And then:
But here's the gist, if you'd rather: The current internet economy favors effort over creativity--a breathtakingly completist supercut of a TV show over an original idea of any kind. And the reward one gets for say, watching 80 hours of a TV show and editing together a three minute web video, is already subject to steeply diminishing returns. A year ago it would have gotten you a job at a pop culture blog; six months ago it would have gotten you millions of pageviews and Tumblr followers; now you can win a contest. But it's still better than NOTHING, in terms of compensation, which is why so many people do it instead of creating something new. And that's bad.
But maybe this is the most visible symptom of a disease that has spread or maybe always existed among content creators. Maybe effort over creativity has always been an issue. I started to think about the way I feel about my own work, which is that I have always been happier figuring things out for myself rather than learning the "right way." I have always resisted learning to mic and light my shots the way I was "supposed to." And even though that has never been the financially sound path, it has always been creatively fulfilling. Most of the time, and maybe this is only in retrospect, it has helped me create work that is, to my mind (and a few others!), distinctive and at least approaching original. Which is why I am happy with my modest web presence and interesting (and creative in their own right, in many cases) fans and friends (fanfriends? Can that be a thing?).
And yeah, so this is a dynamic that has ever been thus in terms of entertainment--slick blockbusters make vastly more money than weird, alienating (but deeply original) smaller films. But this is the Internet, a place where all of those former structures were supposed to break down and die. Instead, the norms have just perpetuated and even become more acute. Which is a drag.
But anyway, if you are a content creator frustrated by your lack of e-success, at least know that I, Zac Little, think you are probably doing something right.
The best creative lesson I can give anybody is this: don't learn anything from anyone. Not even me. Don't even listen to this! Just go fuck around in your basement with a camera for a couple years. Burn your local film school (?) to the ground. (OK: I learned a lot of the basics from a wonderful man named Peter Pijoan at a Public Access TV station in Wolfeboro, NH. You should learn about as much as I did. From him, preferably. But if he is not available, go to film school for ONE YEAR. And then burn that fucker to the ground when you're done.) As Bobcat Goldthwait recently said: "Success is for creeps." At least for now. Maybe we can do something to correct this effort and creativity imbalance. Maybe stop clicking on supercuts of people saying "supercuts" in different movies or whatever. At least as a start.
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