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Thoughts from the
Nativerse |
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 In my last vlog, talking about the value of Art, Drama and Storytelling for our Mental Health, personal development and wellbeing. Looking at some of the consumer commentary on socials, and reviews, especially by young people, talking about the value they’d received out of seeing similarly aged characters struggling with and navigating issues just like the ones they are going through, and how much these showed helped them contextualise and cope, I couldn’t help but further double down on that there is ample evidence that the consumer market perspective backs my Creator perspective on that. But then and after also reading a lot of recent comments written on SAG AFTRA strike posts, I started reflecting more upon the ways in which we seem also, to be increasingly devaluing creatives and creativity…and the worthiness of Artists/Creatives, Creators and Educators being fairly compensated for their contributions to society. Because simultaneously that seems to be going on more and more too. So I found myself wondering too, how we might turn this around…. Streaming and Studio Execs have got to be in touch with the values of their target markets I wrote an email to multiple of the streaming companies I pay for this week, prompted by one of them notifying its customers about an upcoming price rise for the service. As the emails about it mainly focused on improving customer experience, I emailed to ask for further clarification on whether this was in any way also prompted by the recent concerns being raised by writers and actors about fair compensation for residuals for their content appearing over time on streaming platforms. And if they’d yet written a formal statement on this that I could reference? But then I also thought it was needed to make a point that I think is very relevant also for getting their markets on board with the price rise, in terms of research I’d done pre pandemic, about what drives the leadership and purchasing decisions of the younger generations, who collectively make up the large majority of their target. In addition to what I mentioned above about the younger generations absolutely identifying value not just in entertainment, but in content that they find relatable in terms of their current circumstances, challenges, growth and mental health, then there’s where they invest their money, based on their ethics. Through some research I did for Leadership articles and training material pre lockdown, I was reading a lot of research on how now more than ever, equality, ethics and sustainability are also primary driving factors in the purchasing decisions of the majority of the younger generations. And at least prior to the pandemic, research stated that the majority of the younger working generations were willing to pay a little extra, for the services of companies that have a clear position statement on and are taking a stand around ethical considerations they deem essential. Thus I would suggest that a lot of ground could be gained with their prime target market by taking a clear position of fair compensation of all involved in the creation, production, distribution, employment and the consumer chain of supply of streaming content. Not just on quality of user experience, or variety of content alone as a concern that needs addressing. One that the majority (we’re talking upwards of 70% of Gen Z’s and around 65% of Millennials and over 55% of Gen X’s alone in some studies) not just Actors and Writers, may well, statistically be on board with, if it helped ensure that creatives who are their friends and people they admire, are getting paid fairly. From a business standpoint, knowing what your market values is just smart business. BUT that being said, for that to work, I think we also need to clear up some confusion about what life is really like for the average Actress/Actor or Creative type, so that some people can better understand what getting paid fairly actually really looks like for those appearing in their content. Who might not actually be getting paid as much as some of you might think they are. Lets clear up a huge misconception about how financial life really is for many Creatives Watching the comment threads that have gone along with many of the SAG AFTRA strike related posts on IG, I can’t help but admit the one of my deep concerns in reading the comments, relates to a misconception that all Actors/Actresses and Creatives are rolling in fame and mega millions, or, at least salaries that FAR exceed their own and afford them a massively abundant lifestyle. Hence, there’s a hostility, a resentment and perceived inequality being projected there often in the comments, that Actresses, Actors, Writers, Creatives don’t deserve a thing more than they get, given that they’re already so privileged and “have it way better off.” Unfortunately, mega million dollar influencer lifestyle is not how life really is though for a lot of Actors/Actresses and Creatives, “IRL” What do I mean? According to Indeed and Payscale, the average person is appearing in Australian film and TV for an average hourly rate that is about the same hourly amount as a casual retail or hospitality worker or office receptionist or administrator might make per hour, depending on their age and level of experience. In other words, somewhere between $23-35 per hour. Especially if you’re doing background stuff. And that’s often part time, for the one day a week, or 2-4 days of consecutive weeks that they spend on set as a part of maybe 1-3 or 6 months spent here and there on filming tv and film projects. There are examples of US Actors and Actresses that have talked publicly about the fact that they got mega global exposure for working on a hit tv show you’d know well. But once it finished, they were back to working as a Janitor to pay the bills. Because mega exposure does NOT automatically equate to mega income, UNTIL (just as with start-up Entrepreneurial pursuits) you learn HOW to leverage that exposure too financially. And even though doing Ads might pay well, there are often contract conditions WITH those ads that you are locked to that one Company, and or maybe Industry, for anywhere from 3-10 years, for a one-off payment of 5-20K. Which, when you consider that WHOLE 3-10 year salary period you need to cover, might suddenly seem like not such a great idea after all, compared to those million dollar Celebrity brand deals they talked about in Jerry Macguire? Also, just so we’re clear, a whole bunch of community theatre, ISN’T necessarily a paid job for the people in it either. Just as I found to be the case for Solo Entrepreneurs, if you get to be more established and start pulling between $46-$56 per hour, or (according to ERI and Salary Explorer) an average of 58K-173K per year, it’s pretty miraculous. So much so that I’m pretty sure, in some other dimension somewhere, Ancestors, Angels (or maybe multidimensional Aliens) all start singing when any one of us actually does. But for over 90% of the profession, it is absolutely NOT the case for the majority of working Actors and Actresses that they’re rolling in some miraculously wealthy lifestyle that far exceeds YOUR salary. The reality often has been that most Creatives are not employed creatively 100% of the time, in any one of them. Which was why, when i first studied Contemporary Arts Drama at Uni at 18/19, one of the big selling points of this course was their multi-modality Career approach they were teaching to Creatives, to ensure that you built your paid professional skills across a range of different creative media, so that you’d have a greater chance of being consistently paid more for any one of your talents, at any given time. So long story short, many Actors and Creatives often need other jobs and businesses to supplement their creative income. And this is why many creatives, including myself might also be working on entrepreneurial and or other residual or “ever-green” sources of passive income as well. This is not a complaint, it’s simply intended as education on how it really is. You won’t always hear about the reality of this though, for a couple of reasons. A) Contracts requiring confidentiality. Legally, we often can’t talk with you about projects, and our real deeper motives and making a difference intents behind pursuing them, until those projects go live. Because contracts. And b) because for a long time, there was a huge degree of shame held BY successful Actors who’d had exposure, about admitting the reality that they’re not working 100% of the time creatively, and admitting that they were also employed elsewhere, or have a side Training company, or other things that they do in between. I hope in this day and age, we see that as less a sign of failure and more the lens of the paradigm of multi faceted career paths being an actual thing. So please, if you know anyone who is hating on ALL Actors/Actresses and Creatives because they think they have it so much better than they do, with their fame and fortune, please educate them on how it really is. More than that, the average Actor or Actress LOVES the opportunity to work on projects that speak to important issues and allow them to make a positive impact; that’s one of their love languages of giving. And if someone doesn’t think entertainment and comedy makes a positive impact, remind them of the likes of the impact of Monte Python over the years (I say after working one of John Cleese’s Sydney shows last night), or Aretha Franklin or Bob Marley or Queen. It’s an Art and a Science to be that good at your craft. That deserves to be respected and valued I reckon? Business and Corporate entities slowly divorcing Creative Content from the Human Face of the Artists behind it over time Have you noticed too that, financial crisis or no, there is a growing trend here that Corporate entities are progressively not just undercutting price wise the value of creative works for mass use. But also dissociating the consumer markets more and more, from the work AND any link with the Creative Artist who produced it, in the quest for instant availability of work, affordability and convenience? Especially for the realms of the Visual Arts and Music. We live in a time now where, instead of commissioning or buying an original painting or photograph anymore, many people take the convenience short cut now when it comes to visual art, of buying some cheap artistic print for $3-30 off Canva, Etsy, Amazon or any number of other platforms, rather than paying, say, plus or minus of $1500 for the original (and no i'm clearly not talking about the Glass Onion'ers who can afford the original Mona Lisa here.) The same with getting free royally free images, or an unlimited number of photographic images, graphics or templates for $17.99 per month, as opposed to paying a Photographer friend $750 - $1500 to do the same set of shots? Or someone to design the graphic or template? Most of these give you no informational AT ALL though, on who the photographer was who drew, painted or photographed the work? Which suddenly made it REALLY easy for us to start mass DEVALUEing their work, didn’t it? And live with ourselves, paying almost nothing for it, if we coudn’t actually see any human face that’s negatively impacted by our “cost cutting”, in doing so? Conversely, while royalty free music download platforms DO give you a reference to who the artist is who created it, that you’re paying for or downloading for free, the work of, and music streaming platforms and channels also list the artist/s clearly, now with automatically generated playlists and subscriptions, rather than directly having to choose and pay for a track or album, as on iTunes, or in the music stores of old, or the radio broadcasts of old, now you can have listened to 40 different artists in a couple of hours, without having a single clue who they are, or what their background is. The possibility of identification is there, BUT it’s getting easier to access music as art, WITHOUT having take any notice of it, or pay any recognition, to the Musical Artists behind it? And that I think is concerning, that music is losing a live, human face, too while slowly disappearing into the depths of the information in the World Wide Web? Also now, en masse, Authors and Writers of all kinds, Thought Leaders, Academics; both the Tertiary Institutions, Journals, the Mindvalleys and the start up Vloggers alike, YouTubers and TikTokker’s and Sole Traders equally, are in the process of getting their content, by traditional legal definitions on the subject, stolen likely under some fair use loop hole clause, and all attachment to them as the Creator slowly REMOVED, as various A.I apps and platforms, start referencing the global database of information available on the World Wide Web, to provide YOU a “convenient, done-for-you” version of…well, almost anything you like?!
Minus the porn maybe, so many of these possibilities are being marketed as wonderful tools of convenience that will make your life so much easier and save you so much time, so that you can prioritise doing more of the things that really matter, personally and professionally. They’re being met with curiosity and fascination at what these programs can do. And to be clear, I am not saying for one second that I DON’T think that A.I. can make life better and easier in many ways and that it shouldn't be a part of the future. I reckon it should. But I’ve got to ask, who is stopping to ask a few fundamental, moral compass questions about it, like:
Sometimes, progressively more so in an increasingly Entrepreneurial world, where there is far less centralised regulation, or agreed-upon minimum award conditions of compensation (at least in the highly non regulated Coaching Industry as one such past example,) the Leaders don’t seem to come even remotely close in moments to adequately foreseeing, or taking the time to think through the impact that their well-meaning pursuits and decisions, will also have for the entire industry down the line. For example, several years back, a whole bunch of 7 figure business earners got together and decided it would be a really great move on their part to both a) start giving away all the best I.P. for free (and then just charge for experiences in the room) and b) to start offering initial consults, totally for free, while moving to a model of selling whole programs, not sessions, or blocks of sessions. That’s all very well, at their level of business revenue, they could afford to absorb the cost of that. But that one decision of theirs, cost the average Counsellor, Coach or Alternative or Allied Health Practitioners earning on average only 44-55K per year, in comparison, a drop in annual revenue of 1-10K in initial consult fees, while opening up a loop hole that left all Coaches, whether start-up, or 6 year Tertiary qualified and a decade well established, vulnerable to getting pumped by some clients in that one free session, for everything they had, without the client having any intention of ever buying them. As opposed to holding to the industry standard condition that GP's, Specialists, Accountants or Lawyers, or people on salaries do as default for example, that every billable hour of their time and expertise delivered, deserves to be compensated at a specific rate or fee. That one change that "the little guy" couldn't afford, put a heap of start up Coaches and Practitioners, back in part time jobs to cover the added expense of the free session time they were now too expected to offer. And that's just one example. My point: every decision some multiple 7-8 figure business earner, Leader of an Industry makes in terms of lowering prices, or cutting costs somewhere, can have massive, massive ripple effects for the people at the bottom end of the market. And we should never forget that. Some might well go, “well that’s Capitalism, and you live on a Capitalist planet, so just deal with it already.” I might reply, "yeah we do, but why does that Capitalism have to be so zero-sum? And since when does Human Leadership come with zero responsibility for the impacts of what we create?" Here is the thing. I am the first to admit that I have had my share of failures in sustainably running a business, for fairly consistently ending up running a for-profit business like a charity; underpaying myself a salary, while prioritising still showing up for my clients in need, who used those free sessions when they were struggling to pay and making sure all my service providers still got paid fairly for as long as i could sustain. At the other end of the scale, you have the Execs of Disney or Tech Companies, complaining about business costs and salary increases they can't meet, while refusing to give themselves pay cuts and continuing to fly around in private jets. While others play in one of the biggest, mostly masculine lead, corporate tech business pissing contests of all time, trying to outcompete each other on AI, with seemingly not nearly enough f@#$s given to the consequences pending to humanity, and how many of us they'll financially undercut in the process. Somewhere between them, and those like me, with our "nightmare" excessive concern with ethics and operating with a moral compass, is an ethical, sustainable model of business. Most of my successes i HAVE had in business, and the moments I won awards for, came in working FOR others. But I have never once bought into the dog-eat-dog, zero-sum notion of business on this planet as being necessary, EVER, in order to achieve them. And I still don’t. The successes I’ve had in this lifetime, the awards I’ve won, the impacts i've made, the times I’ve spent on State, National and International Sales Leader boards, every single one of them was had, giving consideration to how I could best be of service with maximum care and authenticity, as a part of a collaborative team effort, where we challenged each other to be our best, and where (as best we could) nobody got left behind when they fell down. While operating at all times with the intent of operating in alignment with the highest good of all involved along the way, and NEVER forgetting to consider what the responsibility truly means to try and be an industry leader in the process. When I combined it with other people’s complimentary business abilities and smarts, so long as we were on the same page about our vision, values and service goals, what do you know, it works! I get it though. I know it’s also easy to fall into fear and starting to close in, in self protecting and hoarding one’s assets and trying to cut unnecessary expenses when times get tight. And the first to go are often those things and people that we DON’T think serve us. I would just ask the whole world to really, deeply consider right now, what value that Creatives, Content Creators, Artists, Actresses/Actors, Musicians, Writers and Thought Leaders, truly bring to the world, before considering cutting them any further out of your expense list. If anything, this is the time to invest IN them more and show your support. After all, without creatives, art, music, stories, entertainment, colour and content, try imagining how the world would be for a moment? And how bland, soundless, colourless, heavily medicated and depressing living in that world might be? Better yet, why not ask A.I. to generate some images, or write a story, SHOWING and TELING you what a reality without human or A.I generated creative expression, art, music, story, education or entertainment, would look like? ***END RANT*** Until next time…. Nat |
WriterIn a world in which we've got too busy for meaningful human connection, Nat talks about the ways we can bring it back. Archives
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