Specfic novelist Charlie Jane Anders provided the title quote in relation to the current Hollywood strikes. Her point is that because creative work is a passion for most of us, it’s easier to exploit us. Which, film and TV editor Zack Arnold says, is at the core of the strikes: much as writers, actors and others love their work, they’re not willing to have the studios exploit or overwork them to improve the bottom line.
It’s the passion tax, the sacrifices we make to live our creative dreams, though the link notes it applies to any professional or blue-collar field where we’re excited about our work. Excited enough to overlook low pay and unreasonable demands. I’m reminded of a statement by Freedom Newspapers’ CEO (back when the company still existed) after cutting pay 5 percent. He told the investors and owners not to worry because the company’s employees were passionately committed to doing great work! I’m glad I got out when I did.
I’d say passion also affects the reaction other people have to these issues. I’ve seen fanfic arguments against copyright that say the purpose of copyright is to encourage creative work; as lots of people are willing to write for nothing, copyright should be abolished. A standard complaint about sports-contract negotiations is that players are greedy — “I’d be happy to play pro sports for nothing!” (curiously nobody ever considers that the team owners are millionaires whose franchises are lucrative businesses and wonders why they’re so greedy — I’m sure lots of people would happily manage a team for nothing). Even teachers get this: as far back as the 1970s I’ve heard complaints when teachers strike that “they used to do this job because they love kids — now they expect to be paid a fair wage as well?”
In the current streaming era, the passion is even less rewarded in Hollywood. As the Guardian points out, you can do amazing special effects work or deliver a terrific performance, then Netflix, Disney + or whoever decides never to air the show. Even if bootlegs show up, that’s got to suck. The rationale is that claiming a write-off makes it more profitable to not air shows, which is another example of the focus on the bottom line over anything else (Warner Brothers claims the strike is profitable for them). Which presumably explains why Disney (allegedly) continues stiffing writers on royalties.
Webcomics creators have problems too. The creator of the Let’s Play webcomic (I’ve been following it) has gone on hiatus because of issues with the Webtoons site. Which may be bad enough Webtoons creators suffer from higher rates of depression. More here.
In other notes:
Another ruling AI art cannot be copyrighted.
The strange mystery around the sale of the world’s most expensive Van Gogh.
During the pandemic, the Internet Archive began lending out donated books it had digitized but hadn’t paid for. A judge recently ruled against the archive, though not as broadly as I think it should have.
“Horatio Alger story” refers to Alger’s 19th-century rags-to-riches fantasies about poor boys making good. Except they didn’t do it by pluck and hard work alone but had older, richer patrons helping them along. If you think that sounds like a cover for predatory behavior, Alger was a pedophile.
Had to read “Ragged Dick” by Algers for a university course way back in the day, which is emblematic of his work – it’s exactly as described, the hard labour leads to nothing and instead through complete happenstance Dick saves another child’s life and then gets adopted by a rich man, who will surely not abuse him, no sir.
Urgh. Glad never to have known Alger other than as a phrase.