#If I had a billion dollars I'd be funding so much shit

[jorrynoftheroundtable]

Okay, so this makes sense, but what’s the solution here? There has to be a system whereby we can keep shows on air, pay the people involved in making it, and make enough money whereby the platform can afford to run.

Does someone want to give me a billion dollars so I can make a nonprofit streaming service?

[toastling]

As much as I'd love to one day turn The Upstarts books into an animated series, I know it'd never fly on dying cable TV, and I'd have to find a streaming service interested in it but also big enough to actually fund and promote it, but like... what am I even supposed to choose?

Disney is out because they don't deserve my queer superhero epic. Also I'm directly competing with Marvel and DC.

Max is out for similar reasons, and also because WB Discovery's CEO is a dipshit. I'm not risking what happened to Infinity Train happening to me. Maybe if they get a new CEO in the intervening years I can consider it.

I'm *definitely* not going for Netflix because they cancel literally everything no matter how popular and well received it is, and I'd be lucky to get them to commit to even one season.

Hulu is owned by Disney so fuck them.

Paramount+ exists, but nobody uses it, and nobody is *going* to use it until Avatar Studios starts putting out content. Nobody gives a shit.

Which just leaves Amazon Prime. I haaaaate Amazon, almost as much as I hate Disney, but as Rings of Power goes to show, they're more than willing to blow a billion dollars on literally anything. They would also love the PR of hosting a huge queer series given their whole... everything.

I honestly feel like Prime might be my only choice. Unless something major comes around in the next few years, which... god, I hope so.

I wish I actually had options.

[falindrith]

[long post, all text]

i was gonna put this on the ad/vent twitter but then i remembered this is going to be fucking long and i have a tumblr that none of my family reads lmao

thanksgiving is a fun time where you get to learn which cousins are gonna turn out to be the future conservative uncles. and you find that out by learning that the cousin who went into financial shit idolizes elon musk. to preface this, i like my family and at least on my end there are no hard feelings, and i guess he probably saw this as an argument but for me it was just a tiring discussion lmao. (also this is like one out of a lot of cousins rn)

i think out of all the wild shit his view that it's the business man in the inventor/business partnership who should get all the credit is quite possibly the Worst. elon made smart investments, he clearly deserves to have an actually inconceivable amount of wealth. in dissecting this, it became clear that not only is he ok with worker exploitation, he believes "well anyone can share in that all you [me in this context] had to do was invest all your money years ago in tesla" which ok first of all if i had done that I would've been evicted??? "it's liquid" ok but like... my rent can't be paid in tesla stock and i'd cycle through it way too fast to build any meaningfully sized investment you do finance you talk to me about short/mid/long-term goals.

in attempting to explain how "it's much easier to make money when you already have money and actually it's much easier to just Do Things when you have money already" to him, it became clear that he doesn't understand what systematic inequality means. his example was the classic american dream argument that anyone can make a billion dollar idea, his friends quit their jobs last week and raised like two bajillion dollars in their series-D(eez nuts) venture capital round or whatever the fuck. i think the exact statement was like they "quit their job they had for three years and just started programming in their bedroom"

which ok let's unpack that one huh?

"quit their job they held for 3 years" - aight so in tech you often get a massive signing bonus and a big-ass salary so you've got 3 years to save for a startup runway

"just started programming in their bedroom" - ok sure but they also graduated from a top-tier university and had 7 years to build skills for this

furthermore, they graduated debt free! of course they can quit! they're not paying off literal mountains of debt.

i also almost guarantee they also had the right connections for venture capitalist funding from this experience

you guys all see the problem here right i don't have to explain that here or keep going.

it turns out it's really hard to get an upper-middle class jewish white kid who has never experienced actual consequences to recognize what privilege means.

like i kinda get how that view forms now. of course anyone can start a business and raise billions of zollars in venture capital, and of course you can do this because you went to a good school and graduated with 0 debt. his friends did that like last week, and he's basically never had to worry about that stuff either. everyone else? just work! it's that easy (l m a and i can't stress this enough o).

the kicker is that he's ok with this system because "it's just the way it works now" and furthermore he doesn't care to change it. actually maybe that part hurts more. every day i see how the systems we (people) have set up fail friends that i love and artists and creators that i respect. i've got friends who work absurd shifts and get home too burnt out to actually work on projects the like, i've got friends still paying off debt and struggling to make rent every month and we're almost all 30. and this guy is just walking around thinking "oh yeah it's totally fine that elon has a fuck-jillion dollars he deserves it :)" like no!!!!!! do you hear yourself????? you're suck here too bitch! you're not even in the 1%! you just don't have any lower-income friends and it shows your whole ass.

...

ok i think this post makes it seem like i'm mad but i'm really just tired. i am so tired of living in a system that values accumulation of "wealth" over people, and i benefit from this system! i'm relying on the fuckin made up "numbers get big" stock market to fund an eventual down payment on a house. and it still sucks shit i think i actually actively resent how this stuff works. i don't even know what to do to be honest, and im sure as hell not perfect, but at least I try y'know by supporting artists i like and voting (lol) i guess.

aaaaaaanyway this way of thinking honestly sucks so fucking much i don't know how he lives with himself it just sounds like such a joyless existence. sure dude you have a great time getting high in your dad's hot tub, partying it up with your bros, making money (i guess?), and generally just keep thinking "this is fine."

despite all this i really do wish him the best. that's what family is for. but given the nearest opportunity i would absolutely take all of his assets, liquidate them, and give them to my friends to pay off their loans. and then just tell him, "what? you can just make another business :)" and be on my way