When a hobby becomes a job
The whole time I was practicing to be a writer, I always had a day job. Even after I got published, I didn’t quit my day job, just to be on the safe side. In fact, I didn’t quit my day job (or my day jobs, I should say) until I had already written three books—and those three books were all published by major houses and were all reviewed nicely in t
... See moreElizabeth Gilbert • Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear
things can get very, very tricky when you turn the thing you love into the thing that keeps you and your family clothed and fed.
Austin Kleon • Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad (Austin Kleon)
While baking is an unquestionably sweeter activity than any sort of grind, many quickly found this did nothing to curb burn out or exhaustion. Ca
pitalism not only defines how we spend our time, but our relationship to the things we fill our time with. Are you knitting a scarf to learn a new skill, to indulge in a pleasure, to take breaks from labor
... See moreMary Retta • on vibing
For creative people this hits especially hard as social media’s invention of “personal brands,” “influencers,” and the “Creator Economy” turned the few remaining aspects of life that hadn’t yet been marketized into the last ways we could make a living without working for somebody else. Gradually and then suddenly creative people found themselves do... See more
Sell out without selling out
For creative people this hits especially hard as social media’s invention of “personal brands,” “influencers,” and the “Creator Economy” turned the few remaining aspects of life that hadn’t yet been marketized into the last ways we could make a living without working for somebody else. Gradually and then suddenly creative people found themselves do... See more
Sell out without selling out
That labor amounts to constant self-promotion in the form of cheap trend-following, ever-changing posting strategies, and the nagging feeling that what you are really doing with your time is marketing, not art. Under the tyranny of algorithmic media distribution, artists, authors — anyone whose work concerns itself with what it means to be human — ... See more
Rebecca Jennings • Everybody Has to Self-Promote Now. Nobody Wants To.
Similarly, I wonder whether the creator economy, as it matures, will resemble less of its original promise (a way for people to do the things they love), in favor of a “creator industrial complex.” Part of the problem is that creativity comes in fits and starts, and can’t always be tamed into a predictable routine. If you’re obligated to create som... See more
Nadia Asparouhova • The creator economy
The yearning to feel capable and in control shows up all over contemporary culture. We see it in the growth of cooking classes and of mixed martial arts, of weight lifting and craft hobbies, even blacksmithing. ‘It’s all things that make us use our hands, make us use tools, make us master something that seems beyond us at first’, Elizabeth Kronfiel... See more