When we're all hobbyists
Plus more silly existential dread!
Greetings from sunny-ish Hollywood, CA (still havin’ that “May Gray!”)
The Writers Guild of America, that group of folks who dream up the stuff a lot of us consume (like Game of Thrones or The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel!) are still picketing production sites for a teensy pay bump from an extremely profitable entertainment industry.
As of last night, the performers in the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Radio & Television Artists (aka SAG-AFTRA) are initiating a strike authorization vote (aka SAV) from its 160,000 members before we begin our negotiations with the SAME PEOPLE who refuse to give writers a raise.
Those people are a GROUP called the AMPTP (aka Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers) and represent about 300 companies. Their chief negotiator is this lady Carol Lombardini.
This is a person who is quoted as saying “writers are lucky to even HAVE term employment,” when asked to extend contract terms. She is also known to have said (when negotiating with casting directors, “if casting directors can’t afford rent, they should just get roommates!!”) Carol Lombardini’s salary is over 3 million dollars annually, by the way. Something tells me Carol Lombardini doesn’t need a roommate with that kind of paycheck! This is the person who invents the squeeziest SQUEEZES on the workforce that makes all the money for the 300 companies represented. And Carol Lombardini presents as not smart to force this work stoppage. Someone who is good at their job would have come up with better counter offers than this boneheaded weirdo named Carol Lombardini! And the workforce Carol Lombardini is trying to fleece? WE’VE ALL HAD IT! AMPTP should fire her and get a better negotiator because that over three mill is just being flushed down the TOILET, if you ask me. And her last name sounds like a deli sandwich! How DARE a deli sandwich take a “let them eat cake” stance? IT IS INSULTIDINI!!!
I am angry.
I do not want to have to strike. I do not like seeing my friends HAVING to strike. I want to get back to being a part of this machine that gets TV and film created. I have ideas I want to try to sell and make. My friends are on the verge of selling ideas or getting staffed on already created shows. Can’t believe I am saying this, but I even miss the prolific rejection from hard-won auditions. I was FINALLY getting good at it giving me superpowers of indestructible tenacity! (Only took decades.)
Most people do not probably give a FLIP about entertainment workers (some do, some don’t - if internet comments are an accurate poll sampling). Fine, I get that. We’re the weirdos at high school, showing up in blue lipstick at the ragtag cafeteria table, dripping with cynicism.
Whether you care or not, is not relevant, but I do think people need to WAKE UP and PAY ATTENTION. If we can’t get the robber barons of a VERY PRODUCTIVE AND LUCRATIVE INDUSTRY (not a dying but THRIVING industry) to institute even one flimsy guardrail on artificial intelligence, then what thriving industries are next? And, yes, the robber barons have refused to ACKNOWLEDGE a guardrail. Hell, they won’t even throw us a life raft! What if some of these issues go to the current Supreme Court we have? They are not an ethical group of adults. We’ve got (questionable, IMHO) monopolies happening left and right to the entertainment industry and now…with AI an issue….what about misappropriation of likeness cases or figuring out intellectual property when it’s rainin’ robots (meep meep)?
Maybe the not so far off future sees artificial intelligence being the SOLE workforce of our society. Then, I guess we all just become hobbyists and subsist on a Universal Basic Income? Is that progress?
I honestly can’t answer if that is progress or not. My INSTINCT is it will be psychologically damaging to our society’s psyche. If that’s a possible reality, that is. And some thinkers are saying it absolutely IS.
Also, I like working. I like my social networks through work. I like putting things out into the world with other humans. It can be fun, challenging, uplifting, tiring, difficult, rewarding - you know, all those pesky human emotions!
Anyway, all of this is just a vent post, I guess. But it is also (hopefully) a possible warning that what is happening with our American entertainment industry (which I think, still brings some value to our lives? Sometimes? I mean, I got excited when I learned GINNY & GEORGIA was getting two more seasons yesterday!) might possibly be a valuable bellwether for WHAT IS TO COME TO OUR ECONOMY AS A WHOLE.
Sure feels like a recession is imminent and it sure feels like the most profitable industries are fundamentally against sharing.
So, here’s my pitch: capitalism, but with muscular pushback to give back to those who fed it. And no robot overlords. (Hi 🤖, kidding, I love you, eek!)
It goes well beyond just entertainment writers too. My degree is in advertising and I've worked as a creative writer for close to 20 years now. I cannot begin to tell you how anxious it makes me to see my company and so, so, so many others holding AI training seminars. Writers in all industries have been undervalued for far too long. So to see all of this happening is devastating.
If we allow this to happen to the writers who create the stories, characters, and series we cherish, it'll be a house of cards for writers in every other industry as more and more companies start to say, "Well, Hollywood is doing it. Why can't we?"
The writers have my full and undying support.
Talk about someone whose look matches their vibe. It's uncannidini!