(Dec. 26, 2022 ● Oslin Pierrette)
We need more non-corporate culture & art, that are able to thrive. We also need to support the art & culture within our community, instead of waiting for said act to get corporate backing to believe in them. We shouldn’t need to have to scale to fairytale heights. We should be able to be an artist and still be human. Believing in these corporate business first art forms, is decapitating the art world. For one, a lot of these corporate entities don’t care or understand these art forms. Their goal is what is the most profitable route, with the most power and control. And that route is a very destructive route that affects artists and creatives. Using monetary & numbers metrics to gauge art has been very destructive to art, has been diminishing the value of art. The “art” that can cost efficiently get you the most money does not have to be good art at all. Those wells tend to dry out. And it’s getting to a point where certain wells will completely dry out, unable to tap into, a collapse of an industry.
The scaling skyhigh heights model is an unsustainable model/structure. Like looking at something and saying we have to grow our company and obtain more revenue. And it’s like why? “Public companies on the other hand need growth because they are at risk of losing their competitive edge, customers, market valuation, investment capital, and resources if they stop growing. In that case they cannot pay increasing dividends anymore and thus become a less attractive investment opportunity.” This makes it urgent that numbers and revenue are the biggest priorities. And trying new ideas becomes exponentially more risky, with your company on the line. Especially when you have to invest into new ideas, maybe even more than the norm. New ideas are untouched territory, you can’t predict that you will meet company marks. So instead you destroy these new ideas, which mitigates the risk in their eyes, and stick to what they believe makes money. I understand that’s many corporate companies’ model, but that in no way has to be the art model. That would be an unsustainable model for art and creativity. It’s destructive to creativity and innovation, which is the lifeline an artist and creative has to live in, destroying their vitality, especially if you conform to the way of corporate. Which after makes an artist and creative unessential, the essence that made them essential has been depleted.
Especially when creatives commercialize their art. Make the art more “appealing” and “marketable”, so they can sell advertisements. What made a creative essential was most likely their raw authentic creativity. But sometimes their image is too much, too abrasive to sell ads. So creatives will “clean” up their image and work to be more commercial friendly, basically selling out. Your authentic & raw personality doesn’t fit the commercial agenda, even though it made you essential. So the trade off is you’re more commercial, but disingenuous.Selling out and confining what is left of your “art” abilities, depleting your value. Like an artist creates something that pops, gets the corporate backing, and more importantly the corporate structure that they abide by. Many times that hot artist turned into a hot trend. Then after the trend was over, the value under their name and likeness dries up. They can no longer tap into their own name, because it’s washed up. Unless you get a miracle, there’s no coming back from that. That has happened to a lot of brands and creatives, that grew at a very unsustainable rapid pace during their hot trend, that they got completely juiced, dried up, and washed up.
There’s an overwhelming amount of overconsumption. We have a gluttonous and greedful society, and I don’t believe it’s because of the people. We have been force fed these ideals by corporate entities.
Creations are based on an orchestrated company timeline/calendar, and you constantly have to churn out products on the basis of the timeline. Instead of when you feel the creations should be released. A new iPhone every year, a new game of a series every year, a new colorway of a certain sneaker every 2-5 weeks. A new fashion collection 5 times a year. It’s tooooo much, it’s absurdly redundant. You just got the new iPhone and the next one is already being rolled out, with very minor changes than the previous model. You don’t even get to sit and appreciate your product, because another one is being forced on you. With all these colorways for sneakers dropping, it’s just devaluing those certain silhouettes. The consumer is getting drowned out. Like a new car every year sounds absurd. If you make a successful car, especially a mainstream car like a Honda, I’m pretty sure it buys them enough time for a couple years. Or however the car cycle works. But their business model themselves is unsustainable. They have to keep growing. That’s why I don’t like this sustainability trend within corporations, trying to create more sustainably, it’s an oxymoron. The foundations of these corporations are unsustainable. It’s like eating unhealthy meals and drinking diet soda, it defeats the purpose. “By law, a public corporation has an obligation to its shareholders to maximize shareholder profits”. They have to report positive quarterly or annual sales, this is the main priority. You have strangers with ownership in your company. Lot of investors are invested mainly because of how profitable a company is. People are mainly there for the company to raise profits and nothing else. They are not aligned with the “new idea” someone might want to bring to the company. Not interested in risk, just the same old regurgitated thing, sold constantly to the consumer.
They’re destroying the market, the consumers. Human contentment keeps diminishing. The ability for humans to discern what’s quality or not is decreasing, because the human self esteem is decreasing. The consumer is getting drowned out in overconsumption. This is great for corporations. It would profitably benefit a company if you lower the standards of quality that the consumer expects. You can make more generic and sub-generic quality products and sell, while selling to larger general markets, which makes for massive profits. Basically getting cheap garbage and making it cool. You can find that anywhere, and it takes little to no money to develop. Also can constantly replace, which gives the corporations more control and leverage. Companies, especially with a sales/profit mindset much prefer this method, rather investing in quality innovative ideas and creations. Another plus for the corporations tampering with the consumer, it destroys competition for the authentic creatives. Authentic quality creatives are going to have a harder time communicating their quality product when the consumer is hooked on artificial cheap garbage, a consumer that can’t discern quality. Corporations are making these mindless monotonous zombies. It’s harder to sell them on your lively quality work like you would to a lively human. “Say one person serves soulful baked mac & cheese, amazingly crafted. That means nothing when the customers want opioids.”
That’s why a lot of these cheap ideas are met with expensive marketing campaigns and influencers. Just keep flushing down the consumer’s throat. “If you play a song so much on the radio, at some point it’s gonna become catchy”. Also get them hooked on buying through FOMO, exclusivity, and status. Like look at the SNKRS model. It’s a whole buying culture where the consumer loses most of the time. But when you win, feels so amazing. The consumer has gotten addicted to rush of winning the chance to purchase retail items.
Another destructive tactic corporations utilize, in art I can make my product, and have people experience it. Then when they’ve done that, we can experience other art as well. That’s a flourishing art community. But in the perspectives of corporations, they want you to only stay glued to their product. If you go to experience outsiders, to them they’re losing money. It’s an insane amount of attention hoarding and greed. How do I occupy your maximum attention? Like if you’re garnering attention or gaining profit without me, then you’re against me.
Like the music and entertainment industry. There are not really mid-level avenues for creatives to live off of. This is very decapitating for creatives that want to create something for themselves. There’s really no visible market to build off of, unless you live in major cities, and even then it’s still very tough. Like if you want to make a pizza shop. Most likely people in your local area indulge and support pizza. You can take out a small loan, and rent you a space and get equipment to sell pizza. And there’s nothing to be embarrassed about, if you make good pizza, people will buy in. You can get people to believe in your pizza shop. There’s probably always going to be a market for pizza. Then you can grow as fit, once you get up and running. You can still keep your humanity, while creating a life of your own. That is not the case for music and entertainment. You can have the talent to make music. You can even invest a little to make a few songs. But locally, there’s a good chance no one’s gonna want to buy into your art. No one wants to purchase a CD or digital copy from you. People don’t even purchase music anymore for the most part. It’s also embarrassing when you’re an aspiring artist that locally nobody wants to believe in. There’s not really a market for music and creatives. If you don’t get the stamp of approval and validation from a label or viral video, it’s probably not or going to be tough for that to work out for you. That puts all the power into these corporate labels and studios. They hold all the leverage, so they can manipulate creatives however they want to. And creatives feel like they have no other option other than accepting what these labels offer. The only way to be a successful creative is to be a star. And the only way to be a star is to sell your soul for it. I’m not saying this is entirely true, but it is what many feel like the sentiment is. Feels like you have to sacrifice your humanity and rights to obtain your dreams. That’s why a lot of dream based aspirations feel unattainable.
Like I never understood, the people are spending money on the artists, spending their time streaming the creatives, purchasing a magazine because of the model, so why don’t they ever get the money. They are definitely generating billions, they are definitely generating the majority of the company’s revenue. But they get a very small minuscule percentage of the money they generated. It’s really an age old story of creatives getting robbed and manipulated. Their lifestyle is all a facade. Then it’s an excruciating battle to get their life back, to get what they honestly worked for. And it’s a losing battle many of the times.
Why would people want to be a part of these institutions? These destructive and decapitating institutions. They have no care for the creative’s well-being, even though the reason they make a living is because of them. What’s worse is that these corporation execs and workers seem to never know what they’re doing. Don’t understand how to operate the industries they are a part of. They don’t understand creative value, just how to replicate a formula that generates monetary value. That’s why the people that get these jobs are sales people. When you’re led by sales execs, that’s the mindset and values that trickles down the company. Instead of having the innovative idea head guy, making a great team to get the best ideas out.
That’s why you’ll see a lot of stories from like multiple music legends, them going from label to label, and everyone passing up on them. It’s because these people don’t have the ability to discern real value, intrinsic value. All they can do is count numbers and see monetary value. You can have a great, beautiful body of work, put it in front of their faces, and they won’t know what it is without “numbers” to prove it’s profitable. That’s their formulaic metric for valuing art, which is disgusting. That’s why people who put the work in, feel they can’t get work in these industries. “The creative space should be more merit based, on the quality of work. But him being in those spaces, he said unfortunately it’s simply not true. “It is about who you know…it’s good to spend more time building relationships than it is trying to improve your skill.” It’s pretty much evident that good relationships bypassess lack of talent and skill, more than great talent and skill bypassing a lack of relationships and reputation”. When you see all these quality creatives getting rejected, it’s disgusting to see the apathetic filths that gets chosen.
The question for a while is how do we change this. How do we change the ways of these institutions, and the answer to that is, we don’t. The institutions are what they want to be. Their destructive ways isn’t a flaw in their design, their destruction is a part of their design. You can’t fundamentally change them. Creatives have to come together to create their own institutions. Create institutions where they can finally eat the fruits of their own labor. Where they can create and still own their rights and humanity. Create institutions where other upcoming artists can finally see visible paths to create something for themselves. Create more local markets, where local art can be a sustainable market, a believable one. Dreams will seem more attainable. Which would build more healthy meritocracy. Where leaders of institutions will be able to discern real intrinsic value, and when you can do that, you can easily weed out the fake and artificial.
For example, think of the 80’s and 90’s with rap. People used to rap on corners to see who the nicest was. You were able to gain respect based on the metric of how good you were. The more respect you got, the more your name got out there. So you could go home and work on your craft, and build a real currency for yourself. Through that, you could make something of yourself. You used to hear a lot of rap stories about someone getting a record contract by being the nicest rapper on the block. There was more of a meritocracy on who got chosen, now it’s very random, in the hands and power of the label, and anybody, no matter the talent can get chosen. But that’s why we need more local art avenues that people actually believe in. Provide a circuit creatives can go through to make a name for themselves. This will revamp an authentic art economy. So people can sustainably build a life for themselves through their passions. Also not have to buy into destructive corporate label structures. Get to make a living and stay amongst the people. Not perform for a luxury group of people who are artificial, and that don’t even know how to truly enjoy art. “And to the artist whose work turns to shit inside your gut…I’ve allowed my work to reach the price point where only the class of people in this room can access it. And I’ve been fooled into trying to please people who can never be pleased.”-The Menu(2022). The consumer is the people, don’t create an artificial life where you exclude the people, like you are classes above. Be a part of the people that support you.
Art doesn’t need to go public. You make great art, and feel good about the earnings, content about it. This is the output you want to stay at. You’re happy and your situation is perfect. But then your board comes to you and say you have to grow even more after investors who don’t even care about your art at all need to be accommodated. You need to prioritize a profit for your shareholders. After a while it’s gonna be like what else, and that’s where everything gets mucky.
Basically the message is to democratize art & culture. It’s too much of a centralized power. It needs to be taken away from these evil destructive entities that don’t even value art & culture. And the power needs to be distributed throughout the people.
If the creatives never stand-up to do that. They are just choosing to be controlled slaves that have the ability to leave, but choose to stay and complain. Choosing the insanity of the current way of the industry, which is insane.