The two biggest music media controversies of the week come from the outrage over Amanda Palmer's asking for musicians to contribute to her tour for free (particularly egregious, critics say, after having such a successful Kickstarter campaign), and Prefix magazine's payment scale coming to light, an insult to the pure-hearted souls who labor daily over a hot mp3 stove to bring you people fresh content.
How dare people like these ask for free labor? Think of the children!
I'm not here to defend either Palmer, or Prefix, neither of who I have any grudge against, but there's a very real reason why both feel like they don't need to pay for the services of musicians and music writers: the value of both in the contemporary market place is effectively zero.
Writing about music, I can tell you with a high degree of certainty, is not real work. Writing about it consistently and in volume is something different, yes, and a person who can do that deserves to be compensated, but the market is so crowded with thousands of music blogs and would-be music journalists that the idea that what you do when you sit down to share your feelings about a song is somehow worth money to anyone is laughable. I know, because that's my job. I get paid pretty darn well for it, sure, but I've been doing it for ten plus years. There is a demand for my services. It's the same thing with playing an instrument. I tried doing that for many years as well, and no one wanted to pay me to do it, so I stopped.
It's something I got at here in this piece about Kickstarter in general. Not everyone should be allowed to pursue their dreams. You know what job I want? Football hero astronaut porn star. But there aren't many openings for that position at the moment, so I'm going to go find other work. A colleague of mine said that sites like Prefix are cheapening the value of young writers' work. I think teaching young writers to value their work is probably not a very good lesson in the first place, because it artificially inflates their expectations. So too do Kickstarter projects for bands where their friends and family guilt-donate money so they can play dress up for a few years. The grim reality is, if you're any good at what you do, someone is going to pay you for it. If not, welp, we're all going to die miserable and alone anyway, so might as well get a head start on practicing for the job of regular-ass person.
We've only got ourselves to blame for all of this, by the way. If anyone who's really mad about either of these issues wants to actually do something about it, however, maybe try this: buy a fucking record or a magazine with actual money for once in your life you deadbeats.
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7 comments:
Color me Paul Ryan—actually, DON'T—but isn't this reminiscent, a bit, in some of the issues presented in, say, Atlas Shrugged? i.e. everyone wants it to be a fair game playing field (everyone gets a first-place medal!) but that's not really how life works 'cause some people are good at certain things and some are good at others and the ones who ARE good and have a good work ethic will find a way to make their shit work out?
It's hilarious, because you from 10 years ago would quite possibly be up in arms about being denied an avenue to prove your value and eventually reach the stage you've achieved, wondering what crawled into Future Luke's craw and died there.
But I guess that's between you and former you. See you in Galt's Gulch!
If you take that libertarian shit to its conclusion, then you've got people unfit for anything who deserve to die via their laziness. I think everyone deserves a reasonable job at a fair wage, and that no one should be able to gorge themselves on the labor of others. That doesn't mean we all get to have the dream job we want.
Your’re a mixed bag, O’Neil. You obviously get paid by all the big flashy places you write for, but you also do this. Street Carnage didn’t pay, right? Does Bullett pay? How much of your writing are you doing for love (I typed that while using both hands to make a heart shape) and how much are you doing for profit? And are you still slinging scallops at Temple Bar like some writer Andy Kaufman? Anonymous posters who know you but don’t know know you IRL want to know.
SC was supposed to pay, but going to get into that now. Bullett pays, and pretty well actually for internetty features. Not bad for quick bloggy stuff either. The big places all pay well, for sure. Gotten as much as 2 dollars a word for glossies, 1 for national dailies. Typically around 25 to 50 for print. I keep an occassional night at tempies just in case, since even places that pay well often ttake their sweet time about it and daddy has a lotttt of useless student loans to pay off.
I do this site for the love of the game. Which is what younger writers should do if they want to get started
Sweet. Listen to that, chillun, Luke has done this shit correct. You just dropped an internet comment that is way more useful than enrolling in a writing program.
Thanks. Also, don't enroll in a writing program unless someone else is paying for that shit.
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