#i get that creatives want to and SHOULD be paid fairly for their work.

[friendly-neighborhood-furry]

for anyone who doesn't have the Return YouTube Dislike Plugin, here's how Watcher Entertainment's "Goodbye Youtube" video is doing right now

yeah... gonna throw out a yikes on that one

i suspect this number will only keep growing in the coming days/weeks, especially the longer and longer we go without any sort of response.

EDIT: its only been three hours and the number has already jumped to 206K dislikes.

[cardboardheartss]

HYBE Girl Groups Thoughts On Each Other Mini Reading

⚠️DISCLAIMER! TAROT CARDS ARE NOT 100% ACCURATE! TAKE EVERYTHING WITH A GRAIN OF SALT! IF MY INTERPRETATIONS ARE INCORRECT FEEL FREE TO CORRECT ME!⚠️

ILL’IT

LE SSERAFIM’s Thoughts: 7oC, 4oW, 10oS rx, 8oW rx, Strength rx, AoW, 2oS

They love the group! And think they’re gonna do well, but they really wanna ask them if they really want to do this. They worried the girlies will experience A LOT of hate and they scared and don’t want the girls to experience that pressure and distress.

NEWJEAN’s Thoughts: KoW, 2oC, 8oC, PoS rx, QoW

They love the groups songs and support them but they find it weird how ILL’IT’s sound and concept is just like theirs.

KATSEYE’s Thoughts: 5oC, 7oW, 7oP

They feel as if the company betrayed them! Because they wished to have this sound as their debut song. Now they’re worried about having to achieve the same stats as illit for the debut.

FROMIS 9’s Thoughts: The Hierophant rx, QoP rx

They think illits concept is unique and had a different impact compared to other groups, but they worry about the girls busy schedules and unhealthy diets.

NEWJEANS

ILL’IT’s Thoughts: 4oW rx, 7oC rx, 5oC rx

They think the girls should work better together and be more supportive of one another. They also think NWJNS are really successful and have job/endorsement opportunities for days, and some illit members wish they had that access too.

LE SSERAFIM’s Thoughts: AoP, Hanged Man rx, The Lovers rx, 7oW rx, 10oS rx, Temperance

They think the girls are getting paid!! Some members think the girls are open and fun to talk too, and some aren’t as interested.

KATSEYES Thoughts: 6oP, 5oW rx, 4oC, Magician rx

Some members think the girlies are talented and are sharing really good music on their platforms. Some members wish they had the same concept in order to reach NWJNS success too

FROMIS 9’s Thoughts: KoW, AoC, 3oP, 6oW rx, 3oW

They really love them with all of their hearts, and genuinely so. But some members, probably all are really sad and wish they also had the same success as NWJNS but they unfortunately have to try move on and continue to support NWJNS.

KATSEYE

ILL’IT’s Thoughts: The Emperor rx, PoC, 5oP rx

Some members think they don’t have the passion for being idols, or they think their attitude/aura is too western/intimidating in a way and some members think KATSEYE are creative and happy to see their dreams have come true.

NEWJEAN’s Thoughts: 4oS rx, The Star

They seem to support KATSEYE and think they’ll be successful but NWJNS think the members should prepare themselves for the hate comments from stan twitter.

LE SSERAFIM’s Thoughts: KoP

They think the companies plan to create a western gg planned out well but they unsure about them…

FROMIS 9’s Thoughts: PoP

They think this is something completely new for the kpop industry, and they like it. They wish the girls have long term success too!

LE SSERAFIM

NEWJEAN’s Thoughts: 4oS rx, PoC, PoW rx

They think the girls are still healing from the overworking and workload. Some members think they should be more serious about their career and talent skills. Apart from that, they love their discography tho!

ILL’IT’s Thoughts: 7oP, The Hermit, 6oS rx

They think the IZ*ONE members returning to the industry after the industry was a good plan, and that their hardwork is really paying off but some members think there could be improvement.

FROMIS 9’s Thoughts: 5oS, The Empress rx, 9oP, The World, 6oW rx

They think the members argue one to many times and think the members should use the words clearly in order to avoid downing each other’s confidence. Some members are aware of the groups impact and popularity overseas and are proud of them.

KATSEYE’s Thoughts: Justice rx, 2oW, KoS rx

They think there’s a lot of disharmony amongst the group. They also think LSFM should treat them fairly? And to avoid being too intimidating towards them.

FROMIS 9

LE SSERAFIM’s Thoughts: 7oP rx, The Hermit rx, 3oC rx, QoW rx, The High Priestess, KNoS, The Devil rx, 8oS rx, QoC & The Star

They think the group is still struggling with the loss of one of their members. They believe the girls should fight the company for the sake of their careers and maybe something will change.

NEWJEAN’s Thoughts: 3oW rx, 6oW rx, Judgement

NEWJEANS think they should honestly give up because there is no hope, because they think their fanbase has left them and that has led them to experience many delays.

ILL’IT’s Thoughts: 2oP, 2oC

They seem to love them and they see them working really hard but unfortunately their rewards are not given to them.

KATSEYE’s Thoughts: The Fool, 8oW, The World

They think the group should go the western way and sue the company for mismanagement. The members seem to be baffled at how F9 allowed themselves to be thrown under the bus this way and still stay silent. They think members must attempt to take the leap of faith for the sake of their careers.

TAKE WITH A GRAIN OF SALT!! I REPEAT!! TAKE WITH A GRAIN OF SALT!!

[jessiarts]

I posted this in an art discord & they said it should be a post so others (both non-artists & artists) could see it too, so I'm pasting it here with a just few edits to add context:

Having feelings about capitalism and art.

Like, got an unexpected Redbubble sale today. Unexpected because I genuinely never expected to see another after I took some advice and did the whole "raise your margins to 50% in protest so people will use Redbubble less because 'prices are too high'" (For those unaware, Redbubble is introducing a tier structure for artist accounts, where Redbubble will now be taking up to 50% of an artist's monthly earnings as an "account fee" if they end up in the "Standard" tier. Artists are upset about this and are finding various ways to protest the change.)

And it got me thinking about margins, and what it takes to run the company, and how much CEO's take home and just-

Ok so say base price for a product is $10. If your margin is 20% it sells for $12 and you take home $2. Redbubble takes 80%, and uses that to buy materials/print/pay workers. Ok, no argument. I want workers to be fairly compensated.

But you look it up, and the highest paid Redbubble executive makes $950,000 a year. Average executive salary is around $235,000 a year. You can't really find the info for the positions of workers (meaning those who labor to print the products) only that "the lowest compensated makes $34,000" -aka roughly $16 an hour at 40hrs a week. And good on them for paying the workers a decent wage if this info is correct. Hope they keep it up. Or pay them more even.

But then I keep coming back to the fact that the company needs the artists' work to even exist. So why, if the CEO is making nearly a million dollars a year and the company obviously isn't hurting for any money to compensate it's workers or run itself, why does everyone make artists feel greedy just for asking to not have our cut eaten into with added fees? Why are we made to feel bad if we express any disappointment that a CEO makes so much money off the designs of so many artists in comparison to the artists' cut?

Idk how to say it right. It's like we're just expected to collectively fork over our work, let someone else get obscenely rich off it while we make barely anything from it (or in the case of many social media platforms, make literally nothing from it), then then smile about it. Anything else is seen as artists being entitled or 'lazy' or idk what else.

Or we're told to "just raise your margins" like competitive pricing isn't a thing that exists. Not to mention that fact that whenever prices do go up, especially with art, those same people complain that the prices went up and look for something cheaper.

I always see people saying that artists are just jealous that they don't make more sales, or saying "well maybe you'd make more if your art was better" but they're completely missing the whole point that is: Maybe if a company literally depends on the creative 'content' of individuals to exist/profit, maybe don't treat them all as disposable?

[trungles]

Hey! I really wanted to know what your art education was like, Did you went to an Art school?

Sure thing! Okay! I did not go to art school.

I went to a little private liberal arts university called Hamline in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I liked it! I applied to my local art college and got in, but I went to the school that gave me the best scholarship money because–and I think this is important–my parents paid for most of my education. As a compromise, I majored in Studio Art, but I ended up preferring Art History.

I graduated with a B.A. in Studio Art and with a minor Art History because I wanted to work in museums. I’m very happy with where I wound up, but I did not really go to school for this. My focus in Studio Art was oil painting, and I have not touched a single oil paint ever since. I actually started with a focus on intaglio printmaking, but I switched to oil painting because I disliked the medium and the printmaking professor told me I should quit art. My painting professor was more supportive. I largely came out of the experience assuming I wasn’t good enough to make art professionally, but that I was interested in the kind of space imagery takes up in different cultures. My favorite classes were my not-art general curriculum. I tended to do more sociology and religious studies classes, and I absolutely loved Art History, which is sort of a confluence of those two things plus art.

I used to feel a lot of anxiety about not having gone to art school. When I started taking on comics jobs professionally, I felt pretty professionally inadequate. It’s a completely different sort of creative thinking than any of my education, so I went and figured out comics stuff on my own while working a day job (admin work at a non-profit’s corporate headquarters; it was a very mixed bag). I started learning how to draw digitally like… three years ago?

These days, I actually feel pretty good about not going to art school. I feel like I have more to say with a liberal arts education than if I had gone to art school, and I’m very happy with my personal and professional development outside of my formal education. I also think that the way I draw looks very particular to me because I wasn’t taught it. I never had the experience of, like, art teachers pressuring me to change the look of my drawings or telling me I can’t get jobs unless my work looks like such-and-such cartoon show or comic book. I got to build my style myself based on my own interests, and ironically I think that actually helped me get work.

TL;DR I didn’t go to art school, most of the formal knowledge I use to make comics I learned on my own after I graduated, and I’m quite happy to have been able to study a fairly broad range of things in schools.

[frydawolff]

Sharing this today because I don't think enough non-actors know: To qualify for SAG health insurance, you have to make at least $26,470 per calendar quarter. i.e. If you can hustle $26,470 in a quarter, you have health insurance for a year. At the end of that year you need to make another $26,470 in that next calendar quarter. (The bigger issue is the obvious need for universal healthcare, but, America.)

This is what the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are really all about:

SAG insurance is hard to get, even harder to keep if you develop a chronic illness that prevents you from working, or just haven't booked in a while, etc. Broadcast residuals were meant to help with that, with passive income to keep you qualified for insurance. Streaming's refusal to distribute broadcast comparable residuals has resulted in even high profile, heavily awarded, multiple season jobs not being enough to earn healthcare.

The cast of Orange Is the New Black essentially worked for exposure, as have the rest of us since then.

This is why we've been yelling about AI:

Gift link, no paywall: https://wapo.st/43rubnB

Opinion  It’s fine. We don’t need human actors.

"My dear shareholders! Do not worry about the fact that all the screen actors and screenwriters are on strike.

If there is one thing I have figured out about the meaning of life and the meaning of art, it is that art is something that should be entirely the product of machines and robots while people march around with picket signs and complain that they cannot afford food and housing. Also, no one should ever be paid a residual, whatever that is. I just don’t like the sound of it.

When our ancestors sat around the cave fires at night, sure, they told stories. Certainly, they scrawled on the walls of their caves, but as an executive, I know for a fact that they hated that part of being alive so much. They said to themselves, “Someday, when we have indoor plumbing and can live as we choose, we will be able to delegate this tiresome dreaming and telling of stories entirely to robots and billionaires. The only good part of drawing mammoths on the walls of caves is the fact that I, the illustrator, am not being compensated monetarily in any way for doing so.” (This primal yearning for people to not be compensated for their creative efforts except in exposure is something that has driven artists for a long time and we hope will continue to drive them, in case our AI idea backfires.)

We will be fine without these humans with their so-called faces and voices and acting. If Marvel films thus far have not been populated entirely by CGI characters, it is only for want of sufficient motivation, and I’m sure we can fix that."

[doonarose]

I am exhausted... Three fairly busy days of work. Three very busy and stressful nights of science outreach where I was running everything and once again failed to delegate. Really average engagement as well, which meant I was scrambling each night to get enough tickets sold and whatever, but it mostly turned out in the end. It did mean that I was working 8-3 and 5-10 every day with the middle two hours break dedicated to nipping home, walking and feeding the dogs, getting changed and heading back out. And then running between two venues trying to manage shitty science speakers and MCs and volunteers. Mostly a success though.

Two major things soured it. Last night, our last night, at the venue we've used for two years running and that has, on the whole of things, been great. Between managed The Rest of It, and my dean (evil incarnate and a walking talking karen) being the average MC (we had a best science joke comp and she was reading them out and she opened with 'I'm not a joke person' and then gave off the vibe 'if you laugh at this you're the worst' but then also got annoyed that no one was laughing)... anyway, between all that, one of the wait staff pulled me to side and gave me the heads up that the chef wanted a private word with me... because one of our speakers had announced the event to his entire 50 students class (great!) and gone on to say they should eat before they come because the venue's food was over priced and awful (wtf?).

So then I went and talked to the chef between speakers and he was pretty reasonable and I'm on his side, but also, like, his instinct was to go and fight my speaker which... I was against, but like... great... and he wanted an apology (which, also, fair) and I think I handled it (and am still handling it) well enough but... why?

And the other fun thing was at the second venue on the second night, I was there for setup and then went back across for the last half hour, and paid off the bar tab. This is for the speakers, the MC, and the one or two volunteers who help with setup and taking tickets. We are capped at $200 a night. I went to pay it and it was almost $400 and had ten main meals on it. Worked out a bunch of PhD students just decided they also qualified... like one who kept asking to volunteer and sitting with my actual volunteer but who did nothing. And then at least three others who just came to the events... The tickets were $8 and to access the tab you had to say you were a volunteer so either these PhD students are astronomically stupid or they're just thieves (from either me or a not-for-profit). So now I'm chasing that up and there's gonna be about $100 I need to do some creative accounting with and there is still one student who sees intent on just not owning up to her mistake? Like at least the other three have said it was some sort of mistake and agreed to pay me back. But like, wtf is wrong with people.

Also this kind of high social energy activity means I don't fall asleep until 2am and then have nasty real-feeling dreams of things going even more wrong and then wake up and repeat. This after a weekend down with family and... it's like week 10 of semester and I am just spent.

Also I have almost-finished porn I would like to get posted.

But I'm still doing pick-up assessment today and have class tomorrow at 9am and for some dumb reason I'm taking my lab group to the art gallery tonight because it's free. I'm just... tired.

[folxlorepod]

The Real Horror: let's talk money.

Since Folxlore is publicly funded, we wanted to give an insight into our budget, which hopefully might help other audio drama creators out! To get Folxlore funded we go through the difficult and time-consuming process of requesting funding from Creative Scotland, the Scottish government body for public arts funding. We’re very lucky Scotland has an arts funding body, but the process of obtaining funding is competitive and takes a lot of effort. The success rate is about 42%, and we’ve gotten CS funding twice for Folxlore, which I think is a pretty damn good feat!

Part of being CS funded means that everyone needs to get paid fairly, so we pay industry rates for all our workers, while taking into account that our industry is indie podcasts, and not professional podcast.

Interlude: are we indie? Folxlore is publicly funded, we don’t belong to a network, and the show isn’t produced by a big team. We’re 4 people, we self-produce, and our sound designer Dev from Tin Can Audio distributes the show. We pretty comfortably put ourself in the independent category, but some people may feel the amount of funding we get means we’re not. Decide for yourself!

The amount of funding Folxlore gets is publicly available. For our pilot episodes, we received £800 pounds from Young Scot (we were still young back in 2018!). This we split equally between the four of us. Ross, Syd and I got £200 for writing and recording 3 episodes, and Dev got £200 for sound designing the 3 episodes. These are in no way realistic fees, but again, we were young and new to the thing and excited we got to do this new project we’d been thinking about for a while!

Then for Season 1, we received our first proper funding. Season 1 Total Budget: £14,538 Season 1 Funding Received: £12,479

Writers fees - £8,160 We paid our writer team £1,020 per episode, which was the going BBC rate for 11-19 minute radio plays. 

Sound engineer fees - £1,600 We agreed beforehand on a fee with our sound designer Dev. They were not yet a full-time sound designer at the time, but despite this, in retrospect, I think we should have budgeted more here!

Producer fees - £966 Producing the show took approximately 8 weeks of work between two people, so this is another area where we underpaid ourselves.

Voice actor fees - £450 Our biggest oversight and biggest mistake in the creation of Season 1 was our VA budget, which was pretty much nonexistent. For the pilot series, our writers had acted as voice actors without additional pay, and so when it came to Season 1, we operated on the same model. This was not fair to our writers, as they should have been paid separately and fairly for both their writing and their performance skills (for clarity, all three are experienced in both). 

We did pay the 2 VA’s who weren’t part of the writers team, from our contingency budget.

Contingency budget - £1,322 Vital to any project! We had a 10% contingency. We ended up paying some VA fees from this, as well as some marketing costs.

The rest of our budget included marketing and equipment purchase & hire, some of which were in-kind match funding from Tin Can Audio and In The Works.

For season 2, we spent a good while rethinking our season 1 budget, and requested an increased amount of funding to reflect fair working practices. Season 2 Total budget: £27,819 Season 2 Funding Received: £22,489

Writer’s fees - £8,408 We stuck with the same writer’s fee, although with inflation this was now £1051 per episode. We initially aimed for 8 episodes, but ended up making 9, so we split the total fee 9-ways after agreement from the whole writers team. 

Sound engineer fees - £2,280 We also significantly increased our sound design fee to £285 per episode, to reflect Dev now being a professional full-time sound designer. They have since increased their fee, to be more in line with professional standards. 

Producer fees - £2,470 We upped our producer budget from 2 weeks to 5 weeks, which is still not quite enough, but covers us a lot more. The going weekly rate by ITC standards was £494 per week at the time.

Voice actor fees - £3,300 Our biggest change from season 1 was our VA budget. We had a total budget of £3300 for VA roles. We split this up in lead roles (£200), small roles (£100), and minor roles (£50). These were based on line-count, but also emotional intensity of the role. We roughly planned for 10 lead roles, 10 small roles, and 6 minor roles, which is about what we ended up with. Because all VAs in Folxlore do more than one role across the season, everyone received a rounded out fee based on their roles. 

Marketing budget - £1,410 Our marketing budget increased significantly as well: we included more time to develop a marketing plan, more intricate marketing ideas, and more time to implement the plan under our producing fees. 

Contingency: £1,205 Because we’d done this before, we could decrease our contingency budget from 10% to 5% of the overall budget.

Access budget - £2530 Another big change from season 1 is that we had a designated access budget. This budget includes the creation of episode transcripts, 1 paid day off for our core team (most of us are full-time freelancers, so this was a rare treat and something we consider vital to a healthy work/life balance), a day of work for an access coordinator for the writing & recording sessions (me), and budget for any other access needs that might come up during the recording or writing such as travel, equipment, caring responsibilities, and any access needs that were yet to be determined for our hired VA’s.

In-kind funding - £5,330 Like with season 1, we had in-kind funding for this season amounting to nearly 20% of our total budget.

There were some additional budget lines for season 2 that we haven't discussed, as they are for parts of the project we haven't announced yet.

Keep in mind all these numbers are straight from the budget we applied to Creative Scotland with: things will always change during the course of a project and they certainly have for us. Also keep in mind this budget is in pounds!

We hope that was helpful for (prospective) podcast producers out there! We're always happy to talk through how to get public funding within the UK, as that's what we're familiar with: our DMs are open!

[eowynstwin]

I woke up, checked Tumblr, and now I want to kick all these Low Reading Comprehension anons in the face. What a start to the Saturday.

alright I have some Opinions too, if I may.

(1) creators are not talking about monetizing fanfiction. They're talking about monetizing THEIR SKILLS and time (and figuring it how to do so) .

(2) there's nothing wrong with someone monetizing their skills. People have to eat. There's also nothing wrong with creators suddenly realizing they can monetize something, and that changing their worldview. I had a similar realization in my career earlier when I realized cis white male coworkers were getting paid more than me. So actually in fact you know what would be even better to me... if EVERY DAY A CREATOR SUDDENLY REALIZED THEY CAN MONETIZE THEIR SKILL. This is the fandom equivalent of "talk to your coworkers about how much you all make".

(3) just because something is a hobby doesn't mean it can't or shouldn't be monetized. What kind of stupid cult/ victimizing/ keeping-people-down mentality is this. Hobbies are not mutually exclusive with making money (if a person does choose to do so). If you are a teenager and have been given this message, please start changing your worldview so that the world doesn't victimize you in the future. If you are an adult and you still believe this, girl I need you to reevaluate whether you could honestly be making your life easier/ better in some way.

(4) people who aren't creators need to honestly ask themselves why they're so against creators making money. Is it because they're afraid their free source of content will dry up? (**faux stage-whisper** YES) BTW I am not a creator myself.

In my opinion the bottom line is that there's a bunch of stingy people who don't create, don't spend time and energy creating, who have been sucking up content for free for years and years and ingrained it into fandom culture, and they're freaked out.

I'll address each point because I love that you numbered them, it makes my brain happy.

DEADASS

ALSO DEADASS. It is wild to me that artists are allowed to monetize and writers are not. We allow both, or we allow neither. Sidenote--I think screenarchers and gif-makers should be included in this list of fan creators who deserve to monetize.

I would also add, just because one creator decides to monetize does not mean all creators will decide to monetize. Not everyone will want to profit off of their work, either because they don't need to, they don't want to, or they are passionate about the accessibility of their work. Both types of creators--for free and for profit--have a place in fandom.

I suspect you're exactly right, but I must note, I do feel compassion for people who balk at the idea of monetized fan content, because the model we have for that is subscription-based. That is FAR more to ask of someone who might already be paying more than one subscription for entertainment. Unfortunately, it is also the most viable form of income for creatives. I'm not saying it's a perfect solution, but I am saying it would be the most effective one for creatives to be compensated fairly.

[tobiasdrake]

It was a relaxing vacation but it's time to refocus on what's important.

No more excuses PLAY ME

I'm going to destroy you like the scrub you are

Oh my god, your pieces are custom painted. I love that. I wish mine were painted.

...wait, can I paint them? Have I been missing out on painting my pieces this whole time?

HAHAHAHAHAHA I AM THE BEST AT TINY WARRIOR FIGURINES

...

...

...

What the actual fuck am I doing? Don't I have a... an entire atmosphere to try and repair....

shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit I BLAME YOU YOLANDE YOU PAID ME IN GAMBLING ADDICTION shit shit shit shit

I'M HERE IT'S FINE EVERYTHING'S FINE

I'm not late. All-a y'all are early. The meeting was scheduled for whenever I get there. I'm here now, I'm focused, we can get to work.

Hey Serai, am I hungry enough for Wall Sashimi? I'm thinking... maybe just a Wall Parfait for a light snack.

Still don't see why I have to give the wall money. What does it even buy with it? It's a wall.

*sigh* You know what, you're right. That's really more of a question for Zale. HEY ZALE, HOW HUNGRY AM I?

Ugh, this is taking forever. I'm bored. Come on, Zale, let's take Kickball and--

...

Did. Uh. Did we....

Did we just. Leave Kickball at Clockwork Castle? I think we all kind of forgot about Kickball in the Artificer commotion.

Wow, it's a good thing none of us promised them anything.

I did want to make something rain there but this is good enough. As long as we're accomplishing something, I can be satisfied with only a mild amount of spite.

Good for you! I still feel like shit.

Job's only half-finished, and the important half is yet to come. Also, the hard part, given that I'm fairly certain the Dweller of Dread is guarding my moon.

Still coming to terms with the fact that we may need to slay a Dweller in order to restore the Eclipse and give us the power to slay a Dweller. There's a pretty significant complication there.

Go ahead and take this victory lap, little frog robo. We couldn't have done it without you.

Also, the way Serai manages to smile with just her eyes is awesome.

I'm not 100% sure that simply shining sunlight directly onto the moon counts as an Eclipse but I sort of feel like it does and that's good enough. Let's go cleansing.

Probably wasn't expecting visitors on this dead world.

Then again, we did just shine sunlight directly on its lair for the first time in centuries so it probably knew something was about to go down.

GUESS WE'RE DOING THIS

Remember, the more limbs we dismember now, the less we'll have to deal with later.

Just like that. We're making calamari, people.

Teach them to interfere with a peaceful protest. We're here to FREE LUNA and we aren't leaving until our demands our met!

Give. Me. Back. My. Goddamn. MOON.

...or else we'll bring the sun to you.

Sometimes you just need to get creative. There is not technically a term for when the sun is between the moon and earth. Because that's not a thing. But that just means I get to name it.

This is a Zalian Eclipse. What do you have to say about that, huh!?

Okay, that's fair. I walked right into that.

Hold up, what's happening now? Is this... are we....

I. Guess. This answers my question of whether the Fuck Out Of My Head Juice is still in effect. This is concerning. Do I... should I....

...wait a second, that's not ZALE!

Zale's sword is red. I was thinking about how pretty it looks the other day when we were fighting bird people. *smug*

Okay, I'm officially done with this weirdass shit.

IN THE NAME OF THE MOON

I'LL PUNISH YOU

[bigsnzstanacct]

I've seen a lot of members in the snzblr-sphere openly condemning gAI and its use. I guess, I wonder how that makes you feel since you use it quite frequently here

Well, this is a sneeze fetish blog but since you asked�� here’s a sermonette on AI, lmao:

I work irl in an industry and in roles that have I think fairly significant risk of being displaced by AI in the next 5-10 years, so I have some empathy and understanding particularly for visual artists who feel that all generative AI is parasitical not only on work they and their friends may have done in the past, but in particular harmful to their ability to be paid for their work presently and into the future. And in fact for the purposes of visual art I rarely/never use generative AI anymore, not so much because I found it unethical, but just because it isn’t very good at drawing what I want to see. But like idk if people want me to delete the generative AI images I’ve posted in the past, I would, sure.

I feel quite a bit differently about generative AI text, and that’s probably just cause like… listen, I can’t draw for shit so on some level I don’t really feel qualified to understand how visual artists feel about generative AI, so I think in that sense it’s maybe easier/healthier to defer to practicing artists who feel strongly and otherwise mind my business. But I am a writer, both in the context of this fetish community and irl (technically getting paid—albeit a very small amount—to write for a bit starting at the end of this month, actually!) And for me generative AI is a really effective tool for combating the anxiety of the blank page and virtually nothing else. Like it’s not… good… at writing? And because I’ve used it so much I currently don’t have any fear of it becoming good enough at writing to replace professional writers? (Also at a deep level, I do believe that novel ideas and perspectives exist and the core social utility of writing is to provide those new ideas and perspectives, which I just don’t think generative AI is capable of doing, at least not any time soon). But on some level that makes it perfect for churning out endless variations on simple sneeze fetish themes that land in our silly fetish horny hitboxes. So because it is not capable, in my opinion, of replacing professional writers even for basic corporate marketing type shit, I see it more as a tool for writers to use as we see fit? And I have zero problem using the tool to recreate slight variations on the theme of “big sneeze blows things away” to satisfy fetish cravings and frankly I think y’all should use it in the same way lmao. And also use it to help you write actual stories! It works well as essentially an outlining tool. I wouldn’t even use it to generate dialogue or language because again I think it is very bad at that, but it is good at like… providing options for how a story could flow from point a to point b. And sometimes just revising something is easier than starting from scratch, you know?

AND THEN more broadly, I don’t think that generative AI is inherently harmful, I think we (as Americans/westerners/consumers in capitalists societies, not as sneeze fetishists lmao) have a social structure that makes it potentially harmful. The issue with generative AI taking your job isn’t that it’s going to replace your true original artistic expression, your brilliant webcomic, your sprawling fantasy universe, your masterpiece painting. The issue is that it’s going to take your bullshit graphic artist job for a marketing firm, or even your job as a storyboard artist, etc. AND maybe it SHOULD take those jobs! If gAI can speed up the intermediate stages of artistic production like storyboarding, then great storyboard artists can simply work on more films, enhancing the quality of those films, by using AI to speed up their work. And for the marketing gig, if that work that frankly does more to sap creative energy and funnel it towards greasing the bullshit wheels of capital could be done by generative AI, that would be GREAT for artists, *if* the value created were shared equitably across society. If there were an “AI dividend” that took 50% of the savings created by generative AI and invested it in grants and free classes and free drawing tablets and free housing and funds for creatives to do creative work, then you wouldn’t need the bullshit marketing job that saps your energy, you could work part time in a job unrelated to art and still afford the necessities of life while you work on the stuff you actually care about.

But, of course, we have a bullshit capitalist system. But even within the confines of that system, trying to just reject a productivity enhancing technology rather than harnessing it to the benefit of workers (rather than just allow capital to use the technology as it sees fit, which we have seen unions like the WGA in particular fight very effectively against, SAG-AFTRA less so but that’s a whole other can of worms) is, imo, always a fool’s errand. What we need isn’t to ban AI or create taboos against its use; what we need to emphasize that it is a tool for creatives to accelerate our work, to create more time for us to attend to the details, to ultimately help us make better stuff (and here I am lowkey or maybe high key talking about my day job tho I am being intentionally vague) rather than simply a way for capital to cut down on labor costs. Don’t hate the new robot player, hate the game lol. And in all seriousness, *organize* so that the game gets better rules. And share some of the benefits with capital too, because that’s how it works in the mixed economy (for now). AI generally is eventually going to automate away a lot of junior and entry level work in my industry… and I actually think that can be GREAT! Because then junior level people can actually be apprentices to the creatives that are doing the jobs they one day want to do, instead of getting stuck (as I did, for nearly a decade) doing boring technical work under the guise of assisting creatives, but not actually getting any better at the creative skill you are supposedly apprenticing to one day do.

“But bigsnzstanacct, what if I really love my marketing job greasing the wheels of capital using graphics and art work?” you say. Awesome! Then you should be mastering generative AI to get the most possible benefit out of it, because After The Revolution, we will need people to get the best out of the generative AI and touch up their work and fix their errors either inside or outside of the gAI programs. That is also part of how we harness AI to actually benefit society, by getting good at using it.

So anyway, sermonette over tl;dr: message me or send me another ask if you want me to delete my old posts of generative AI images; generative AI and AI as a whole is just a tool, the tool in itself is not good or bad, the institutions shaping its use are good or bad (and the capitalist institutions that dominate workers presently are very very bad and will incline towards using AI badly and in an anti-worker way in already precarious creative fields, BUT there is power in a union, and we can work together to improve the institutions such that AI can benefit us all, perhaps creatives especially.)

[kimyoonmiauthor]

This week in people trying to overextend their Degrees...

https://twitter.com/ylecun/status/1742233111037870259

Original comment I'm responding to:

I'm afraid you totally misunderstood my point. 1. Many authors I know are more motivated by the impact of their intellectual productions than by the income it might generate through books and other publications. 2. Many of them face the following trade-off: will I give up income in exchange for increased readership by making my book free for download, or will I generate income while decreasing readership by charging for my book? (Note that offering a free download does not preclude also selling physical books). 3. The calculus is this: since the expected income has a 50% chance of being below $2000, I'm not going to drop my day job. Perhaps I should give up on what is likely to be a modest short-term income and maximize prestige and recognition instead. Prestige and recognition through intellectual impact can turn into future income (e.g. by getting a prestigious position). 4. Lots of people in the academic world have made this calculus and have offered their books for free download. Some of them simultaneously offer print version through publishers who don't mind (generally some non-profit university press). 5. Many of those people have realized that the free download, instead of reducing printed sales, actually *increases* sales. There are famous examples. 6. Academics are very familiar with the idea that you don't get paid directly for your writings. Scholarly publications (and talks) do not generate any income (in fact, they can cost money!). The income is indirect: intellectual or artistic impact is a precondition to a position in academia or industry research labs. 7. Computer scientists are also familiar with the concept. It's called open source software. You give away your software for free. Sometimes, your employer pays you to do so. Sometimes, you just want to make a name for yourself by contributing to an important project. 8. A similar phenomenon exists in music, particularly in jazz: a number of jazz musicians achieve financial stability through a teaching position at a university or conservatory. Additional income comes from performance. They get almost nothing from recordings. I'm not suggesting people shouldn't get paid for their work. In fact, I find it quite sad that most people can't live off of their creative work. If you can make a living by selling your books, music, or video games, more power to you! But I'm wondering whether the modus operandi that is prevalent in the academic world and the open source software world could not apply to other types of intellectual and artistic production. It may cause some creative productions to exist that would not otherwise see the light of day because of lack of commercial interest from publishers.

1. Many authors I know are more motivated by the impact of their intellectual productions than by the income it might generate through books and other publications.

Many Who? Did you read #Publishingpaidme? No? Really? Did you see the last person who declared something like this and people jumping on them—it was an agent? You haven't been paying attention. Many who? Cite your sources. Do you have sources or any publishing experience in novels? I have industry experience and I can cite sources beyond one article. Should we start with Bisheng in China?

Authors and writers who do creative works are more desperate, but want to be paid and paid fairly.

Backing into the "many" without citation creates a fallacy. You can do better as someone who teaches at NYU and has a degree teaching computer science. (Though no lie in my last project on story structure, professors were the worst at citations. And yes, I can name names with that and posted long and ranted long about that and their plagiarism.)

2. Many of them face the following trade-off: will I give up income in exchange for increased readership by making my book free for download, or will I generate income while decreasing readership by charging for my book? (Note that offering a free download does not preclude also selling physical books).

This is because society, in general misinterprets creativity and devalues it as a "real skill" It has nothing really to do with your first assumption. Much like AI often pulls from large creative datasets and devalues creativity and artists' skillsets.

Also, this doesn't prove to be true, but then you haven't really looked at selling models for books. There are more complicated things going on that you don't know and aren't accounting for.

Like the psychology of reviewers and trying to game for more reviewers when your book isn't getting attention, which you would know if you knew the last debacle with the whole gaming the Goodreads reviews by over reviewing.

The calculus is this: since the expected income has a 50% chance of being below $2000, I'm not going to drop my day job. Perhaps I should give up on what is likely to be a modest short-term income and maximize prestige and recognition instead. Prestige and recognition through intellectual impact can turn into future income (e.g. by getting a prestigious position).

Ummm… this isn't calculus. Did you take Calculus? I did This seems like a mix of unsupported statistics pulling numbers wherever you feel like it without cross referencing.

You're trying to use fancy words to sound smarter while proving you don't seem to understand basic psychology and don't know how publishing, artists, or self-publishing works.

Most artists don't do things for prestige value. They don't want to be famous. It's more like sharing is caring. This might be your value set, but it's not everyone's. Have you interacted with artists and creatives? The majority of the time we're swapping different techniques and trying to help each other to the top, again, see Xiran's expose on Goodreads debacle.

For those who want to be famous, etc, you know what they preach over and over again? Don't fuck this up for the rest of the artists: Make sure you get paid for your art.

Do you need a name? John Scalzi. He is famous for saying both things.

You need another name? Harlan Ellison. Harlan Ellison argued freaking hard for this. He won court cases for us. He is famous for preaching over and over again to make sure you get paid while also wanting the prestige.

Most artists that want prestige alone don't survive in the publishing industry. It simply doesn't work because you need the skill set to go with it, and there are certainly less masochistic ways to gain prestige.

You have who exactly? Desperation isn't the same as knowing marketing skills.

Lots of people in the academic world have made this calculus and have offered their books for free download. Some of them simultaneously offer print version through publishers who don't mind (generally some non-profit university press).

This isn't calculus either. Many who? This is also false equivalency. There is a faster road and more sure road to this than getting a novel published or a nonfiction book published. You should realize the fallacy of this and also be able to own you just don't know the artists that create the art you're claiming on.

Many of those people have realized that the free download, instead of reducing printed sales, actually increases sales. There are famous examples.

No. It increases customer dissatisfaction, actually to give things away from free. I can cite Mur Lafferty with a lot of interviews with self-publishers. You have who, exactly to back your assertion?

Second one backs the assertion. I could go more academic, but it's not like you're pulling anything to support your assertions, despite being an NYU professor.

It's actually a higher satisfaction rate to charge for your book rather than to give it out for free. You get better reviews. So when people charged 1.99 for their books over free, the amount of reviews and reviewer satisfaction went up. This might be inverse of what you expect, but this is well-known among self-pubbed authors.

Psychologically, this is inverse because sometimes people think cheap is lower quality. And free is the equivalent of a mattress left on the curb–it must be used and worn and not very good–in fact it might have bed bugs.

Academics are very familiar with the idea that you don't get paid directly for your writings. Scholarly publications (and talks) do not generate any income (in fact, they can cost money!). The income is indirect: intellectual or artistic impact is a precondition to a position in academia or industry research labs.

Academics is not the same thing. You're asserting that you know because oranges are also fruit like apples, so growing oranges must be exactly like apples. That's not the case. Because Academia takes a different skill set, but a related skill set from creating books in the creative sphere. It doesn't seem you have enough publishing knowledge to back your claim, so you try to make a related claim and then claim the feelings around it must be the same.

Because the proess of publishing nonfiction and novels and short stories is different from academia, the atmosphere and the reasons why people want to publish or have a publishing career also change. There is a lot of difference in this industry compared to academia.

But it's not. It simply is not. Also, academic papers get better pay than your average article. Ask me how I know this. I fucking looked it up. You get better residuals too, in the form of prestige means you get better pay in your career itself. It doesn't work this way in general publishing. You can fuck up one day and lose your entire career. The publisher says goodbye, no more sorry, you didn't sell well that we no longer want your books. BTW, you need a reference? Brandon Sanderson said this on Writing excuses that he felt lucky that he's been able to have a continued career in this regard.

Computer scientists are also familiar with the concept. It's called open source software. You give away your software for free. Sometimes, your employer pays you to do so. Sometimes, you just want to make a name for yourself by contributing to an important project.

Open source software is totally a different type of field and psychology from what you're arguing here. Also false equivalency and computer science as a core career pays well, that people can do it for prestige? No. They want to innovate the field further and try to find other computer programmers and learn and explore things.

My Dad was a computer engineer. I know this from personal experience of being near computer engineers. I know how they think. I also worked professionally in UX. You're thinking the psychology must be the same without experiencing the people. This is over extending.

A similar phenomenon exists in music, particularly in jazz: a number of jazz musicians achieve financial stability through a teaching position at a university or conservatory. Additional income comes from performance. They get almost nothing from recordings. I'm not suggesting people shouldn't get paid for their work. In fact, I find it quite sad that most people can't live off of their creative work. If you can make a living by selling your books, music, or video games, more power to you! But I'm wondering whether the modus operandi that is prevalent in the academic world and the open source software world could not apply to other types of intellectual and artistic production. It may cause some creative productions to exist that would not otherwise see the light of day because of lack of commercial interest from publishers.

No. You're jumping in order to cover your lack of knowledge of a thing. Focus on the feelings of the publishing industry. Show your knowledge of the people that produce books.

Jazz Musicians don't have the same psychology either.

So, in total, you're confessing you don't know anything about publishing industry, how it operates and who is working in it and for what reasons, but assert you must know because apples are fruit like oranges, so you have to be growing apples and oranges in the exact same way–don't you water them and put them into full sun? So then you must be able to understand that how you grow them and the pests that come onto them and the things the farmers have to care about as an apple grower and an orange grower must be exactly the same.

This is how your argument sounds like. Why not actually do the investigating and stop spitballing and, ya know, act like an academic and ASK THE PEOPLE and stop doing your backfire effect in the wrong way?

Also, it might behoove you to look into scams writers face and why people fall for those scams.

BTW, Anthropology Degree and minor in comp lit. Also published. So yeah, I know what I'm doing when I pick on your argument.

[lilycutesmith]

Lily's Personal Onion On Art And Creativity As A Whole

tbh I've been having a LOT of thoughts on creation and what I feel about it. I'm tired of seeing people complain about shit like "ugh I hate doing line art/shading/etc" when it comes to art, like who's making you do those things? Have you sat down and thought about WHY you're doing those? Is there not some way to do those in a way you like, if not cut them out entirely? Why are you making yourself suffer through things you don't like to do?

Like, ok, I don't consider myself """an artist""" because I only really draw to show people designs I've thought up or to make graphics for my video games but a lot of what informs "my style" is that:

I'm not particularly strong at making sprites over a certain size

I fucking hate shading sprites I have to animate dude its so tedious

I want to be done as fast as possible

And this results in me being fairly quick at sketching out a concept when I draw on paper, and my sprite work is low-color count NES-esque style sprites and I'm ok with that! I don't need to do more then that. I'm not paid to do more and I'm not that interested in pushing it further. The only real thing I wish to improve at is getting my brain to understand 3D shapes better.

anyways the point is, if you create stuff and feel frustrated, you should just take a step back and ask yourself why. Why are you doing <thing that is frustrating>?

That all said, you DO have to put up with a certain level of "frustrating" because the nature of learning means you have to deal with it but changing how you approach it alleviates it so much. Just answer the question of "Why do I do this?" really helps imo.

anyways thats my two cents I'm still growing and learning and having fun, and you can too.

[shadowmaat]

"Artists don't deserve money"

It's a sentiment I'm sure has always existed, but it's one that's become nastier and more entitled in recent years and now with the Hollywood strikes going on, folks are getting even pettier about it.

I have such a hard time wrapping my mind around that kind of greed and selfishness. It basically boils down to "I want this thing but I shouldn't have to pay for it" and wow, is that terrible. This isn't about how The Poor™ deserve to have nice things, though it frequently gets framed that way. It's about people deserving to be fairly compensated for their work. Acting as if artists should be somehow "above" the struggles faced by everyone else is anti-intellectual bullshit. Being "creative" doesn't mean you can live off of sunshine and praise, you arrogant fuckers. Humans still need to eat, still need to pay rent and bills, still need access to healthcare, and all those other dirty little details of life.

I think part of what bothers me about a lot of the pissing I've seen is that it comes from people who are arguing that they actually have to WORK for a living! They have to slog through shifts in restaurants and retail shops, or they work in factories or as delivery drivers or blah blah blah. If THEY don't get special privileges, why should anyone else?

NEWS FLASH, FUCK LORDS! You deserve to afford the basics, too! No one is saying that minimum wage jobs shouldn't pay better. In fact I think I've seen tons of people talking about the need to raise minimum wage by a significant amount due to the horrific cost of living. "Pay the writers" doesn't mean "don't pay the CSRs." FFS.

A lot of the writers and actors and other low-tier workers that you're shitting on could also be classed as minimum wage. A lot of them also need to hold down multiple jobs to stay alive. And none of them are receiving fair compensation by their studio employers.

If it isn't fair for a Starbucks barista to be cheated out of their earned wages then it isn't fair for Thug #2 to be cheated, either. EVERYONE deserves to be paid fairly. Except billionaires. And they're the ones fighting to prevent the rest of us from getting the money we deserve because it'll mean less money for them to hoard.

Stop tearing each other down and start tearing down the dragons of the world instead. You want money? They have it. Let's start redistributing that wealth.

[cookinguptales]

thegeekyartist said:

"There's value in joy, even if it's mine."

OH I love this, I'm holding it close to my chest. I can sympathize so hard 🥲 My main creative practice/job is fine art, and sometimes if I make work that isn't for sale/print apps/museum apps it feels like I'm wasting precious time. But we're allowed to just do things for fun!! We can do things with the only purpose being to have the experience!

I wish you all the luck in your NYRs! I'm always happy to see your posts/stories/tags etc! I hope you have a great year!

-------------

It's a thing that's hard to for me internalize, but I'm doing my best! My joy is a worthwhile goal all on its own! Everything I do doesn't have to be in the service of others! My happiness is enough!

And ohhhh, I definitely feel you. Like... in addition to everything I already said, I've always kind of gone back and forth on my writing. My mother writes professionally now, something that was hard to get used to, and I always specifically avoided writing professionally just because I saw the way that it stressed her out. I wanted writing to be my one good thing, an outlet that was not attached to my livelihood, and for the most part, I've stuck to that.

That said, I always kind of wondered if I was being foolish or selfish to look at it that way, and whether I should consider writing for pay... But I kind of dismissed that as like "oh, who would pay me to write, anyway?"

Then I won that writing competition last year and I mean... They paid me quite a bit to write, when it comes down to it. And they wanted to pay me to keep writing. Which kind of put me in a tough spot.

So now I always have this kind of struggle because... Now I know I can be paid for my writing. People's lives were made better by my writing. People from marginalized groups sent me messages telling me that they felt seen.

But people wanted me to write about a stressful topic and I would have been monetizing my own trauma. Moreover, I got some harassment after I won the contest and it was like... is this a thing that I should develop a thicker skin for? Is this a life that I'm cut out for?

In the end, I got sick. We're still not sure what got me so sick, but... I got really sick. Then around the time that I started feeling better, I also got into wwdits fandom. And, well, according to AO3 I wrote over 250k words of fanfic this year.

Should I have poured that effort into writing nonfiction professionally? Maybe. I honestly don't know. People wanted me to. But I've gotten a lot of happiness out of just writing two idiots falling in love in a bunch of different ways, and I like to believe that's brought happiness to others as well. Maybe that's enough...?

But it sure doesn't pay for that accessible bathroom...

Sigh. I don't know. This is a lot of words to say... I feel you. I always feel like maybe I should be monetizing my creative pursuits, like that would be the responsible thing to do. But it's not like I don't have a full-time job that pays me fairly well. It's not like I have to monetize the things that bring me joy.

I often joke, like, oh if only people would just pay me to sit around and write my silly little stories all day. But maybe that would ruin it. Or maybe it wouldn't. Maybe it would make me feel less guilty about sitting around and writing my silly little stories all day. I guess there's really no way to know.

in the meantime, I guess I'll just keep... writing words about vampires...

Ah, I got off topic again. Thank you, and I hope your next year goes however you'd like it to as well. 💜

[profestriga]

There're a lot of really good reasons to have a problem with AI as it's currently being used in artistic endeavors, especially in the predominant theft based model, but I have a *lot* of major problems with this argument. I'm going to put a lot of this into terms of electronic music production, since that's my main creative outlet these days, but I think my arguments work outside of that arena. A quick disclaimer that I don't own most of the tools that I'm talking about in this post--most of them are on my wish list, and I have no fiscal interest in this post.

Firstly, this makes the assumption that there are no legitimate cases of AI based tool use in creativity, and that's just false? Here's one example: AI mastering tools in music production. One particular one that I'm currently saving up for is Waves Clarity VX. This is a tool that eliminates background noise from vocal recordings, allowing an artist to record without soundproofing. Here, skill isn't being replaced--one mechanism for producing a clear vocal track is being replaced by another, and the one doing the replacing is a lot cheaper. But! Even when skill is being replaced, I'm still not sold that this is a bad thing. Consider plugins like Gullfoss or Soothe2, which are now staples of the mastering world. Both of these do things that are replicable with non AI solutions, but using them saves many hours of work.*

This segues into an important feature of the above argument, which is the weird fetishization of effort. It puts me in mind of this fairly famous copypasta. The form of argument that's being used here can be applied to AI driven tools, sure, but it can also be used against traditional tools. Keeping with the theme of audio plugins, a new plugin that came out last year, MasterPlan is a mastering tool that can replace a massive part of a traditional mastering chain, and in so doing also replace many, many hours of work. However, it's not AI driven. But it does let an artist, to some extent, just push a button. If the problem is with the lack of effort, ethic, skill, or what have you, we should have just as much a problem with this tool as AI driven tools. This sort of reasoning can be then further extended to avoiding effort by pecuniary means.

I've learned to mix and master my own music because, frankly, I can't afford to pay a producer to mix, master, and record to the standard that I want. For my first album, I paid as much as I could, and the album's sound suffered a lot for it. For my first single, I did all the work myself, and the process took me about 25 hours of work (and sounded a lot better than most of the album). I certainly would prefer to replace a lot of that time with better tools. But, note the issue here: if I were wealthier, I could just pay more to an engineer, and get the same results.

I want to tread ground carefully here. A lot of shitty AI advocates have used inchoate arguments about how AI levels the playing field, without appropriately considering things like how AI tools can be wrongfully developed through theft, or how it displaces already undervalued and underpaid workers. I don't want to be taken as making the same argument. But, nevertheless, I do want to spill some ink on how the reasoning in this post can very much smack of classism and ableism. **

No one would accuse me of cheating in music production if, instead of spending hundreds of hours of work, I paid someone to do it for me.*** This is the standard in the music industry. Note that the above criticism should also apply to this strategy. But it sounds very strange to say, "The allure of hiring a sound engineer entices those people that fetishize ideas but dismiss the work... Hiring people in creativity is for people who have no skill, no work, no effort, no ethic. They just want to push a button."

That notion being absurd, this ultimately ends up saying then that because I can't afford to pay a professional, I'm not allowed to use the resources I do have to buy tools to make the process easier, and must instead learn a massive skillset and do an enormous amount of work myself, but a wealthier person could permissibly avoid that work. Now, admittedly, if I pay a professional, I'm at least valuing the work. I'm recognizing, monetarily, the importance of the work in the project. But note that if I do pay a sound engineer, they will very likely be using these exact same tools. Part of the fee that one pays a sound engineer is effectively accessing their hardware and software. We would not criticize the sound engineer for using these tools and thus undervaluing their own work; instead we might very well laude them for correctly valuing their own time. Else, we would be ethically required to demand that our engineers do everything analog, using harder to use outdated equipment.****

So, the arguments in this post are at best somewhat incoherent, and at worst classist and/or ableist. That said, this is not a thoroughgoing defense of AI tools; it's a criticism of one form of criticism. There are huge problems with quite a lot of the AI tools that are being implemented, and the way in which they're being implemented. Much of the softward is based on blatant theft. Creators are being pushed out of their roles, and even those that retain the ability to sell their work are at risk of having to severely reduce their prices in order to compete with AI tools. These risks give strong prima facie reasons to be deeply wary of AI tools in creative spaces. Now, I don't think that this amounts to a total prohibition. Tools like Clarity, Gullfoss, and Soothe2 I think are some of the best examples of AI tools being used well; for professionals they allow for greatly increased productivity, and for amateurs, especially poor amateurs, they greatly decrease the cost floor of production. Of course, as mentioned in footnote 1, none of these technologies are generative AI, which is where most of the thrust has been placed. We should be, I think, even more wary of generative AI systems for reasons that have been far better explained than I can do justice to in this post. But I wanted to write this because it's important, for example, to distinguish between generative and non-generative AI tools, and to use good criticisms of either as appropriate. This post does neither.

*There's a key metaphysical question that I'm skipping over here about what exactly counts as an AI tool here. None of the plugins that I'm using here are generative AI. However, given the form of reasoning that Wendig is using here, that doesn't actually matter, for reasons that will become clearer as this post goes on.

**As far as ableism is concerned, just a brief note. I suffer from pretty damn severe ADHD, and the massive process of mixing and mastering can be pretty affected thereby. Tools to make it go faster and more easily help to mitigate this.

***Someone, it's worth noting, who through professional training is a lot better at this than I am, and won't take hundreds of hours of work.

****Admittedly, doom metal band Electric Wizard did exactly that, but that's because they were chasing an authentic vintage sound and aesthetic.

[maebelleoftheparty]

Keeping Your Remote Team Loyal So They Don’t Ghost You When You Need Them Most

When I first started my social media marketing agency years ago, I knew I needed help. But hiring a full-time in-house team? Yeah, not in the budget. That’s when I started looking into hiring a remote team, and let me tell you— OnlineJobs.ph was a game-changer. I spent hours rummaging through their blogs and watching videos, learning everything I could about managing a virtual team. Now, a few years in, I’ve built a solid, loyal crew of talented VAs (or Online Filipino Specialist [OFS] as what they call them) from the Philippines. Years later and I can confidently say, I wouldn't have it any other way.

So, how do you cultivate loyalty when your team is spread across different time zones, and you can’t exactly bond over coffee breaks? Here’s what worked for me:

Build Trust from the Start When you’re hiring remotely, trust is everything. I made it a point to really get to know my team members, not just as employees, but as people. Early on in the hiring process, I make sure to ask them a LOT of questions to learn about not just their work-related experience but also their life and how their day looks like. Once they're hired, we do regular one-on-one check-ins. We talk about work, their goals, even their hobbies. It’s all about showing that you genuinely care—not just about the tasks they complete, but about them as individuals. When your team feels seen and valued, loyalty naturally follows.

Be Transparent and Clear One of the biggest hurdles in remote work is communication. Early on, I learned that being vague can cause so many problems down the line. Now, I try to be as clear as possible when assigning tasks, outlining deadlines, and giving feedback. And it’s not just about the work—I’m also transparent about the bigger picture. I share updates on the company, where we’re heading, and how they play a vital role in our success. This makes everyone feel like they’re part of something bigger.

Celebrate Wins, Big and Small Remote work can feel isolating at times, so I make it a point to celebrate everything. Whether it’s a successful campaign launch or just a team member handling a tough client like a pro, I shout them out. I’ll send a quick message, hop on a call, or even give small bonuses to show appreciation. A little recognition goes a long way in building loyalty.

Give Them Room to Grow One of the things I learned as a remote team manager is that people thrive when they feel like they’re growing. My VAs are super talented, and I never want them to feel like they’re stuck in a repetitive grind. I encourage them to take on new challenges and learn new skills. If someone on my team shows interest in something outside of their usual tasks, I’m all for it. Empowering them this way keeps them engaged and loyal to the team.

Respect Their Time This is huge. Just because we work remotely doesn’t mean we should expect 24/7 availability. I make sure my team has a clear understanding of working hours, and I never overload them. Plus, I don’t use time trackers, as suggested by John Jonas—because let’s be real, you can’t expect a full 8 hours of 100% productive work. That’s not how creativity works. Even in a face-to-face setup, people need breaks to let their ideas flow. When you respect your team’s time, they respect yours, and it builds a healthy, loyal working relationship.

Pay Fairly and on Time This might seem obvious, but paying your team fairly and making sure they get paid on time is crucial. I offer competitive rates based on their experience. It’s one of the easiest ways to show your team that you value their work. Trust me, nothing builds loyalty faster than being a boss who’s got their back financially.

So you see... cultivating loyalty in a remote team isn’t all that different from building it in a traditional office setting. It’s about trust, communication, and showing that you care. Now, if you’re thinking about building a remote team, head over to OnlineJobs.ph, do your research, watch a few videos, and take the leap. You’ll be surprised how you can build and grow a team of loyal OFS.