Commercialism

During a conversation with my daughter yesterday, we got to talking about the difference in our ages, and how I used to look at things when I was her age compared to how she does.  She's a lot smarter at 32 than I was; yet of course I have the benefit I hindsight on that and she doesn't.  In any case, with one thing or another, I started thinking about where the world was when I was 32, and what I knew.

My entire experience with the internet in 1996 was sending the occasional email, and I didn't send too many of those.  I didn't have a good practical internet computer until 1997, and I didn't actually hook it up to the internet for the first 18 months of my owning it.  That's incomprehensible now; I mean, what would I do with a computer that didn't have internet?

At 32, I still had to learn out how to lay out publications on a desktop; I didn't know publisher yet.  The game I played then was very different and much less complex than the one I play now.  My trade system hadn't been solved and things like my background generator or even the structure of the maps I've created wouldn't emerge in my creative process for at least another decade.  I had to teach myself a new type of excel and get used to new word processors.  I wouldn't see my first blog until 2003.  It isn't just that computers changed the world, it's that I had to learn an enormous amount about computers and making use of them, to become the savvy person I am now ... and I had to do that long, long after I had finished university.  I wasn't a kid in 2000; I was 36.

It's a bit funny to hear someone mumble on about how long it's going to take to read so much material, or learn how to draw or paint, or to write or master an instrument.  I'm connected to people who are trying to use this Covid-time to start youtube channels for let's play gaming or low-brow documentaries ... and they tell me, "I've been at this for six months, I've done 70 videos ... how come no one comes to my channel?"

Because this shit takes a long time, and that doesn't matter.

I started this blog in 2008; I've written over 3000 posts and I'm doing "okay" but I'm certainly no Jingles.  There are lots of D&D creators who started after me, who are doing better than me financially, though I hate their work — but none of the stayers have been at this less than 10 years.  Guys who popped up fast in the early days of 2009, like James Raggi, have since lost their legs ... I notice James Maliszewski is blogging again, churning out the same content he did 8 years ago.  "Churning" is the winning strategy ... and it takes a lot of resolve to just churn and churn and churn.  Guys like Tim Brannan or Barking Alien, they're still here because they've found some power in themselves that enables them to just keep going.

That's not always a good thing.  Season #237 of the Simpsons proves that.  But presumedly, if the creator keeps at it, they'll learn new techniques and conceive new ideas and add features to their internet presence.  What's sad about so many people on the intenet, no matter what the subject, is that the content they're producing today is no different from what they made 10 years ago.  They're not growing.  They're not learning.  And, in fact, some of them take pride in not changing at all.

The justification is that they're doing this as a "hobby" ... it suits them, they're not concerned about likes or page views and they certainly don't want to monetize their hobby.  I've had many a discussion over the last ten years with those who think in the short run that they'd like to monetize what they're doing — only to learn, to their misery, what monetizing actually means and what a horrible process is involved.

I don't have any trouble monetizing my work because, in 1982, when I was fresh out of high school and wanting to be a writer, making money was always the goal.  I spent a decade sending work off to publishers in vain, costing myself money in printing and postage; when I started at the university paper, which was not just to teach students how to write and lay out publications, it also sold advertising to support itself.  I learned how that advertising worked, and how to sell space, so that when I started some 'zines of my own in the '90s, it was always to make money.  When I wrote a play and found space, I sold tickets; and when I worked with film companies as an actor or a script doctor, we were all there to make an independent film that would make money.  Long, long before the internet became a thing, all the writers and musicians I hung around with talked about how they were going to turn their product into money.  It seems kind of crazy to me that there are people running around on the internet who (a) don't think something they write should be "tainted" by money; and (b) find such distaste at the idea of "selling themselves."

Yet what is youtube except an independent sort of television studio?  With commercials and ratings collected in page views?  What is a blog or a website but a print publication on a different format?  And why does performance art and written content exist?  Why has it ever existed, going back to the 15th century printing press, or performances of the Agamemnon in ancient Greece?  To make a buck, of course.  To entertain an audience in exchange for the coin that audience will willingly part with, because the entertainment is worth it.

I didn't change from the world of 1996 to the world of 2021 just because I liked to learn things.  I changed because I talked to other people who discovered new ways to sell old things, and I followed the paths they laid out.  I saw people getting attention from blogs and I thought, "Hey, I can write, I can do that.  And I can think of things to write, too!"  I'd had a lot of practice inventing my own content, going back to when I used to do it for those publishers who ignored me.  I tried youtube, I tried soundcloud; I learned things and I've thought how to better use those venues — and I have some ideas I'm going to launch this summer.  Lulu publishing worked well for me; I feel I've finally turned myself around and there will be titles in the near future.  All that is only saying, I'm still following the money.

It's pretty easy to work for a company and have them pay out.  The goal posts are clear, there's none of that pesky asking people for money up front, and since work is almost never creative, there's no sense of prostituting one's personal thoughts or ideas.  A job, even a career, is about getting into harness, pulling like a mule and then feeling good because the bucket is full of oats afterwards.  Straightforward, direct, pre-determined.  Even if we have to be a mule.

Selling one's art is not like that.  It isn't just an exchange.  We love the work, we love how it looks or sounds or how we feel at something we've put so much work into creating.  It's personal.  It's costed us.  We've had to bleed a little, and not like a mule bleeds, but like a mother bleeds.  Putting it out there and then asking for a few grubby coins in exchange feels ... well, if you're not used to it, it feels bloody awful.  It is even worse when the buyer opens it, or hears it, and say, "what a lot of shit.  I feel ripped off."

Who needs that?

Well, me.  Because that's not the side I see — partly because I've been doing this a very long time.  The side I see is the friend I chance into who sends me a text, "Hey, I was thinking about that play you put on back in, what was it, 2001?  That was a good play."  I hear the reader who says, "Are you publishing another book?"  This is, like, five years after the last book I published.  Five years later and that reader isn't thinking about the cost of my book.  Art is a product.  One that everyone has in their home; and which they turn to for solace.  Do you care that you had to pay money for Eric Clapton?  Do you care that the picture over your bed, that you love, cost you money?  If you could purchase concert tickets for anyone you love right now, would you care that they were $500?  Wouldn't you sacrifice a kidney right now to see a concert?

This notion that some people have, that they don't want to sully their work with crass commercialism, don't hesitate to sully the work of others with money they want to spend.  The actual reason is that selling a product — any product — is hard.  We have to convince people the product is worth buying; and then we have to convince them it's worth the price we name; and we have to organize ourselves so that when they buy the product, we have it and can get it into their hands in a complex, internet-driven world.  It doesn't matter if we're selling our painting or a child's doll.  The principles are the same.  Most people aren't ready to push themselves to learn the business well enough to make this process doable.

I do wish, however, they'd recognize that was the reason, and not invent excuses like "crass commercialism" being to blame.

Honestly, I'm a little surprised at how far I've come in the last 24 years.  And it's interesting to wonder where my daughter will be, 24 years from now, with all the changes that are going to pass in the time that's coming.  I really had some big hurdles to overcome, to stay in the front line.  The hurdles she will have won't be any easier.  But then, like I say, she's a lot smarter than I am.  That might be on account of whom she had for a dad, compared to whom I had for a dad.