Comin' Round The Bend

 

If writers are not owed a living, how the heck do we survive?

Following on from last week’s newsletter when I mentioned the WGA writers’ strike, Bill Maher summed up the issues by proclaiming that screen and TV writers shouldn’t expect a guaranteed income. He said that the nature of the industry was so hit and miss that nobody who makes entertainment shows should feel secure.

Trouble is - and I can vouch for this personally - TV and movie producers use this attitude to screw writers, all the time. They make them write on spec, for nothing, for as long as possible, letting you know you have no power or influence over a project until the very last second, until they realize the project can go no further without your enthusiastic involvement.

That’s the free market, Bill says. That’s how it works. The actors and tech people are on the same deal. When you want to work in the arts, you have to accept that living a life of uncertainty and potential poverty is the trade-off for success, if and when it comes.

Basically the system is unfair but it keeps out the wannabes, the people with no talent, and those who aren’t committed enough to stay the course.

I understand the theory and to some extent the arguments but seeing as the digital entertainment industry is one of the fastest growing employment sectors on the planet, it might be time to consider a change in attitudes towards artists in general.

Of course everyone is concerned about AI. Will the film industry start using machines to make movies? The answer is simple. That ship has sailed. The music, movie, video game, and publishing industries have been using machines, robots, and AI for the last twenty years. Everything we do is already controlled and run by our electronic overlords and we, the people, are probably the last to realize the extent.

So it makes perfect sense to me that writers want to get paid, and would like their futures to be protected.

Curiously, when we study the strike, we discover it’s not the studios that are the problem. They’re happy to pay writers. Of course they are.
Because they know writers are, and always will be, essential, even when we use AI as virtual assistants.

No, it’s the streaming services that don’t want to cough up. They want to profit from playing the films and TV shows but they don’t like having to guarantee paying the creators of all that product.

Same with companies like Amazon and Spotify. These monoliths are constantly trying to pay fewer royalties to artists, writers, and creators - and they certainly don’t want to be tied to agreements when the future is so uncertain.

Think about it this way.

We’re creating a world where everything is synthetic.

Digital media rules, and it makes a lot of money. But it’s totally ephemeral. No books and movies and music actually exist anymore. It’s all computer code that’s used to generate the livings of the hundreds of thousands of people who create media content. If we lost the power to generate electricity, our world would be nothing but a heaving mass of humanity and little to show for itself: a planet that is basically a blue ball in space supporting nearly eight billion people with not enough resources to go around.

We live in a Fake World.

Fake music, fake shows, fake artists, fake images, fake words, and of course the thing that started it all, fake news.

Trouble is, and the robots were the first to understand this, we like it.

Digital media homogenizes everything: art, creativity, all digital content is just cash generating fodder.

But when did art become mere product?

When WE became the robots.

That’s the sad thing. We’re worried about AI and machines taking over but the fact is we are the robots. Have been since social media began following our every click in the name of marketing and sales. Online we’re followed, analyzed, and quantified. Our every thought is predicted.

Offline, everything beeps and we respond. From crossing the road to boiling the kettle our daily lives are programmed. The supermarkets use our loyalty cards to learn the food we eat. Cable companies track what we watch. Employers report on us. Banks and finance companies monitor our earnings and our spending. Cameras in malls and on our streets follow us. Governments collate and restrict our movements, use tax and benefits to cripple us. Our health is undermined for the sake of profit. We are no longer free or independent. Haven’t been for decades.

And basically, it’s our own fault. Our lives are too predictable. Ask Facebook and Google for confirmation. They know how and when we will react, to the last split second. Our actions and reactions are known to the machines, down to the food we eat, the way we spend our time, the people we meet, all of our needs and wants and desires. The robots already know what we have, why we have it, and what we can’t live without.

We are already slaves in a world where the computers are in control. They give us what we need, even before we know we need it. When we show an interest in products, goods, holidays, hobbies, whatever, the system will hound us 24/7 with news, marketing, and updates on all of those things.

The system follows us, tempts us, exploits us in a relentless pursuit of cash, with no thought to whether we can afford the items, the lifestyle, or the consequences of the purchases we can’t afford.

We live in a hedonistic world of credit card debt, mortgaged beyond our means, always owing more than we’ll ever earn.

So yes, if writers are to be part of the system, this brave new world, we should damn well get paid to feed the machine.

Keep Writing!

Rob Parnell’s Writing Academy