26. A world full of art and no artists
"I don't have any other options, so I guess I love it."
Genetically-engineered blockbusters
Jerry Seinfeld recently finished making a movie, so right now, he’s out and about doing publicity for it. In an interview with GQ, he was asked what he thought of the film world. He didn’t pull any punches, saying “The movie business is over” and that film is just not as important as it used to be. When asked what replaced movies, his response was refreshingly direct and honest:
Depression? Malaise? I would say confusion. Disorientation replaced the movie business. Everyone I know in show business, every day, is going, What’s going on? How do you do this? What are we supposed to do now?
Seinfeld is already widely successful, so he doesn’t need to validate the film industry or play it safe. When people have nothing to prove or gain, they’re apt to say the most interesting things.
It’s not really good or bad whether people watch movies or whether movies are morally superior to streamed series. I haven’t made either, but I would venture to say that they can both be great creative enterprises in their own way.
I don’t think the problem with film is that we have different options for how to watch things. I think the problem lies with Hollywood’s business model. Over the decades, Hollywood has shifted towards taking fewer risks, even no risks at all, and producing genetically engineered hits. Sequels and reboots of durable franchises. There’s a parallel here in academia.
No one succeeds in a workshop model
In grad school I sat through many writing workshops. You and a dozen or so of your peers sit around a table and spend three hours talking about someone’s writing— a novel excerpt, a poetry collection, a short story.
Everyone spent the week prior reading and providing notes, and during workshop, you spend three hours talking about the person’s writing as if you know what you’re talking about. At the end of it, the writer gets a stack of feedback and notes.
My biggest takeaway from those experiences is that they often leave you feeling alienated from what inspired you in the first place, which is why I chose to do things differently at my retreats. I never came away from a workshop full of clarity and passion. I wondered, “But did they like it? Was it any good? Did I do what I set out to do? How much of what they all said was true and hard for me to hear, and how much was just BS to fill the time?”
The only story that succeeds in a workshop model is one that evades all possible criticism. Such a story would take no risks, be full of techniques, be intellectually relevant unto itself, and be so tepid no one could actually be passionate about it. Perhaps important, but not beloved, not impactful.
You know what’s infinitely better than a perfect piece? A piece that transcends its flaws. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Where are the creative risks?
You'd think there would be nothing but well-funded creative risk-taking in the art world with all the different platforms creators have for distributing their stuff. After all, there are fewer human gatekeepers. There are plenty of opportunities for newcomers to stand out and be seen.
As to how Hollywood lost its way, the issue is broader than just film or video. Music and writing and any other form of creative enterprise are feeling a similar pinch for attention. Why? Because to big tech, they’re all just “content.” This puts them in competition with memes and influencers. Discoverability has fallen victim to the endless scroll.
Artists are all participating in a global content market via platforms whose business models compel them to hook people’s attention so they will click ads and generate revenue.
The main kind of risk-taking comes from a race for the lowest common denominator. Creators desperately trying to build their brand and churn out novel content to hook people’s attention and accrue likes and followers. The real gatekeeper is also the invisible benefactor: the all-powerful love-it-hate-it algorithm. So, people try their hardest to crack the formula, game the system, win at the numbers game.
But this is the wrong battle for creators to have to wage. Creativity can’t thrive in such a monoculture. The algorithm has given rise to viral content, which only seems to give evidence to the illusion that success is a big numbers game. Well, I don’t know about you, but I think there’s a world of difference between being creatively successful and being viral. It’s a peculiar side effect of the Hollywood-meets-Silicon Valley business model that conflates the two.
For me, the sweet spot where creative risk-taking can thrive involves a person who makes a living at their craft and honors the truth of what they want to express or invoke—from moment to moment.
The path to success comes from being half wizard, half craftsman, while understanding that there are going to be some frogs to eat along the way.
Just as small communities (of around 200 people, according to Dunbar's Number) are where humanity has been proven to thrive, the right size for creators is 1000 or 10000. Not millions, not dozens. Somewhere in between. There's a limit to how many individuals you can maintain stable deep social relationships with, and there's a limit to how much fame a person can handle without going nutbonkers.
Be as rich as you want… and as weird
The cool thing about tech is it allows us to belong to multiple communities at once. We can spread success in this model by passing things organically from one small community to another. A confederation or republic is a more dynamic utopia than a unified landscape.
Tech isn’t to blame. But it has made things more efficient so that platforms can lock people in and alienate them from each other (and their own motives). Whenever the business model decides that it’s in the shareholder’s interest, AI will replace artists. From that point forward, we’ll have art and no artists.
If it sounds bleak, it is, but we can find a certain grim solace knowing that businesses always have a way of productizing things so that they find an appeal. I imagine this happening through the advance of AI and VR. VR will put you in charge of your content— you can live aboard the Starship Enterprise, which will empower you to interact with AI replicas of all your favorite actors from Star Trek. You will feel like you’re the creator. The real actors, of course, won’t have anything to do with it. And only corporations will benefit.
So, what are we to do about all this?
Well, I think it’s important to have platforms that support artist rights to varying degrees—and ways of paying creators directly.
Substack, to me, is very positive. I am grateful for my paid subscribers. It really warms my heart. Etsy and Instagram have been great for many independent sellers. Amazon, as much as I hate to laud the monopoly, is a prime (heh) example of a business being self-serving in a way that happens to support independent creators. Its 70% royalty share puts traditional publishing to shame.
I will always emphasize that what matters most is the creative act itself and what a person can do in their life to better connect with their innate creativity.
A person needs to make a living, but it won’t help if we believe we should all be growth gurus or else face obscurity—as if obscurity were the worst thing imaginable.
Theoretically, there’s never been a more accessible time to be an artist. In terms of tools we have available, that’s true. In terms of distribution potential, that’s also true. But in practice, there are invisible gatekeepers and we’re forced to navigate within a monopoly of tech giants. Can’t deny it.
Whether now is a good time or not to be a creative person, it must be done.
What will be will be.
In the meantime I’ll plan my artist cooperative and write my indie sci-fi and you'll find me here at TMMW. And while we’re at it…
What’s happening out there?
Now that I’ve said all that, I have a confession. I’m not hip. I don’t know much about what’s hip these days, whether with music or movies.
I just haven’t kept up. I chose a life of travel and long stints living in remote places or off-grid, which didn’t help. And I spend most of my time pursuing new things rather than, as they say, consuming content.
So here’s an open invitation to you if you want to make a recommendation. A movie, a documentary, a painting, a book, an album — your own or somebody else’s. Send it my way. I’ll even add a handy button: