Danica Swanson
@danicaswanson
On a related note: I’ve always believed it is fundamentally wrong that humans who’ve achieved professional-level skills in an art form are structurally coerced into selling the best hours of their day to “earn a living” instead of using that time for their own creative work. That's a huge collective loss to everyone who appreciates art, writing, music, etc.
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Ife
@ifeoluwafavour
A big loss, and I think that's why a lot of us are burnt out. It shouldn't be this way.
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Danica Swanson
@danicaswanson
Agreed. But I'll also admit that I've been resisting this particular systemic pattern my entire adult life (I'm GenX) in various ways, and I don't expect things to change significantly in my lifetime. Wish I had something more hopeful to say about it.
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Ife
@ifeoluwafavour
😪 it's all good
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Danica Swanson
@danicaswanson
It's not, though. It's not good at all. (I imagine you were just trying to be reassuring with that comment, so I hope you'll forgive me for riffing on it to drive my point home). To take just one of many examples: I love @matthewb's hifi writings. I want him to be able to spend his days on that work (and other niches in which he's achieved excellence artistically) -- work he clearly enjoys, and work that his readers like me appreciate. I want the same thing for many other casters here, and ultimately for every other person who's clearly put in the years of work necessary to achieve excellence in an art form. I believe that for everyone who seriously practices an art form, there's an audience out there that needs and will appreciate their work. Might not always be a large audience, and that's OK. So every time the artists and writers are structurally coerced into doing whatever else earns them more capital, it's a loss to all of us who appreciate their work. https://warpcast.com/matthewb/0x0ab180f0
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Ife
@ifeoluwafavour
I'm not offended at all. I spoke with a neighbour last month who gave up writing poems because he doesn't make any money from it and he has no idea of how he can earn from it. I tried giving him some ideas (creating content) and he didn't want to. He preferred the store where he sells grocery items. He has a whole PDF of poems but he has given up. There are a lot of us who don't have it in us to do the extras of filming, editing, SEO, etc for us to earn anything from our art. It IS sad. It is and I my contribution is encouraging any artist I come across because art is a fundamental part of life.
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Danica Swanson
@danicaswanson
After years of trying to fund my creative work through Patreon, Substack, Paragraph, Zora, and elsewhere... I understand your neighbor's stance. I gave up music journalism for similar reasons. I loved the work, but I simply can't manage a whole production studio by myself, on top of everything else. For years I worked as a professional home organizer + house cleaner to support my creative work. Sometimes I think about returning to that line of work, but I'm much older now and less physically agile... so I don't think I'd have much (if any) energy left over for writing at the end of the day. Keep encouraging artists. Art is a literal lifeline for many people. Practicing art is profoundly valuable, regardless of whether the creative output is ever validated in market terms.
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Ife
@ifeoluwafavour
Oh my 😟 I hope you're earning more than enough as an artist Danica. ❤️ I accepted my fate to market my art myself so I'm learning the ropes of content creation.
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