// 0000 The exploitation of talent continues… it’s getting worse

I’ve seen it time and again.

Big, pushy executive types think they can boss around the creative.

“If you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” And they laugh in their boardrooms with their grey hair, oversized poncho and their richer than god Gucci suit.

Yeah. That’s not going to fly anymore. Not in the age we’re now in.

No, it may not be the apocalypse, but zombies are sure as hell walking the streets, and if you ain’t taking care of your talent, pretty soon your business won’t be taking care of you either.

They say talent is replaceable but let me tell you something. If you ain’t holding on to your talent, you’re sure as hell wasting money. And while you might be lying in your beds of green, behind an ivory tower, maybe even an ivory tower within an ivory tower, like a Matryoshka doll, your talent is getting stressed out. Bit by bit, they’re losing their mojo, and when it comes right down to it, there’s no one to blame but the boss.

What happens to your bottom line when the creative doesn’t give you the quality of shit you’ve been asking them to create on demand, day in day out? Make ‘em stay longer? Work harder? Have them beat their head against their slave cube, until they bleed out their soul and want to give up on life? Give up the very thing that used to have ‘em jump out of bed every morning?

Fine. Exploit the copyright. You’re a business. You gotta be smart about these things. I don’t have a problem with leveraging your works.

What most people don’t know is that “exploitation” goes far beyond the assets the artist worked their ass off to produce in the first place. It extends well into the artist's personal life, which is a mess thanks to the higher ups who pretend to give a shit but don't actually know a lick of shit.

Oh, you thought it ended in the 70s? Uh-uh. It’s getting worse. And, it’s not just the big corps either, sad to say.

Just look around. People barely talk face to face anymore. At any time, can you honestly say you’re aware of the people around you? How they’re actually doing? How they’re actually feeling? What they might be going through? No!

And, that’s multiplied as an artist. They gotta deal with the same shit you’re dealing with. Endless emails. Countless texts. More demands. Get this done. Get that done. Why isn’t this done? Where the fuck did you disappear to? I don’t get a day off, so you don’t either.

Really? You want the most out of the creative and you’re gonna have them fucking answering phone calls and emails all day? Jesus Christ! Give them the space to do what god himself put them on this green earth to do – make shit! Do this, and they will make shit you couldn’t dream up in your turkey dinner full-bellied REM cycles.

Executives want genius on demand. They could give a shit about how the artist is doing. “See those digits? They’re going up and to the right. Get them creatives to pump out more of that shit.”

I hate to say it man. But the world is rife with opportunity. Creatives are usually nice people and they might put up with a little more B.S. than the average person. Maybe you’ll keep ‘em for a year or two…

But honestly. Wake up and smell the hot cup of joe, bro. Writers are the new rock stars. Look at Neil Patel, Eric Siu, Peep Laja… they’re the ones running the show now. Take note. Content isn’t just the king. It’s the fuckin’ god, bro. And, you couldn’t hope to muster up the same level of genius with a bucket of Adderall and a vat of LSD.

Need I go on?

Treat your creatives like shit and they will burn out. That’ll be expensive for you. The fucked-up part is that it will be more expensive for the creative who’s got the organic grocery, reflexology massage and self-care bills to pay. This is what pisses me off.

But let’s not forget the important part, that it will be costly for you cause you got to live with the damage you did.

Maybe you should give the creative what they’re rightly owed before you pay out the nose for that lesson. Maybe you should treat your creatives well, I dunno, for once in history?

No? Okay, don’t listen to me. I’m just a privileged, cynical mid-aged white guy. What the hell do I know, anyway?

Fuck you,
- Anderson