My name is Nicole. My band is Hello, The Future! I am the only person in my band.
So Patreon.
How it works: instead of paying artists for items like mp3 files or YouTube videos (which, of course, we already get for free), Patreon asks audiences to subscribe directly to an artist and pay a designated amount for each thing created.
That is: you pledge to give Julia Nunes a dollar for every music video she makes (with a pre-set cap so you don’t overdraft your bank account if she gets way super creative), and then you get to watch the videos for free.
If you pledge additional amounts, like 10 dollars per music video, you get additional benefits (Google Hangouts, early releases of new material, etc.).
I both really like this idea and have this deep ambivalent feeling about it, and I was trying to figure out what the ambivalent part was, but I think it’s this:
Patreon raises the bar for “content creators” in a direction I don’t get to decide if I want to go because it’s a direction I can’t go.
That is: right now it looks like anyone can join Patreon (and I am currently testing this process) but I don’t have a professional headshot of my face against a black background.
And my computer can’t handle Google Hangouts any more; every time I try to do one my laptop overheats and crashes. (This is also why I have stopped making YouTube videos.)
And I could continue the list but the short version is that Patreon makes the box in which the content is housed as important as the content, and right now I only have the resources to fund the content.
So Patreon feels like a game I can’t play.
And then I feel doubly badly because I’m all “but a real artist would go out and get those headshots, wouldn’t she?” If I were really serious about what I was doing, I’d get a new laptop and a new guitar and a new video camera and new recording equipment and try to play at the top of the game, instead of at the level I can currently afford.
What do you all think?
Please tell me I am not the only person who wants to hear Dany say “oh, Daario” in Serena’s voice.
A number of people have been asking for script images of their names in Castithan and Irathient (not so much Indogene. Where’s the love?) over the past few weeks, and that’s fine: If I don’t get to it right away, I’ll get to it. But of late there have been a number of requests for names in the …
There may not be a Japanese name variant of David, but there are definitely Japanese name variants of Amy, Rae, and Mina. ;)
Still working on the Fancy Fan Art contest, but I have to share this right now. Adam wrote a song about my comic and I don’t even
Yay two of my favorite tastes tasting great together!
Or… something.
Two reminders:
1. I will be performing at Phoenix Comicon in the Captain’s Cantina at 9:00 p.m. this Friday.
2. That is not how you spell “comic-con.” IT MAKES MY EYES HURT.
In which I appear on The Geekmusic Podcast, Episode Two, and talk about American musical culture and music education in schools.
The big question: does America have a musical culture of performers or listeners? I argue performers, Dara argues listeners. Listen to the podcast and then tell me what side you’re on.
Interesting Salon interview with Jaron Lanier titled The Internet Destroyed the Middle Class.
(Thesis: Kodak employed 140,000 people, Instagram employs 13. Thanks, internet!)
A good portion of his article (including the above quote) is about the economy’s shift to freelancers and “content creators,” and about how there’s this model that’s kinda working okay if you’re young and healthy but doesn’t allow you to build a life.
(Of course Lanier is both a successful freelance writer and a performing musician. But he’s talking about the *rest* of us.)
I both agree with what he’s saying - I can already see far enough down the line to know that a life of perpetual touring will become tedious in a year or so, and yes, I don’t get any paid sick days - and also want to say “but it was always like this!”
Because musicians have to sing for their supper for every meal, but so do hourly service workers and people who work mostly on commission and all the jobs like caterer or taxi driver or substitute teacher, all of which have existed long before the internet.
It’s not the internet’s fault that America doesn’t have legally-required paid sick days, and it’s not the internet’s fault that many jobs are difficult for older people to perform, and it’s not the internet’s fault that many jobs make it extremely challenging to both work and raise a family (even the “good jobs;” ask Anne-Marie Slaughter).
And yet people still have families and people still work when they are older and people still make this “biologically unreal” life work, mostly because they have to.
It might be the internet’s fault that there are fewer jobs. (We’d have to run some serious statistics on that.) But it’s not the internet’s fault that Lanier doesn’t get sick days and isn’t able to retire early. That’s the way it’s been for decades, and maybe it’s just Lanier’s first time figuring that out.
May 20, 1990: Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson’s remarkable Kenyon College commencement address on creative integrity.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
You know nothing, AV Club Game of Thrones reviewers.
This first draft is clearly authentic.
(From ShitRoughDrafts.com)
