Is Working in Media "The Arts"?
This week's member's links.
I am thinking today about talent and art and media. At around 8pm in Sydney on the east coast of Australia my housemate is watching a man swing a guitar at another man, shirtless, wrestling each other in a ring surrounded by a few thousand people in Canada.
But I am thinking about talent and art and media. And it is something I do too much. There is a part of my brain that cannot seperate working in The Industry from creativity. There is a stronger and more logical part of my brain that points at reality: there are natural talents in this game, too, and the rest of it is just filler.
We probably treat writers and journalists with a strange amount of preparation. That you can go to school and practice and try and intern for free and eventually you will get The Job in a newsroom; at a website; for a magazine. But the true outliers in this field aren’t from an academic background at all. Don’t get me wrong — the majority of people you see and hear from in the media industry have come from a large amount of training. But they have worked hard to get there, kid. Harder than anything else in their life, maybe. And still the truth is that the people they are trying to be and the things they are trying to create come mostly from a very small percentage. The truth being that, in this industry just like anything else in The Arts, you can work as hard as you’d like but there will always be a Natural who gets off on making what you strain to pull off look liquid cool and easy.
Ah, well, more on that later.
Consider becoming a paid subscriber of VFD. If you like it, and pay for it… well, that certainly makes doing it frequently much easier; much more sustainable; more likely to grow. Or just keep reading for free. I’ve seen the tough times we’re in.
Anyway, this weeks member’s only links…