mia moraru’s Reviews > How Artists Make Money and How Money Makes Artists > Status Update

'It's just that starting a journey requires big speeches and fresh resolve, whereas continuing one really just requires you to not give up, which in my experience has to do with not giving a lot of space or time to the reasons to give up.'

'Is my complete inability to support myself through standard capitalist means definitive proof of my unworthiness as an artist?'

'Whether you have too much of it or too little--there doesn't really seem to be a right amount--there is a pervasive hint in our culture that you should shut up about [money], downplay it, maybe outright lie about it, but anyway, certainly not open up your soul or your wallet and lay bare what exactly it means to you.'

Bomb the Music Industry! collective band transformed into by-donation record label, Quote Unquote Records
you couldn't purchase physical copies of their music, but if you brought a CD to their show they would burn their albums onto it!!!
sick

'One of the constants of the evolution of art is that people will end up where the money is.'

interesting discussion about youtube & 'creators'
less than 9% of YT accounts make $50 a month
here and in other similar realms (patreon, etc), it's an exponentially widening gap of disparity :/
and internet problem is that you're competing for an algorithm, not necessarily about making the best art. sigh.

'...implied, indirect competition remains at the root of nearly all of our artistic, literary, and performing prizes.'

modern tendencies can be traced back to the French Academy pre-&post revolution, especially in the Montyon Prizes, related to advancing the cause of humanity in general

judging all of this is so subjective and based on modern social tendencies...it's overall more so about marketing (of sponsor esp)

'For as long as we have had formalized arts, we have had competition around them.'

'There is absolutely no job that sustains artists like teaching.'

ai threatening the making of art, the art-adjacent side gigs that support artists, and ai-based algorithm determining what art to push/not