Alamogordo, NM, and the movie just starting was Broken Arrow, starring John Travolta. It was either the perfect theater to catch that movie, or the worst one, depending on how you look at it. The movie featured the F-117A stealth fighter/bomber. At the time, the only place you were going to find those were the 7th and 8th Fighter Squadrons on Holloman AFB, and almost everyone in that Alamogordo theater worked on Holloman, myself included.

Parts of the movie that were probably supposed to inspire awe or wonder in the audience instead drew laughter.

“Switching to stealth mode,” someone says in the movie, flipping a button. And the theater around me couldn’t stop laughing.

This post is inspired by that memory, because popular media gets a lot of real life professions wrong. If you’re looking to write about one of those professions, you’ll need to make a creative choice: do you try to represent the profession accurately, or do you go with popular media, potentially making your story easier to consume for an ignorant audience?

The Military

Military culture changes over time. It’s possible I wouldn’t recognize what it’s like in the Air Force now. I served from ’93 to ’99, and the culture also changes from place to place. So what do I mean when I say that popular media gets the military wrong? Am I talking out of my ass?

Most of the time, and for the most part, serving in the military looks like working any regular job. It is different, but not the way the media captures it.

My experience of living in the military is that we operate in different modes. It starts with basic training, which is designed to mentally breakdown all the newbies so that they’ll fit in the uniform and be able to function in high stress circumstances and follow instructions. Most of the time in the Air Force, the only time you’re going to hear “Drop and give me 20!” is during basic training.

Popular media tends to represent military life like basic training, the entire time. It doesn’t get into the other modes.

After basic training is tech school. Tech school is still strict, but the focus isn’t about trying to break people down and build them back up. Tech school is where we are taught what we need to know for our career field. If you’re single, you live in the dorms, you have a curfew, and most of your time is planned out for you. But, you have evenings. You can wear regular clothes, leave the base, pursue other hobbies. It’s closer to regular life. I’ve never been in a boarding school, but maybe that’s what tech school is like.

The next mode is your first and consecutive duty stations, and what your life is like is going to depend on where you go and what your job is. Unless you’re specifically in a combat unit, your job is like a regular job. You will work with other people in the same circumstance as you, and you will live, laugh, and love each other for as long as your unit holds. Nothing is permanent. You’re in the military, and everyone you’re serving with knows that things can change without warning, and we all might have to go do some really unpleasant things. Until that happens, we do our jobs and hold each other up. It’s kind of amazing.

The final mode is high alert, maybe combat mode. Even when not war or in conflict, bases and squadrons exercise to prepare for this. When there is combat, and you have to carry a gun and use it, there are people depending on you to do your duty and be the best version of yourself at all times. This is the mode you operate in when you’re deployed someplace hostile. It’s exhausting. People should not be asked to live like this for too long. That duration is going to be different from person to person, but 6 months to a year is probably the most I would recommend.

Popular media depicts military folks constantly talking about patriotism, honor, duty, etc. It’s not completely untrue, but it is wrong. While you’re serving, you are expressing patriotism, honor, and duty through your actions. The rest of your unit is doing the same thing. None of us have to talk about it, so we typically don’t.

Programmers

I’m mostly sticking to professions and circumstances I know, because these are the professions and experiences I’ve lived through. I feel like I can talk about what it’s like to be in the military or be a programmer with some authority, and without having to look anything up.

Popular media depicts programmers as nerds with no social life and techno-super powers, hacking into things and changing the world with computers displaying graphical interfaces. It’s not quite right, so let’s set the record straight.

Not all programmers can hack. Not all programmers are socially maladjusted. Not all of the world bends to the will of a programmer, though some of us like to think that in the right circumstances, we can make a difference.

Let’s look at real-life hacking briefly. Real-life hacking doesn’t start with someone pushing up their glasses and typing furiously into their keyboard while their computer does battle with the firewall, or whatever. Real-life hacking starts with getting personal data, either through social engineering or purchasing/trading for the data from data brokers. Sometimes brute force attacks are possible, but it’s way easier to obtain passwords through other means.

A lot of hackers aren’t using their own code, and some don’t really know how to code at all. They acquire scripts, run the scripts from zombie shells, and capitalize on the results.

Programmers are more like creative problem solvers, and they can look like anyone. Some of us are conventionally attractive and socially engaged. As a programmer, you’re typically working on or supporting a project. You know some number of coding languages. Your greatest asset isn’t your knowledge of programming languages. It’s that you can think like a programmer.

Most programmers spend their time looking at text when they’re working. There are some graphical interfaces involved in some parts of programming. Many programmers are web developers. Many of us have worked in many different parts of the stack.

I don’t know what the life of a vibe coder looks like, and I don’t want to know. I saw someone refer to vibe coders as cuck coders, because they just sit there in the chair and watch. There may be some places where AI can help a programmer, but I’m of the opinion that we’re all better off not using it.

Writers

Popular media depicts writers as being able to wonder off to another country and go on adventures, spending almost no time at all in front of a typewriter or keyboard. Writers in popular media are sometimes famous, always rich, and their lives are generally enviable and easy.

There are a few people to which that description might apply, but the vast majority of writers have day jobs. Even the ones that are sustaining themselves by their writing are rarely rich. The vast majority of writers simply do not make enough off their writing to change their lives at all, and must sustain themselves with alternate incomes. Perhaps having a spouse that’s working a more conventional job.

Popular media almost always talks about writer’s block, but rarely gets it quite right. It’s not like a ball player getting the yips. Often, writer’s block is exhaustion, because again, the day job. Sometimes it is uncertainty, as the writer has reached a point of their story in which they’re not sure what comes next. Sometimes, writer’s block is depression in disguise. We’re all different. Some of us even go so far as to deny that writer’s block is even a thing at all.

Rarely depicted in the movies is the relationship between the writer and their agent. When the writer finishes their manuscript, it is done, and all the process of revising, querying, auctioning, and selling the book is skipped.

If media showed what it’s really like to be a writer, maybe there would be fewer people trying to cuck write with AI. You’re a writer when you write, not when you pull some slop from the plagiarism machine. And that slop you generated isn’t going to win you big bucks in the publishing industry, because it’s low effort, uninteresting, and there isn’t that much money to be had in the first place.

Lawyers

In movies, lawyers are often depicted as crime fighters in suits, going on urban adventures to gather evidence to build up their case.

I’ve never been a lawyer, and I don’t know any lawyers personally, but I think that depiction is probably not accurate.

Where my personal experience intersects with lawyers is the reality of courtrooms. I’ve served on a couple juries, and what I witnessed in real life doesn’t match what is depicted on the screen. That was part of what inspired me to write The Psychic on the Jury.

Conclusion

Defibrillators aren’t used to start hearts. They’re used to restart them. When someone is having a heart attack and the rhythm is erratic or beating too fast, the shock seizes the heart muscles momentarily, and the hope is that it will resume more normally after the reset. If the heart stops, it cannot be started with a defibrillator. Only CPR or medications can treat a flatline.

Now think of how many times you’ve seen defibrillators used incorrectly in movies and TV. It’s staggering.

I’m of the opinion that it’s better to get the details right. The people that know better will be relieved, and the people that don’t know anything will learn something that might help them, should they ever wind up in a situation where they need to interact with the profession or circumstance you took the time to get right.

What professions do you see always depicted wrong in popular media? Let me know!