Alex Laughlin has a rather interesting piece he composed for Defector that I found fascinating, but probably not for the reason Laughlin intended, and allowed me to embrace in the inner old man that I’ve been slowly becoming as I shake my head at “kids these days.”
https://defector.com/resonate-podcast-festival
The article itself chronicles the rise and inevitable fall of the Podcast Boom, as defined by the Resonate Festival, and how ironically it is perhaps in a better place now that all the big money interests are gone and they are allowed to simply be themselves.
I drew a different lesson from it, though. I saw a collection of people desperate to find some handhold for their passion project to make money and allow them to continue doing it. Podcasts have merely become the latest creative venture where people are reckoning with a depressing reality of humanity and the societies we build around themselves.
“Podcasts are dead?” The average human asks. “But I listen to Joe Rogan every day!”
That is the painful truth that quite literally every creative medium faces eventually. Just like books. Just like artwork. Just like movies. Just like television. Video games are right in the middle of that devastating sorting. Streamers are getting beaten with that reality right now like it’s a mafia shakedown.
I happens to all of us.
The discovery that the average human being could not give one single solitary fuck about creative work, with the exception of a handful of rather generic, unchallenging examples that they can nod their head to, not require a terrible amount of thought, and give them a momentary distraction before they jump back into the rat race that is their daily lives.
It is nigh impossible for anyone other than those few examples to ever make a living solely on creative work, and often times the people that do are more lucky to get that critical opportunity than simply being so good they can’t be denied the spotlight. Sure, about twenty gazillion people listen to Joe Rogan. A million billion people will happily read something from John Scalzi or Stephen King. They’ll gleefully line up to watch the next big film starring one of the Wilson brothers (I actually have forgotten just how many of them are in Hollywood right now). Hideko Kojima could be the producer of “Kojima Shits on a Plate” and have approximately seven million people desperately asking if it comes with a “Smell-o-Vision” feature.
(I want to be clear that I’m not attempting to particularly drag anyone I’m naming here. Another harsh truth that the desperately creative don’t like to face is that there are very, very few genuinely awful creators who don’t know their craft at the top of any given heap. They are more than great at what they do, even if they rose to prominence due to things outside of their creative skill set. Time to cope and accept it, Mr. I Got 17 Subs via Spotify.)
But 99.9% of the people who try their hand at creativity are simply never going to make enough and get enough of an imprint for it to their path to a comfortable life. That’s the reality, and no amount of social or economic upheaval is going to unlock more slots in the collective interest of human kind. It’s an exclusive club, and you are overwhelming unlikely to ever get an invite. That simply has to be okay, because that’s not going to change.
Now, I’m not trying to deter anyone from creating. That would be… (looks back at his bibliography) rather hypocritical. If you are willing to tear yourself apart to scream into a void, go for it. Just don’t expect anyone to listen. Don’t expect anyone to particularly care. If you get lucky, get that shot, and find a hand hold to build from, go for it, don’t look back, and don’t apologize for your good fortune.
But don’t spam social media with your links. Don’t be a nuisance trying to advertise yourself to a public that doesn’t give a fuck. Don’t be a shit heel trying to drag down anyone you think “got lucky,” thinking that it’ll help you advance in any tangible way.
And get off my lawn.
Metaphorically, of course. I don’t have a lawn. I live in a moderate apartment in a suburban commercial district.
TKO Creations 