The Money is in All the Wrong Places
August 10, 2022 8:41 AM Subscribe
What this means is that the door a writer could step through to make a career 50 or even 20 years ago, the one opening onto a life where someone who works hard and does well could buy a house on the strength of that work alone, has been slammed shut. Defector's Kelsey McKinney writing about the uproar directed at Sydney Sweeney's interview with the Hollywood Reporter on how difficult it is to make a living as an actor (or musician, or model) without wealth, connections, or both. (DefectorFilter)
McKinney draws a parallel between writing and acting, pointing out that the money hasn't left either industry, but that it belongs in different hands now, managers and CEOs, and increasingly, the only way to make it in any arts based industry is to be wealthy enough in the first place to be able to afford to do it:
That’s not because there isn’t money to be made in any of these industries, either—not just Sydney Sweeney’s, but mine, too. Some people are making very good money in these fields, and have been for a long time. They just aren’t the people making the art—the product, if you want to think about it like that. They aren’t the people whose names you know, whose lives can upend overnight because of the attention and lack of privacy that fame brings. They are people who profit off art without actually making it.
Come for the raw anger, stay for the dawning realization of just how many actors, musicians, and writers who are popular today are themselves the daughters or sons of other actors, musicians, and writers.
McKinney draws a parallel between writing and acting, pointing out that the money hasn't left either industry, but that it belongs in different hands now, managers and CEOs, and increasingly, the only way to make it in any arts based industry is to be wealthy enough in the first place to be able to afford to do it:
That’s not because there isn’t money to be made in any of these industries, either—not just Sydney Sweeney’s, but mine, too. Some people are making very good money in these fields, and have been for a long time. They just aren’t the people making the art—the product, if you want to think about it like that. They aren’t the people whose names you know, whose lives can upend overnight because of the attention and lack of privacy that fame brings. They are people who profit off art without actually making it.
Come for the raw anger, stay for the dawning realization of just how many actors, musicians, and writers who are popular today are themselves the daughters or sons of other actors, musicians, and writers.
(and heck! Even the UK side is full of public and boarding school products*. At least actors like James McAvoy are trying to do something by throwing support to scholarship programmes for the arts, but it's just family money all the way down.)
*Henry Cavill's Superman promo rounds - with his boarding school anecdotes - crack me up once i noticed the dissonance
posted by cendawanita at 8:57 AM on August 10, 2022
*Henry Cavill's Superman promo rounds - with his boarding school anecdotes - crack me up once i noticed the dissonance
posted by cendawanita at 8:57 AM on August 10, 2022
Come for the raw anger, stay for the dawning realization of just how many actors, musicians, and writers who are popular today are themselves the daughters or sons of other actors, musicians, and writers.
It's been that way for a while, but sports is becoming like that too, and yeah, it sucks when you come to the realization that the son of X Hollywood star is going to be a more famous actor/musician/athlete than Jenny from the block no matter how good she was in high school stage plays or in band because they already have the connections, the money, and the personal training.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:59 AM on August 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
It's been that way for a while, but sports is becoming like that too, and yeah, it sucks when you come to the realization that the son of X Hollywood star is going to be a more famous actor/musician/athlete than Jenny from the block no matter how good she was in high school stage plays or in band because they already have the connections, the money, and the personal training.
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:59 AM on August 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
I was reading about a Jezebel article (I know, I know) about former iCarly star Jeanette McCurdy's autobio in which she was raised by an abusive mother in a poor family so the Disney show was a ticket to stability, but her co-star Ariana Grande was raised by wealthy parents so she was given a lot more flexibility with her burgeoning musical career because she didn't need to rely solely on the show.
posted by Kitteh at 9:00 AM on August 10, 2022 [14 favorites]
posted by Kitteh at 9:00 AM on August 10, 2022 [14 favorites]
...stay for the dawning realization of just how many actors, musicians, and writers who are popular today are themselves the daughters or sons of other actors, musicians, and writers.
Hasn't that really been the case, in any field you care to mention, since humans started diversifying into talents/trades/aptitudes/etc.? Parents helping their kids get a break or leg-up in their own field is a pretty time-honored tradition.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:11 AM on August 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
Hasn't that really been the case, in any field you care to mention, since humans started diversifying into talents/trades/aptitudes/etc.? Parents helping their kids get a break or leg-up in their own field is a pretty time-honored tradition.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:11 AM on August 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
I have a simple question:
Why does anyone, anywhere, make more money in employment compensation than the people who keep the power grid up, communication networks functioning, potable water running through pipes, sewage going where it needs to go, and food available to eat?
Just asking.
posted by cool breeze at 9:12 AM on August 10, 2022 [27 favorites]
Why does anyone, anywhere, make more money in employment compensation than the people who keep the power grid up, communication networks functioning, potable water running through pipes, sewage going where it needs to go, and food available to eat?
Just asking.
posted by cool breeze at 9:12 AM on August 10, 2022 [27 favorites]
Parents helping their kids get a break or leg-up in their own field is a pretty time-honored tradition.
For sure. Re: this piece though, what's been horrifying was learning streaming show stars get no residuals/royalties unlike their predecessors (and in fact you can spot the generational break in their lifestyle amongst the currently popular folks, between those who's managed to get some tv career going and those who didn't, even if they're the same age range and similar non-Hollywood backgrounds). For me that's what I'm noticing: the scale and speed of the money pooling back into the usual suspects.
posted by cendawanita at 9:15 AM on August 10, 2022 [9 favorites]
For sure. Re: this piece though, what's been horrifying was learning streaming show stars get no residuals/royalties unlike their predecessors (and in fact you can spot the generational break in their lifestyle amongst the currently popular folks, between those who's managed to get some tv career going and those who didn't, even if they're the same age range and similar non-Hollywood backgrounds). For me that's what I'm noticing: the scale and speed of the money pooling back into the usual suspects.
posted by cendawanita at 9:15 AM on August 10, 2022 [9 favorites]
There have always been cliques which use influence to gain more money, especially in the arts, but I think the focus of the original article - that the contemporary creative scene is unfairly balanced because of management edging rewards away from the talent - is an excellent point. It reminds me of the writing of Mark Fisher, who wrote about the increasing professionalisation of every job, amongst other things, and was a low-key Marxist at a time when that was severely out of style.
What these new hierarchies are crap at doing is making interesting media that reflects current times. There’s definitely a Marxist reading for that.
posted by The River Ivel at 9:25 AM on August 10, 2022 [14 favorites]
What these new hierarchies are crap at doing is making interesting media that reflects current times. There’s definitely a Marxist reading for that.
posted by The River Ivel at 9:25 AM on August 10, 2022 [14 favorites]
Yes, why don't we see shows where plucky protagonists band together to destroy some appalling modern status quo so everyone can have a better life, rather than find a gimmick that just works for themselves?
Can you even imagine Norma Rae being made today?
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:36 AM on August 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Can you even imagine Norma Rae being made today?
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:36 AM on August 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Never really thought of Hollywood, LA, etc, as very democratic or 'meritocratic' in the first place.
posted by signal at 9:38 AM on August 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by signal at 9:38 AM on August 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
So much of this is reminiscent of the red flags raised by musicians 15 or 20 years ago. Artists struggling to make a living creating art because of a proliferation of entertainment options and the devaluation of their labor? Artists making a fraction of a pittance off streaming unless they’re superstars, while corporate bosses rake it in? Hmmm, that all sure rings a bell …
At least so far no one has trotted out the “who cares? There’s been more music/film/TV series created than I could consume in a lifetime” argument that made those past conversations so frustrating.
posted by pwe at 9:46 AM on August 10, 2022 [12 favorites]
At least so far no one has trotted out the “who cares? There’s been more music/film/TV series created than I could consume in a lifetime” argument that made those past conversations so frustrating.
posted by pwe at 9:46 AM on August 10, 2022 [12 favorites]
Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:06 AM on August 10, 2022 [20 favorites]
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:06 AM on August 10, 2022 [20 favorites]
I'm much older the Sweeney and I'm still struggling with this. I work for myself (which actors basically are) and I recently had to turn down a very, very lucrative project because it required a significant capital outlay and I wouldn't get paid for 3 months. I would have easily been out $20-30k, plus having to live off savings and there was no guarantee I'd be paid. Without changing the subject too much there's always a non-zero chance they're not happy with the work or there's unrealistic expectations, it is just the risk of doing business. Even in well defined industries like construction where you have plans, drawings and presumably have done the same project a bunch of times before there's always back and forth.
I tried desperately to get them to pay me in milestones monthly and they wouldn't budge, then suggested I ask my family for money if I couldn't afford it. And you know what? I know people my age who still go to family for loans for things like that which means they can take larger risks, if they can't pay it back it doesn't impact their credit, etc. And larger risks means not only better pay but more prominent projects and frankly they do a better job as they're not thinking they'll be on the street when it ends.
There's no reason to combat this. It is why people like Bill Gates or George Lucas or any really captains of their industry tend to come from wealthy families. This is downplayed a lot, I've even noticed people from prominent local families get in the national news and it'll be like, "their father owned a grocery store in Kansas," making it seem like there's a guy in front of a small quaint building when in reality I know they own like 100 grocery stores in the region and are millionaires many times over.
posted by geoff. at 10:08 AM on August 10, 2022 [50 favorites]
I tried desperately to get them to pay me in milestones monthly and they wouldn't budge, then suggested I ask my family for money if I couldn't afford it. And you know what? I know people my age who still go to family for loans for things like that which means they can take larger risks, if they can't pay it back it doesn't impact their credit, etc. And larger risks means not only better pay but more prominent projects and frankly they do a better job as they're not thinking they'll be on the street when it ends.
There's no reason to combat this. It is why people like Bill Gates or George Lucas or any really captains of their industry tend to come from wealthy families. This is downplayed a lot, I've even noticed people from prominent local families get in the national news and it'll be like, "their father owned a grocery store in Kansas," making it seem like there's a guy in front of a small quaint building when in reality I know they own like 100 grocery stores in the region and are millionaires many times over.
posted by geoff. at 10:08 AM on August 10, 2022 [50 favorites]
At least so far no one has trotted out the “who cares? There’s been more music/film/TV series created than I could consume in a lifetime” argument that made those past conversations so frustrating.
But that's true, and that's part of the problem, more so with music than radio than TV because TV actually has far more varied fare than radio. It's also true that musicians can surpass the technical achievements of The Beatles with a home setup. To go back to TV, it's also true that broadcast tv is far less popular, with televised sports being the by far most popular tv shows. I'm bet executives are thanking God that the NFL is right around the corner.
It's interesting that people originally thought that streaming was going to sort of 'democratize' music, but the big promotional budgets for new hits are just the same, only the medium has changed, not the desired for 'shared connection/shared language' which drives big musical hit popularity.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:15 AM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
But that's true, and that's part of the problem, more so with music than radio than TV because TV actually has far more varied fare than radio. It's also true that musicians can surpass the technical achievements of The Beatles with a home setup. To go back to TV, it's also true that broadcast tv is far less popular, with televised sports being the by far most popular tv shows. I'm bet executives are thanking God that the NFL is right around the corner.
It's interesting that people originally thought that streaming was going to sort of 'democratize' music, but the big promotional budgets for new hits are just the same, only the medium has changed, not the desired for 'shared connection/shared language' which drives big musical hit popularity.
posted by The_Vegetables at 10:15 AM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
There is a pretty big disconnect between artists saying that everything is so much worse than it was a generation ago and my experience that every form of media I can think of is so much richer and more diverse and more available than it was a generation ago.
posted by straight at 10:19 AM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by straight at 10:19 AM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
I've even noticed people from prominent local families get in the national news and it'll be like, "their father owned a grocery store in Kansas," making it seem like there's a guy in front of a small quaint building when in reality I know they own like 100 grocery stores in the region and are millionaires many times over
I was recently listening to a movie review podcast and the hosts were making fun of a particular film's depiction of its villain—who owned a chain of car dealerships—as being extremely rich and politically powerful. They thought it was an absurd exaggeration of the wealth and influence that could be accrued by what is basically a local small business owner. Then one of the hosts thought to look up the net worth of a similarly prominent figure from his hometown who also owned multiple auto dealerships—and they were flabbergasted to learn that he was worth over $500 million.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:31 AM on August 10, 2022 [43 favorites]
I was recently listening to a movie review podcast and the hosts were making fun of a particular film's depiction of its villain—who owned a chain of car dealerships—as being extremely rich and politically powerful. They thought it was an absurd exaggeration of the wealth and influence that could be accrued by what is basically a local small business owner. Then one of the hosts thought to look up the net worth of a similarly prominent figure from his hometown who also owned multiple auto dealerships—and they were flabbergasted to learn that he was worth over $500 million.
posted by Atom Eyes at 10:31 AM on August 10, 2022 [43 favorites]
There is a pretty big disconnect between artists saying that everything is so much worse than it was a generation ago and my experience that every form of media I can think of is so much richer and more diverse and more available than it was a generation ago.It may seem like a disconnect, but it’s actually two sides of the same coin. Thanks to the web, the last 20 years have seen an unprecedented privileging of the consumer. As you say, you now are able to get any product you want -- whether that’s a physical product, or a song, a TV show, a car to take you somewhere, etc. -- faster, cheaper and more easily than ever before. But those benefits don’t come without serious costs: to artists, to independent businesses, to the environment, you name it.
Whether you feel those costs are made up for by the benefits is up to you to decide, but it’s not really fair to suggest they don’t exist.
posted by pwe at 10:44 AM on August 10, 2022 [21 favorites]
There was a time when scads of lower class poor people made their living in entertainment. Before the movies and the radio every city had multiple performances every week: plays, music, dance, comedy routines, acrobats, recitals, lectures, magic lantern shows, animal acts, magicians, you name it. Touring companies and troupes hired people at living wages to perform, and agents were always looking for more talent. An act only stayed in town maybe three nights before everyone within easy distance who would want to see it had had a chance to see it, and then they moved on. Think about the vaudeville era. A single venue might showcase a half dozen different groups of performers in one night - first the Carlo Trio, two sisters and a cousin singing sentimental songs, then Moses Levy doing a comedy routine, then the Lilliputian Opera Company consisted of two dozen children under the age of twelve doing D'Oyly Carte highlights, then a spectacular dance routine by four couples in evening dress, and then a fakir going into a trance and making mystical predictions about people in the audience before he did a knife throwing act with his assistant, a buxom young person wearing fleshings. (Tights that gave a superficial appearance of bare arms and legs.)
If you wanted music your choice was live music. Bands, orchestras, piano players...When the movies first came in every moving picture theatre had pianists who played exciting music to accompany the flickering black and white images. You had live musicians if you wanted music at your party. Cabarets and speakeasies and saloons all had live music. Remember the piano player in every Western movie with a scene in a saloon? There was tons of work, but there wasn't very much money. There were a few international stars, from Padrewski through Bernhardt to Nellie Melba but most of performers were only famous within a small circuit, if they were known at all. Miss Alba White would be a well known attraction throughout all of Middlesex. She might hope to someday get to Broadway but more likely she was putting her savings away with an eye to getting married after a twenty-year long career before the bloom wore off and she got too old to have a baby. There were so many performers then.
Many of them were actually members of minorities who needed to make an itinerant living. If you had to travel from town to town anyway, performing was a good option. Performers often teetered on the edge of not being respectable. People didn't burn with the desire to be a star the way they do now, because before modern media, fame wasn't even possible. Performing was an occupation like drawing teeth, or painting signs, or selling ribbons. You had to keep moving on so you wouldn't run out of customers.
But then we got media and name recognition. We got Broadway and Hollywood, and people who could advertise that they had toured in Europe, or the United States -"Just back from his triumphant Tour of Twelve European Capitals!" At that point there started to be serious money in it, and at that point there started to be real competition.
Nowadays most people who go into performing do it because they want to be famous. Sometimes they do it to be creative. But the people who would be doing it for the income have long ago been squeezed out. There are far too many people who want to do those things to need to pay anyone. Instead there are plenty of people who are willing to pay to be in the performance, or to get their chance to be part of the glamour. The New York Film Academy offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Filmmaking that costs $12,666 for a single semester. They don't have trouble attracting students, because there are so many people who want to get into the field who are willing to outlay $100,000 simply for a chance to learn, even while they know that the chances of getting employed are minuscule. It's not enough to be talented enough to get into the school, it's not enough to be rich enough to blow that much money on education that will almost certainly be a dead end, you also have to stand out in some way.
The way you stand out is either by being rich enough to produce movies out of your own pocket, or by having lots of contacts in the profession who will green light you because they know your dad, or by having a recognizable name that will bring instant investment money. In fact, the celebrity professions has gotten rarefied enough that you might not even make it in show biz if you don't already have all three.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:45 AM on August 10, 2022 [67 favorites]
If you wanted music your choice was live music. Bands, orchestras, piano players...When the movies first came in every moving picture theatre had pianists who played exciting music to accompany the flickering black and white images. You had live musicians if you wanted music at your party. Cabarets and speakeasies and saloons all had live music. Remember the piano player in every Western movie with a scene in a saloon? There was tons of work, but there wasn't very much money. There were a few international stars, from Padrewski through Bernhardt to Nellie Melba but most of performers were only famous within a small circuit, if they were known at all. Miss Alba White would be a well known attraction throughout all of Middlesex. She might hope to someday get to Broadway but more likely she was putting her savings away with an eye to getting married after a twenty-year long career before the bloom wore off and she got too old to have a baby. There were so many performers then.
Many of them were actually members of minorities who needed to make an itinerant living. If you had to travel from town to town anyway, performing was a good option. Performers often teetered on the edge of not being respectable. People didn't burn with the desire to be a star the way they do now, because before modern media, fame wasn't even possible. Performing was an occupation like drawing teeth, or painting signs, or selling ribbons. You had to keep moving on so you wouldn't run out of customers.
But then we got media and name recognition. We got Broadway and Hollywood, and people who could advertise that they had toured in Europe, or the United States -"Just back from his triumphant Tour of Twelve European Capitals!" At that point there started to be serious money in it, and at that point there started to be real competition.
Nowadays most people who go into performing do it because they want to be famous. Sometimes they do it to be creative. But the people who would be doing it for the income have long ago been squeezed out. There are far too many people who want to do those things to need to pay anyone. Instead there are plenty of people who are willing to pay to be in the performance, or to get their chance to be part of the glamour. The New York Film Academy offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Filmmaking that costs $12,666 for a single semester. They don't have trouble attracting students, because there are so many people who want to get into the field who are willing to outlay $100,000 simply for a chance to learn, even while they know that the chances of getting employed are minuscule. It's not enough to be talented enough to get into the school, it's not enough to be rich enough to blow that much money on education that will almost certainly be a dead end, you also have to stand out in some way.
The way you stand out is either by being rich enough to produce movies out of your own pocket, or by having lots of contacts in the profession who will green light you because they know your dad, or by having a recognizable name that will bring instant investment money. In fact, the celebrity professions has gotten rarefied enough that you might not even make it in show biz if you don't already have all three.
posted by Jane the Brown at 10:45 AM on August 10, 2022 [67 favorites]
This is *right* next to another FPP about how terrible the conditions in the special effects industry are. Welcome to the club, actors. Welcome to the fucking club.
Hollywood will fuck you. Hollywood will fuck you hard. Hollywood will hold out the dream of making a living at whatever part of the entertainment industry you are called to, and maybe you will be one of the vanishingly small number of people who actually manages that, but probably you will just wind up being ground to dust in the gears of the entertainment industry. Hollywood is endlessly creative in finding ways to divert money away from the people who do the work and into the pockets of the megacorps that own everything, and the horrible investment funds behind them.
A certain amount of this money does need to get diverted away - the money to make the flops has to come somewhere, and you don't get hits without taking risks on a lot of possible flops - but there's a lot more money flowing away from the people who do the work, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, than there should be.
And strikes are hard because there is always some new kid just getting off the bus with stars in their eyes, willing to do absolutely anything for A Career In Hollywood!!!!.
posted by egypturnash at 10:48 AM on August 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
Hollywood will fuck you. Hollywood will fuck you hard. Hollywood will hold out the dream of making a living at whatever part of the entertainment industry you are called to, and maybe you will be one of the vanishingly small number of people who actually manages that, but probably you will just wind up being ground to dust in the gears of the entertainment industry. Hollywood is endlessly creative in finding ways to divert money away from the people who do the work and into the pockets of the megacorps that own everything, and the horrible investment funds behind them.
A certain amount of this money does need to get diverted away - the money to make the flops has to come somewhere, and you don't get hits without taking risks on a lot of possible flops - but there's a lot more money flowing away from the people who do the work, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes, than there should be.
And strikes are hard because there is always some new kid just getting off the bus with stars in their eyes, willing to do absolutely anything for A Career In Hollywood!!!!.
posted by egypturnash at 10:48 AM on August 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
Lawyers and banks are still making a ton of money off financing Hollywood. Same as it ever was.
There was a time when scads of lower class poor people made their living in entertainment.
I hate to say "citation please" but there's a reason entertainers were known as "lower class poor people" ... I don't think made a living is what you think it means. If anything we're going back to a time when entertainers barely made money and had to take on multiple jobs to do their craft.
posted by geoff. at 11:14 AM on August 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
There was a time when scads of lower class poor people made their living in entertainment.
I hate to say "citation please" but there's a reason entertainers were known as "lower class poor people" ... I don't think made a living is what you think it means. If anything we're going back to a time when entertainers barely made money and had to take on multiple jobs to do their craft.
posted by geoff. at 11:14 AM on August 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
"The shadow of our destiny is racing towards us — a promise that meritocracy was a lie, and that we all live in and with the stagnant reality of that. There is a dread building, a bleakness that is already casting a shadow on the future. Maybe you feel it, too."
I do indeed. Without my parents having my back I have no idea how I would have made it.
posted by gestalt saloon at 11:15 AM on August 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
I do indeed. Without my parents having my back I have no idea how I would have made it.
posted by gestalt saloon at 11:15 AM on August 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
Oh and not to thread sit, I pressed post too soon. Sydney Sweeney is incredibly lucky as her parents moved to LA to help support her career. I understand their relationship didn't work out and it was hard on her but that's still a huge advantage not only in signaling to her that they support her but giving her at least a chance to succeed. A lot of parents simply don't support their children and that's another topic if they're morally or ethically obligated to but the fact is a lot are lucky to get through high school and make it on to college.
posted by geoff. at 11:22 AM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by geoff. at 11:22 AM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Come for the raw anger, stay for the dawning realization of just how many actors, musicians, and writers who are popular today are themselves the daughters or sons of other actors, musicians, and writers.Welcome to the meritocracy.
I'm in my 60s. When I was in my 20s I thought maybe there was a chance I could get paid to have opinions on certain topics (I had a lot of time invested in understanding nuclear weapons and foreign policy and Soviet affairs) but eventually gave up on that. I did notice that the people who were getting paid for that tended to be of a more upscale background, shall we say, than I. And also, most of them, accumulating a life history of never, ever, coloring outside the lines or venturing off the beaten path. But mostly it seemed, being born to parents that could send you to Princeton instead of State U, and (maybe more importantly) knowing that from early on, and having it drummed into you that it was a thing not to be wasted by screwing around with distractions. And also probably having parental support for those vital first few unpaid/nugatory compensation jobs.
Anyway it's not just music and film and writing. It's basically all of the fun mind-involving work, especially anything that might influence the thinking of others who have real power to change the world.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 11:57 AM on August 10, 2022 [20 favorites]
There is a pretty big disconnect between artists saying that everything is so much worse than it was a generation ago and my experience that every form of media I can think of is so much richer and more diverse and more available than it was a generation ago.
This is also true of consumer goods. Anything you can imagine, delivered to your door, tomorrow at the latest. Wages though are the same or lower than they were a generation ago (not adjusting for inflation, in real terms they’re much lower).
posted by rodlymight at 11:59 AM on August 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
This is also true of consumer goods. Anything you can imagine, delivered to your door, tomorrow at the latest. Wages though are the same or lower than they were a generation ago (not adjusting for inflation, in real terms they’re much lower).
posted by rodlymight at 11:59 AM on August 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
> and heck! Even the UK side is full of public and boarding school products*
Here's a 2016 Guardian article on the topic, "Why working-class actors are a disappearing breed"
I've heard similar things about k-pop idols in Korea, that increasingly they're coming from wealthy families. A relative mentioned that talent scouts hang out near schools in wealthy neighborhoods of Seoul, such as the neighborhoods in the districts of Gangnam and Seocho, on the lookout for prospective idol trainees. Supposedly wealthy kids are favored because they tend to already have been taking music lessons, gotten teeth fixed if needed, etc., so there's less outlay from the entertainment agency signing them up in fixing up their looks and training them to be idols.
posted by needled at 12:03 PM on August 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
Here's a 2016 Guardian article on the topic, "Why working-class actors are a disappearing breed"
I've heard similar things about k-pop idols in Korea, that increasingly they're coming from wealthy families. A relative mentioned that talent scouts hang out near schools in wealthy neighborhoods of Seoul, such as the neighborhoods in the districts of Gangnam and Seocho, on the lookout for prospective idol trainees. Supposedly wealthy kids are favored because they tend to already have been taking music lessons, gotten teeth fixed if needed, etc., so there's less outlay from the entertainment agency signing them up in fixing up their looks and training them to be idols.
posted by needled at 12:03 PM on August 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
Welcome to the meritocracy.
Welcome to the layer cake.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:26 PM on August 10, 2022
Welcome to the layer cake.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:26 PM on August 10, 2022
I hate to say "citation please" but there's a reason entertainers were known as "lower class poor people" ... I don't think made a living is what you think it means. If anything we're going back to a time when entertainers barely made money and had to take on multiple jobs to do their craft.
posted by geoff.
When I say it was making a living, I mean that you might not be able to buy new shoes when you needed them, but you probably didn't go hungry and you didn't sleep rough. And you had that in common with a large percentage of the population. Making a living to me, when applied to that era means that you didn't have to resort to charity, begging or crime. I don't use it to mean that you'd be able to support a family, without your kids taking up the work too - the same as when many a farmer's kids were found spending hours in the fields picking potato bugs.
The first full length talkie came out in 1928, and by then the silent pictures were already producing stars that were household names, like Mary Pickford. Louise Brooks would be a good example of someone whose career as an film actress came from starting a career in performance as a child, that transitioned to the New York stage and then film stardom. It wasn't just films that led to glamour personalities. That started much earlier, at least as far back as the eighteen hundreds when newspapers and playbills could be used to attract the buzz needed to get a big audience and create name recognition.
Charles Dickens is another example of a big name performer - he toured widely reading his own works. I am using the term "making a living" in that context of that era too. Dickens wrote about the poor people who were his own contemporaries, who considered living two families in a single room as not unusual circumstances for people who were making a living, since it was staying out of the workhouse, not being taken up for vagrancy and required making the weekly rent to avoid eviction. Dickens himself was wealthy because of his success. He died with an estate of £80,000. During that decade most people in the US earned less than half a dollar a day.
If we move forward in time to just a hundred years ago, Moses Levy was a real person. He was my father's uncle by marriage; the Carlo Trio were my grandmother's cousins; my father's mother, her sister Edith and her brother Howard were in the Lilliputian Opera company circa 1910. Dorothy, Edith and Howard all got into the Lilliputian Opera Company around the age of six or seven because their father was a drunk and their mother needed to find them work because she couldn't support them alone. Dorothy and Howard aged out of the profession in their teens, while Edith continued performing and touring after she married Moses Levy, but gave it up when the kids started coming. Moses Levy did his last performance at the Lebanese Club in Philadelphia around 1970. He was probably about seventy-five or eighty then himself. He died a few months later.
So citations I do not have for this, as I started with family anecdata. For comparison tho, you can look at other low end occupational options prior to 1928 - coal miner before the unions got in, taking in laundry, casual field labour at harvest time, street sweeper (back when winter snow removal was done by men wielding shovels), carman (someone whose marketable skill was the rapidly obsolescent one of driving a horse drawn vehicle as casual labour by the day), live in domestic servant, traveling salesman where the family slept underneath the wagon, as Willy Loman mentioned as his childhood in Death of a Salesman.
Some idea of wages and prices here But I think if we differ on what it means to be "making a living" it's because I am talking about conditions farther back than you were expecting, and over a longer period of history.
posted by Jane the Brown at 12:32 PM on August 10, 2022 [42 favorites]
posted by geoff.
When I say it was making a living, I mean that you might not be able to buy new shoes when you needed them, but you probably didn't go hungry and you didn't sleep rough. And you had that in common with a large percentage of the population. Making a living to me, when applied to that era means that you didn't have to resort to charity, begging or crime. I don't use it to mean that you'd be able to support a family, without your kids taking up the work too - the same as when many a farmer's kids were found spending hours in the fields picking potato bugs.
The first full length talkie came out in 1928, and by then the silent pictures were already producing stars that were household names, like Mary Pickford. Louise Brooks would be a good example of someone whose career as an film actress came from starting a career in performance as a child, that transitioned to the New York stage and then film stardom. It wasn't just films that led to glamour personalities. That started much earlier, at least as far back as the eighteen hundreds when newspapers and playbills could be used to attract the buzz needed to get a big audience and create name recognition.
Charles Dickens is another example of a big name performer - he toured widely reading his own works. I am using the term "making a living" in that context of that era too. Dickens wrote about the poor people who were his own contemporaries, who considered living two families in a single room as not unusual circumstances for people who were making a living, since it was staying out of the workhouse, not being taken up for vagrancy and required making the weekly rent to avoid eviction. Dickens himself was wealthy because of his success. He died with an estate of £80,000. During that decade most people in the US earned less than half a dollar a day.
If we move forward in time to just a hundred years ago, Moses Levy was a real person. He was my father's uncle by marriage; the Carlo Trio were my grandmother's cousins; my father's mother, her sister Edith and her brother Howard were in the Lilliputian Opera company circa 1910. Dorothy, Edith and Howard all got into the Lilliputian Opera Company around the age of six or seven because their father was a drunk and their mother needed to find them work because she couldn't support them alone. Dorothy and Howard aged out of the profession in their teens, while Edith continued performing and touring after she married Moses Levy, but gave it up when the kids started coming. Moses Levy did his last performance at the Lebanese Club in Philadelphia around 1970. He was probably about seventy-five or eighty then himself. He died a few months later.
So citations I do not have for this, as I started with family anecdata. For comparison tho, you can look at other low end occupational options prior to 1928 - coal miner before the unions got in, taking in laundry, casual field labour at harvest time, street sweeper (back when winter snow removal was done by men wielding shovels), carman (someone whose marketable skill was the rapidly obsolescent one of driving a horse drawn vehicle as casual labour by the day), live in domestic servant, traveling salesman where the family slept underneath the wagon, as Willy Loman mentioned as his childhood in Death of a Salesman.
Some idea of wages and prices here But I think if we differ on what it means to be "making a living" it's because I am talking about conditions farther back than you were expecting, and over a longer period of history.
posted by Jane the Brown at 12:32 PM on August 10, 2022 [42 favorites]
I have a simple question:
Why does anyone, anywhere, make more money in employment compensation than the people who keep the power grid up, communication networks functioning, potable water running through pipes, sewage going where it needs to go, and food available to eat?
Just asking.
posted by cool breeze
Because the whole purpose of accruing status and wealth is so that you don't have to be one of those people. The first marker of status and power is not having to do scutwork. The farther removed you are from doing anything that actually needs to be done, the higher your status and power is. Of course you also claim that what you are doing is of more value than what they are doing. You are "leading" or "creating great art" or "having original ideas." They are just keeping people alive, fed and sheltered and safe. Any boob can do that.
posted by Jane the Brown at 12:55 PM on August 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
Why does anyone, anywhere, make more money in employment compensation than the people who keep the power grid up, communication networks functioning, potable water running through pipes, sewage going where it needs to go, and food available to eat?
Just asking.
posted by cool breeze
Because the whole purpose of accruing status and wealth is so that you don't have to be one of those people. The first marker of status and power is not having to do scutwork. The farther removed you are from doing anything that actually needs to be done, the higher your status and power is. Of course you also claim that what you are doing is of more value than what they are doing. You are "leading" or "creating great art" or "having original ideas." They are just keeping people alive, fed and sheltered and safe. Any boob can do that.
posted by Jane the Brown at 12:55 PM on August 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
It's interesting that people originally thought that streaming was going to sort of 'democratize' music
I'm continually appaled at just how wrong I was about Internet anything being a democratizing force instead of a tool to concentrate power and money.
posted by Dr. Twist at 1:00 PM on August 10, 2022 [20 favorites]
I'm continually appaled at just how wrong I was about Internet anything being a democratizing force instead of a tool to concentrate power and money.
posted by Dr. Twist at 1:00 PM on August 10, 2022 [20 favorites]
Nowadays most people who go into performing do it because they want to be famous.
I think that the most visible people in the performing arts certainly want to be famous, especially in the era where visibility is so much more in reach because of social media.
But I've been a professional performing artist for almost 30 years now, and only a very tiny minority of my working colleagues have ever expressed a desire to be famous. Fame seems like a burden and a chore. Steady work, the respect of peers, and access to opportunities, on the other hand? There's not a one of us, at any level of our careers, who doesn't long for that. And I cannot agree with the article more that those things are getting more difficult every year for those without significant financial resources.
posted by minervous at 1:04 PM on August 10, 2022 [23 favorites]
I think that the most visible people in the performing arts certainly want to be famous, especially in the era where visibility is so much more in reach because of social media.
But I've been a professional performing artist for almost 30 years now, and only a very tiny minority of my working colleagues have ever expressed a desire to be famous. Fame seems like a burden and a chore. Steady work, the respect of peers, and access to opportunities, on the other hand? There's not a one of us, at any level of our careers, who doesn't long for that. And I cannot agree with the article more that those things are getting more difficult every year for those without significant financial resources.
posted by minervous at 1:04 PM on August 10, 2022 [23 favorites]
The farther removed you are from doing anything that actually needs to be done, the higher your status and power is.
Well- yes and no.
If the furnace conks out in mid-winter and you don't know thing one about getting it running again but the "pretty busy right now" heating guy does, your perspective of status and power (assuming you're stupid enough to judge people by the color of their collars) is going to change real fast.
posted by BWA at 3:12 PM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Well- yes and no.
If the furnace conks out in mid-winter and you don't know thing one about getting it running again but the "pretty busy right now" heating guy does, your perspective of status and power (assuming you're stupid enough to judge people by the color of their collars) is going to change real fast.
posted by BWA at 3:12 PM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Nope!
If you're the one with the money, you tell someone to get out of their own warm bed at 2 in the morning and come over and fix your furnace, and they'll do it because they want to pay rent and eat and stuff. That's the power of capitalism, being able to wave money at someone to make them do something they don't want to do because they want to survive the next day. And if the first furnace guy doesn't want to do it, there's another one who will.
And that's why we don't have basic income.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:24 PM on August 10, 2022 [12 favorites]
If you're the one with the money, you tell someone to get out of their own warm bed at 2 in the morning and come over and fix your furnace, and they'll do it because they want to pay rent and eat and stuff. That's the power of capitalism, being able to wave money at someone to make them do something they don't want to do because they want to survive the next day. And if the first furnace guy doesn't want to do it, there's another one who will.
And that's why we don't have basic income.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:24 PM on August 10, 2022 [12 favorites]
For christssakes, has the movie industry ever not been this way? And I wouldn't be so quick to hold out the vaudeville era as any kind of aspirational model. "Lower class" in this instance could probably be better understood as "desperate".
Still, I've never worked in the industry, but have known many who did and still do. I tend to think that the top of the entertainment business may be one of the few places where someone could come from poverty and find a path to high status more realistically than many other industries.
There is a huge supply and demand factor going on here. Probably the biggest factor. As usual, the kids with connections and privilege enjoy a big advantage.
posted by 2N2222 at 4:22 PM on August 10, 2022
Still, I've never worked in the industry, but have known many who did and still do. I tend to think that the top of the entertainment business may be one of the few places where someone could come from poverty and find a path to high status more realistically than many other industries.
There is a huge supply and demand factor going on here. Probably the biggest factor. As usual, the kids with connections and privilege enjoy a big advantage.
posted by 2N2222 at 4:22 PM on August 10, 2022
They are people who profit off art without actually making it.
I can't think of an industry where this isn't happening
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:55 PM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
I can't think of an industry where this isn't happening
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:55 PM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
And I wouldn't be so quick to hold out the vaudeville era as any kind of aspirational model. "Lower class" in this instance could probably be better understood as "desperate".
posted by 2N2222
Yep. Desperate is not far off. I cited vaudeville as aspirational compared to the workhouse, or being taken up for vagrancy, or being evicted. It could be considered glamorous now by someone on a nostalgia history kick, but only from the same kind of distance that makes the death of John Henry the Steel-Driving man feel glamorous.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:20 PM on August 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by 2N2222
Yep. Desperate is not far off. I cited vaudeville as aspirational compared to the workhouse, or being taken up for vagrancy, or being evicted. It could be considered glamorous now by someone on a nostalgia history kick, but only from the same kind of distance that makes the death of John Henry the Steel-Driving man feel glamorous.
posted by Jane the Brown at 5:20 PM on August 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
Grunts and peons are abundant and of low value and easily replaced.
The thing about fame is that if it goes well, it gets you a lot of money, but also stalkers and stress. Unfortunately, these days you can get YouTube fame and stalkers and stress but maybe not the money to pay for it all.
Once again, another thread in which I realize that a day job that makes me crazy is still better than any other option.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:13 PM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
The thing about fame is that if it goes well, it gets you a lot of money, but also stalkers and stress. Unfortunately, these days you can get YouTube fame and stalkers and stress but maybe not the money to pay for it all.
Once again, another thread in which I realize that a day job that makes me crazy is still better than any other option.
posted by jenfullmoon at 6:13 PM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
It is why people like Bill Gates or George Lucas or any really captains of their industry tend to come from wealthy families. This is downplayed a lot, I've even noticed people from prominent local families get in the national news and it'll be like, "their father owned a grocery store in Kansas," making it seem like there's a guy in front of a small quaint building when in reality I know they own like 100 grocery stores in the region and are millionaires many times over.
And even in the case of Sydney Sweeney, she attended the most expensive private school in Spokane, had parents who were a lawyer and 'in medicine', and grew up in a lakefront home. I'm guessing her current $3 million home is smaller the one she lived in as a 13 year-old. She's coming from a background near the top of Spokane and North Idaho's class structure and yet she's presented as an example of a working class actor in this article. I'm sure Sweeney has worked hard for everything she has and I respect her for that, but the class issues discussed in the article are disparities between the rich and the super rich.
posted by nangua at 6:23 PM on August 10, 2022 [15 favorites]
And even in the case of Sydney Sweeney, she attended the most expensive private school in Spokane, had parents who were a lawyer and 'in medicine', and grew up in a lakefront home. I'm guessing her current $3 million home is smaller the one she lived in as a 13 year-old. She's coming from a background near the top of Spokane and North Idaho's class structure and yet she's presented as an example of a working class actor in this article. I'm sure Sweeney has worked hard for everything she has and I respect her for that, but the class issues discussed in the article are disparities between the rich and the super rich.
posted by nangua at 6:23 PM on August 10, 2022 [15 favorites]
" about former iCarly star Jeanette McCurdy's autobio in which she was raised by an abusive mother in a poor family so the Disney show was a ticket to stability,"
This is a really good book that everyone who cares about movies/TV as an industry should read.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:31 PM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
This is a really good book that everyone who cares about movies/TV as an industry should read.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:31 PM on August 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Wait, she's got parents who are lawyers and in medicine (aka big pharma?) and the article characterizes her as "lower-middle class"? If true, that's pretty annoying.
posted by flamk at 10:23 PM on August 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by flamk at 10:23 PM on August 10, 2022 [3 favorites]
Wait, she's got parents who are lawyers and in medicine (aka big pharma?) and the article characterizes her as "lower-middle class"? If true, that's pretty annoying.
Yeah, what?! She talks about having to hustle for $100 gigs. Even if her parents were poor, they moved across the country to support her. The Les Wexner documentary on Victoria's Secret did the same thing. His parents owned a department store in Columbus Ohio and didn't want him to do anything else but take over the store. It made, again, him out to be a average midwestern boy who dig good. Except it kind of quickly glossed over that a kid out of college with no experience was given the equivalent in 2022 of a $50k loan from his aunt and another $50k from the bank. I don't know how many people straight out of college can get an unsecured $100k loan to start a risky fashion business.
Similarly a lot of class isn't even about money to an extent. I could never convey the story above about a project and getting paid because my parents only had salaried jobs and just completely don't understand why I don't just get a "normal job." Or when my friends would go to spring break together and my parents made fun of them in front of me and told me how important it was that I put in 40 hours into whatever crappy job that doesn't matter now. Except those spring break trips formed bonds and connections that helped them to this very day and my time working in construction didn't really help my career at all.
And also, most of them, accumulating a life history of never, ever, coloring outside the lines or venturing off the beaten path. But mostly it seemed, being born to parents that could send you to Princeton instead of State U, and (maybe more importantly) knowing that from early on, and having it drummed into you that it was a thing not to be wasted by screwing around with distractions. And also probably having parental support for those vital first few unpaid/nugatory compensation jobs.
Again another classism thing isn't so much about money per se but having family that doesn't understand the importance of class identifiers. From personal experience I have some family members who went to prep schools and Ivy and got some pretty cushy jobs at white shoe firms. My parents don't understand why I don't get those jobs and it must be because I'm not trying hard enough. Again, they worked one blue collar job their entire life and didn't have college degrees. They don't understand you can't just apply randomly to Sequoia Capital. They said I have a chip on my shoulder because I have a cousin who got a very nice cushy job, incredibly high paying job at a FAANG even though she has no tech experience but went to school with one of the early Facebook people at Harvard. I'm like I'm pretty sure she didn't have to take a crazy whiteboard coding challenge to get in considering she doesn't know how to connect to her phone as a hotspot, she got in because of connections. They just don't understand that and I think in many ways that's a bigger hinderance than just straight having money.
posted by geoff. at 10:43 PM on August 10, 2022 [29 favorites]
Yeah, what?! She talks about having to hustle for $100 gigs. Even if her parents were poor, they moved across the country to support her. The Les Wexner documentary on Victoria's Secret did the same thing. His parents owned a department store in Columbus Ohio and didn't want him to do anything else but take over the store. It made, again, him out to be a average midwestern boy who dig good. Except it kind of quickly glossed over that a kid out of college with no experience was given the equivalent in 2022 of a $50k loan from his aunt and another $50k from the bank. I don't know how many people straight out of college can get an unsecured $100k loan to start a risky fashion business.
Similarly a lot of class isn't even about money to an extent. I could never convey the story above about a project and getting paid because my parents only had salaried jobs and just completely don't understand why I don't just get a "normal job." Or when my friends would go to spring break together and my parents made fun of them in front of me and told me how important it was that I put in 40 hours into whatever crappy job that doesn't matter now. Except those spring break trips formed bonds and connections that helped them to this very day and my time working in construction didn't really help my career at all.
And also, most of them, accumulating a life history of never, ever, coloring outside the lines or venturing off the beaten path. But mostly it seemed, being born to parents that could send you to Princeton instead of State U, and (maybe more importantly) knowing that from early on, and having it drummed into you that it was a thing not to be wasted by screwing around with distractions. And also probably having parental support for those vital first few unpaid/nugatory compensation jobs.
Again another classism thing isn't so much about money per se but having family that doesn't understand the importance of class identifiers. From personal experience I have some family members who went to prep schools and Ivy and got some pretty cushy jobs at white shoe firms. My parents don't understand why I don't get those jobs and it must be because I'm not trying hard enough. Again, they worked one blue collar job their entire life and didn't have college degrees. They don't understand you can't just apply randomly to Sequoia Capital. They said I have a chip on my shoulder because I have a cousin who got a very nice cushy job, incredibly high paying job at a FAANG even though she has no tech experience but went to school with one of the early Facebook people at Harvard. I'm like I'm pretty sure she didn't have to take a crazy whiteboard coding challenge to get in considering she doesn't know how to connect to her phone as a hotspot, she got in because of connections. They just don't understand that and I think in many ways that's a bigger hinderance than just straight having money.
posted by geoff. at 10:43 PM on August 10, 2022 [29 favorites]
I'd stick a different frame on it: Sydney Sweeney is just the hottest person you have ever seen, her family is wealthy and immensely supportive, she went to the right schools and knows the right people, and it's not enough. Well, then what about you or me? Because ultimately Sydney Sweeney, who has every advantage, doesn't have enough advantages; so you and I are kinda fucked. And I think that's the point. She'll be okay. Who won't be okay? Us.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:32 AM on August 11, 2022 [18 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:32 AM on August 11, 2022 [18 favorites]
Sometimes I've thought of the surge in prequels and reboots and off-shoots and nostalflicks as a reflection of a stagnant cultural moment, perhaps a lack of creativity, some lack of urgency. Perhaps — or so the thought suggests itself — we're living in a time of cultural decline, an un-weaving of the social fabric, almost like there is some centre that's not holding... I will admit that I don't always resist the urge to indulge in the gothic mode of dread. There's an ominous thrill in anticipation of the dark forces that seem to be slouching towards us, looking to be born.
But if you look at the numbers, it's pretty clear what the "dark forces" are really made out of. Economic policy the past four decades has been to create opportunity by eradicating barriers to trade and opening up markets (sometimes with a crowbar). But opportunity looked at differently is called risk, and so it can also be said that in the past four decades a lot of risk has been foisted upon the people by eradicating a lot of their securities.
Whatever the merits of this economic policy have or have not been, if pursued to its logical end, the maximization of opportunity means the elimination of trust. Indeed, this is the vision that sparked the Bitcoin: "We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust". It seems we're pretty far along that road if even an accomplished and in-demand actor like Sweeney is feeling the squeeze.
In an insecure world, trust is scarce, and incredibly expensive — not for sale, really, in the sense that "if you have to ask it's not for you sir". It's the one market the bastards don't want to open up, and the one market they don't feel like disrupting. Trust is the proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs, and the bastards are butchering it. The flow of trust; that's what's stagnant.
posted by dmh at 4:42 AM on August 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
But if you look at the numbers, it's pretty clear what the "dark forces" are really made out of. Economic policy the past four decades has been to create opportunity by eradicating barriers to trade and opening up markets (sometimes with a crowbar). But opportunity looked at differently is called risk, and so it can also be said that in the past four decades a lot of risk has been foisted upon the people by eradicating a lot of their securities.
Whatever the merits of this economic policy have or have not been, if pursued to its logical end, the maximization of opportunity means the elimination of trust. Indeed, this is the vision that sparked the Bitcoin: "We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust". It seems we're pretty far along that road if even an accomplished and in-demand actor like Sweeney is feeling the squeeze.
In an insecure world, trust is scarce, and incredibly expensive — not for sale, really, in the sense that "if you have to ask it's not for you sir". It's the one market the bastards don't want to open up, and the one market they don't feel like disrupting. Trust is the proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs, and the bastards are butchering it. The flow of trust; that's what's stagnant.
posted by dmh at 4:42 AM on August 11, 2022 [5 favorites]
Sidney Sweeney is 24 years old. I think her career is just getting started, "It's not enough"... yet. Once she does a couple more big projects she'll be able to pay for that $3m house and more.
posted by chaz at 5:03 AM on August 11, 2022
posted by chaz at 5:03 AM on August 11, 2022
Sydney Sweeney isn't the point.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:25 AM on August 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:25 AM on August 11, 2022 [8 favorites]
Sidney Sweeney is 24 years old. I think her career is just getting started, "It's not enough"... yet. Once she does a couple more big projects she'll be able to pay for that $3m house and more.
On the other hand, HBOMax isn't even popular enough to get its own slice in a pie chart for the top rated shows, with official ratings for Euphoria in the .2 range and 56k viewers in terms of official ratings (and The White Lotus lower I think) and there is no streaming video on demand provider that has made money (HBO parent Warner Media just announced huge losses as did Disney and Apple in that segment), and she still gets paid enough to afford a $3m house as a supporting character? She's not doing that bad for herself.
I wonder what the revenue numbers look like for bands that play to 20k-50k for ~20 shows a year? Is there an analogue for a group that isn't already insanely successful (like 20 shows a year for 20k people basically describes Fleetwood Mac)?
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:45 AM on August 11, 2022
On the other hand, HBOMax isn't even popular enough to get its own slice in a pie chart for the top rated shows, with official ratings for Euphoria in the .2 range and 56k viewers in terms of official ratings (and The White Lotus lower I think) and there is no streaming video on demand provider that has made money (HBO parent Warner Media just announced huge losses as did Disney and Apple in that segment), and she still gets paid enough to afford a $3m house as a supporting character? She's not doing that bad for herself.
I wonder what the revenue numbers look like for bands that play to 20k-50k for ~20 shows a year? Is there an analogue for a group that isn't already insanely successful (like 20 shows a year for 20k people basically describes Fleetwood Mac)?
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:45 AM on August 11, 2022
Not to get off topic but does HBOMax have any incentive to show realistic numbers? Wouldn't their incentive be to show it as much of a loss as possible? I've always been interested in how streaming services justify their numbers as they were already hard to parse with the big networks trying to account for DVR viewing habits.
posted by geoff. at 11:03 AM on August 11, 2022
posted by geoff. at 11:03 AM on August 11, 2022
Performing and writing is such a high. I've written and also performed on stage. The latter I've only done for not more than a hundred hours, but in that time I have felt a euphoria like, I dunno, a party of pandas and rainbows :). The same deal with writing, the thrill, omg.
On the other hand, I don't think you'd get the same thrill being the corporate accountant or the lawyer or the head of marketing. There might be some job satisfaction there but none of the exploding-brain high of active storytelling.
So there it is - you have thousands of people desperate for that hit of euphoria, who will do anything to get closer to that sweet stuff while there's a smaller number who are at their desks fiddling with spreadsheets. The latter must be very reliable and the way to get that is to pay them the $. The former are always available so the way to satisfy them is to pay them in opportunities rather than money.
posted by storybored at 6:49 PM on August 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
On the other hand, I don't think you'd get the same thrill being the corporate accountant or the lawyer or the head of marketing. There might be some job satisfaction there but none of the exploding-brain high of active storytelling.
So there it is - you have thousands of people desperate for that hit of euphoria, who will do anything to get closer to that sweet stuff while there's a smaller number who are at their desks fiddling with spreadsheets. The latter must be very reliable and the way to get that is to pay them the $. The former are always available so the way to satisfy them is to pay them in opportunities rather than money.
posted by storybored at 6:49 PM on August 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
HBOMax have any incentive to show realistic numbers? Wouldn't their incentive be to show it as much of a loss as possible? I've always been interested in how streaming services justify their numbers as they were already hard to parse with the big networks trying to account for DVR viewing habits.
Absolutely - for advertising and customer addition numbers. That's why they fudge so hard, and why even relative giant Netflix goes off 'minutes watched' rather than actual viewers. DVR habits (first + 7 days) does a great job of identifying DVR usage (after 7 days, something like less than 50% of shows are even watched, and it's probably even lower now). Neilsen is still the gold standard and up to like 40k people using Neilsen devices now, competitors have come and gone.
Streaming services do have far more detailed usage about how people watch their specific shows then Neilsen does, but so far they haven't been able to use that information to obtain higher advertising rates or replace Neilsen.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:19 AM on August 12, 2022
Absolutely - for advertising and customer addition numbers. That's why they fudge so hard, and why even relative giant Netflix goes off 'minutes watched' rather than actual viewers. DVR habits (first + 7 days) does a great job of identifying DVR usage (after 7 days, something like less than 50% of shows are even watched, and it's probably even lower now). Neilsen is still the gold standard and up to like 40k people using Neilsen devices now, competitors have come and gone.
Streaming services do have far more detailed usage about how people watch their specific shows then Neilsen does, but so far they haven't been able to use that information to obtain higher advertising rates or replace Neilsen.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:19 AM on August 12, 2022
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And really it's been a low-key point of pop culture observation for us because we definitely are in the right old millennial age group to remember the nepotism kids' parents and also the Disney/Nickelodeon careers of current stars -- the New Mickey Mouse Club alumni, howya? -- that at one point i remember turning to a friend and went like, does every actually american movie star need to come from money or child labour these days?
Then eventually realizing it's not even just the front of the camera. Learning JJ Abrams is one explained so much.
posted by cendawanita at 8:51 AM on August 10, 2022 [13 favorites]