11 ms·
Wealth as a predictor of whether an person pursues a creative profession (2019)
- spacemanmatt 4y agoSheesh. Ask me why I dropped band in favor of an software internship senior year of high school. The answer will abjectly fail to shock or surprise you.
- Joeboy 4y agoCouldn't handle all the cocaine and groupies?
- spacemanmatt 4y agoTales from I was a Trumpet Strumpet But for real, yeah, my family wasn't a fallback plan. I very much intended to live more comfortably than that.
- lc9er 4y agoSimilar story here. Although once music as a profession was out, I continued to play in rock bands for a long time. No one in my peer group "made" it, but the ones that stayed in it the longest, and had the best gear, the best studio recordings, were the ones that had well-to-do parents.
- lazyninja987 4y ago
- 5350-uiop-1130 4y agoseems obvious to me. if your parents are loaded you don't need to worry about finding a job that will earn you a living. simple.
- sk8terboi 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- user_named 4y agoCreative work doesn't pay well <-> Creative work doesn't pay well because people who are competing for the jobs don't need to make money off their job
- toto444 4y agoWhen you don't need to make money off your artistic project, you're free to do what pleases you not what pleases others/businessmen/the platform algorithm.
- quesera 4y ago> Creative work doesn't pay well ... Of course, creative work does pay well. It just has to be creative in serving a commercial goal. The stereotypical HN reader is a creative worker.
- msoad 4y agoThis is as old as history of art. To me art is "anything you don't have to do". People start doing art when their basic needs are met and then start doing things they don't have to do to survive. Looking in history you can see a lot of rich kid artists doing great art. For instance Gustav Klimt was extremely wealthy. He literally painted with gold! His art is great but without his family's wealth nobody would discover his talent.
- FBISurveillance 4y agoHmmmm, according to Wikipedia: "Klimt lived in poverty while attending the Vienna Kunstgewerbeschule [...]" - did you mean someone else by any chance?
- amelius 4y agoBut as soon as you've bootstrapped a career in art, you get paid for it, and you don't need inherited wealth.
- TazeTSchnitzel 4y agoTo a close approximation, everyone wants to make art, but very few want to pay anyone to make it. So the people who make it either are people who don't have to worry about money (because they are independently wealthy) or they're the lucky few who get paid.
- pydry 4y ago>very few want to pay anyone to make it Or theyre prioritizing rent, bills, medical care and retirement.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- brazzy 4y ago...or they are intensely passionate about making art, to the point where they're willing to live in poverty to pursue it.
- boredemployee 4y agoI was lucky enough to make a living out of music for almost 10 years until the pandemic starts and then I lost everything
- reidjs 4y agoIs it too difficult to adapt to online platforms for your music? Does your music only work in person or is it too difficult to promote it online? Asking out of curiosity because I saw this happen to a lot of local comedians as well, but many just started using online tools to perform for their fans. Admittedly not for everyone so many had to get day jobs.
- Inhibit 4y agoI'm not sure if this applies to the OP but I've known quite a few full or part time set musicians, instrument players, and similar performers who don't have a "following". They're simply people who get paid for making music well. Often as part of a performance. Promotion and marketing isn't generally what they do.
- CalRobert 4y agoI wonder how much amazing art and literature is being lost because the people who yearn to make it are stuck doing pointless jobs instead.
- roenxi 4y agoHow many lives have been lost because someone with the capacity to be a great doctor or civil engineer but instead became a mediocre artist? I've seen some very intelligent people waste their lives on mediocre arts careers when they could have made a more solid technical contribution. There is a reason that the economy treats art like a luxury to be reserved for the wealthy - for most of those artists, it is a luxury and we only put up with it because they are wealthy.
- boredemployee 4y agoBut that's way less harmful to society and to the "mediocre artist" than the opposite.
- KptMarchewa 4y agoWhy? That great doctor could cure cancer, which would be greater achievement than all art in the history of art together.
- boredemployee 4y ago> Why? That great doctor could cure cancer, which would be greater achievement than all art in the history of art together. I don't know your life story, but you probably don't know how an artist works and you probably don't know the power that art (especially music) has to heal people, but let's focus on your question. An unhappy artist in a profession that doesn't make sense for him/her could be dangerous: The person can be mentally affected because he/she works in a shitty job, that can lead to stress, depression, etc. And the last thing you want is to be treated/envolved/engaged by a depressed {put any profession here} doctor or to travel in an airplane with a burned out, stressed, depressed pilot. The probability that something REALLY good and life changer can come out from an unhappy and unfulfilled person is really low, let alone the cure of cancer.
- tlb 4y agoIf we take the percentage of wealthy people that become artists as the baseline inclination of human nature, then we conclude that 90% of non-wealthy people are discouraged from becoming artists. It'd be interesting to know how much of this happens in childhood vs. when they're choosing a career as young adults.
- Joeboy 4y agoOutside of race / gender, the article doesn't touch on whether this has got worse or better. I would put money on it having got much worse since the 20th century, with massively increased living costs (mostly housing) and decreased opportunities for the non-wealthy / non-connected.
- hardware2win 4y agoOn the other hand - internet
- Joeboy 4y agoBut afaict all the internet options for pursuing a creative career involve putting in a lot of hours for little or no money, which is hard (or seems like a bad idea) if you're not on a financially solid footing. I don't think the internet is really a leveller here.
- paulsutter 4y agoWhen better AI boosts productivity, basic income will give so many people more choices Let’s make it happen, the world is waiting for us to do it It’s not just better AI, let’s also digitize production processes in preparation
- vonwoodson 4y agoGreed knows no bound. Today we are more productive than we have ever been because of technology advances over the last 200 years. Yet, when a machine is invented that cuts labor by 50%, we don’t continue to pay two men a full salary and let them come in to work half as often… we lay one off. I was talking to a Romanian who said to me “When we were communist, we had plenty of money but nothing to buy. Now we have to buy everything but have no money.” Apparently, there is nothing in the middle. I don’t hold out much hope that AI, basic income, or anything as all can save us from ourselves.
- SketchySeaBeast 4y agoAt this point I now realize why Star Trek had a whole mid-twentieth century war to shake up society - without anything to destabilize things the wealth will continue to concentrate in those with the greatest ability to take advantage of technological changes. The information age has shuffled the people who rise to the top a bit, but that's really it.
- spaetzleesser 4y agoI honestly don’t believe capitalists/ruling class will allow this. During the last decades productivity increases stopped going to the workers and I think this will continue.
- saos 4y agoWhere does product design categorise in creative profession?...
- deebosong 4y agoAn oversimplified take on the distinction between art vs. design: Design seems to be about getting users/ consumers to behave in a certain way, or utilize what you made for a specific end. Art seems to be about the artist expressing something aesthetically via whatever medium, in order to get an audience (could even be 1 person, but usually hoping to appeal to a certain crowd) to consider said audiences internal responses to whatever the artwork may evoke or provoke. There can be overlap, but the intended goals seem to be about "outward" behavior for design, versus inward responses and reactions in genuine and earnest attempts at art (be it high or low). The money factor can sully all of it, of course, but removing money also doesn't guarantee a "purity" to either, per se. But the more incentive to monetize in massive ways, the more the art will feel less genuine in its core, even if it is able to garner attention and evoke reactions. Again, very oversimplified. But as such, I think product design is far more about getting its users to behave and find use of the product in specific outward ways.
- causi 4y agoThe more I learn about the the lives of artists and aspiring artists the more I'm glad I don't have an artistic bone in my body. It seems rough.
- wongarsu 4y agoIf you want to be even mildly successful in any art you have to be a good entrepreneur in addition to being a good artist, or be really lucky. Most people are good at one of those two things, if at all. Being both is tough.
- AzzieElbab 4y agoAmong immigrants we keep telling ourselves variations of a joke about how first generation are carpenters, second - lawyers, and third - artists
- 988747 4y agoI would switch carpenters for tailors :) That actually how it happened with regard to Jews - the first ones to come to America were tailors, which helped them become lawyers, since they got access to cheap suits, which are essential in this profession :)
- AzzieElbab 4y agoGood point. I wish my pile of code would be just as useful to my kids
- lliamander 4y ago"These are your father's parens. Elegant weapons for a more...civilized age." https://xkcd.com/297/ https://xkcd.com/297/
- j3th9n 4y agoLet me come up with one of the exceptions, my ex girlfriend who is single-handedly working her way up creating and selling art, without money from family or anyone else, while first working and saving money on the side for years to kickstart her dream of becoming a fulltime artist: tramainedesenna.com
- JackFr 4y agoIn other news, water is wet.
- ThinkBeat 4y agoI am not saying that the data in the story is wrong, but my (tiny) sample of artist I know and some I have worked with in the US and Norway come from middle class or lower background and they do art because they need to, compelled by an ardent desire / obsession. None have nest eggs or rich parentes that support them. They usually have a hard time getting art into galleries. Some run galleries as a collective, but few of those make it into "high society" A while ago I left my corporate developer / manager to pursue life as an artist. Things to several circumstances not important here, I do not have a nest egg, I make my living off of small stipends when I can get them, and a few other programs that the government provides. (Nice thing in Norway). It is difficult, it is an enormous change in circumstances. Some hurt. I am happier than before. Perhaps I am hung up on that type of artist. "Corporate" artists might folio the story exactly. You do have some artists who started late after already having a successful career. They have money and sometimes they have a network of important people to get them into galleries. Like Howard Schatz who is a great photographer now. After having a long and distinguished career as an ophthalmologist. Then you have artists like Hunter Biden who can sell paintings for $75K mostly due to fame. (One curator estimates that some pieces might fetch as much as 500K.
- BirAdam 4y agoI personally believe that there’s a lot of bias in most research studies of populations (and some of that is from those being studied, where many middle or lower class people will just hang up if they don’t know you). My experience is that many artists are “starving artists” and not from super lux backgrounds. Additionally, just go visit RISD. Edit: the scope of what is considered art is also quite narrowly defined in most studies.
- lc9er 4y agoIn my peer group of musician friends, there were two archetypes that held out longest: people that were poor and had low wage, dirty and/or backbreaking jobs and those with well-off parents. There were lots more of the latter, because it's hard to justify playing in bands when you can barely feed yourself. However, both groups had nothing to lose by pursuing their dream.
- ollifi 4y agoIt seems to me in north of Europe if you finance your art making by yourself you are perceived as kind of a hack. You need grant, not maybe because of the money but to validate you as being part of the scene. On the other hand many of the artists are still from rich families, because it is still a gamble.
- marcinzm 4y agoThere's multiple advantages for someone who is rich even with grants: * Time to practice their craft for years+ without worry about daily necessities. This includes getting the best training and personal tutoring to reach their full potential (whatever it may be). * Knowledge through connections of how to properly write a grant that is going to be accepted * Possibly knowing the people making grant decisions personally (or through family). Nepotism exists everywhere. * If grant comes from a non-goverment institution. Family ability to donate to institutions increases their chances of picking kids for jobs or grants. If you rely on donations would you pick a poor kid who will cost you money overall or a rich kid who will actually make you money in the long run?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- gadders 4y agoI wonder if wealth is also a predictor of whether a person decides to create a start-up? Easier to take big risks if you have family to fall back on.
- nicksiscoe 4y ago100% it is - wealth is a predictor of “risk-taking” in general (in quotations because the relative risk is actually fairly small when you’re wealthy)
- guilamu 4y agoWhy the edit in the title with the added incorrect spelling? (Original title : Wealth Is a Strong Predictor of Whether an Individual Pursues a Creative Profession)
- photochemsyn 4y agoBuying and selling modern art in today's market seems to be more related to tax avoidance and money laundering schemes than anything else. If you think of the artist's job as creating the vehicle, then it should be pretty lucrative. > "Consider that when the Mexican government passed a law in the early 2010s to require more information about buyers, and how much cash could be spent on a single piece of art, the market cratered, as sales dipped 70 percent in less than a year. Many believed that was because Mexican cartel rings had previously been the biggest buyers in the market." https://www.artandobject.com/news/how-money-laundering-works-art-world https://www.artandobject.com/news/how-money-laundering-works...
- egypturnash 4y agoIt's a nice gig if you can get it, but competition for the gallery scene is pretty fierce. Plus a lot of the required skillset is "convincing assholes with way too much money that this ugly thing you caused to exist is worth a lot". NFTs have somewhat democratized this, by providing a new avenue for assholes with too much crypto to pay absurd prices for art, with the bonus wrinkle of "artist gets a cut if someone uses their piece to launder ill-gotten gains" though there's already marketplaces that ignore that part of the smart contracts designed to make that happen. And a different sort of deliberate ugliness.
- AlwaysRock 4y agoI stopped trying to be a comedian professionally when I found out Second City main stage performers made about 35K per year. The most prestigious comedy job in Chicago paid less than my entry level office job. I don't regret it but at the time it was fairly depressing. You don't have to love it enough to do it as a career, you have to love it enough to do it as a career while understanding you will very likely never be able to support yourself by doing it. That is a pretty tough reality.
- yboris 4y agoA college professor for "Theater Appreciation" class stressed that "the only reason to become an actor, is if you feel you can't live your life doing anything else". It's such a saturated field, you need a super good reason to enter it as a career.
- AlwaysRock 4y ago100%. I used to think I loved it. I did. I just didnt love it so much that I was willing to be broke my entire life. I had other options. I took one which lead me to a career I enjoy a lot. I know folks from when I was performing a lot who are still doing it and doing it at a high level. Almost every single one of them didnt have other options. I mean they COULD have done something else but they would jump off a building before going into an office 5 days a week.
- devonkim 4y agoYears ago I read about what the purpose behind all these liberal arts programs in universities were meant for and it started to click that the intent was in good faith and not out of elitism or anything like that. The intent was to democratize privilege - liberal arts was a set of fields dominated by the already wealthy or affluent that didn't have to have a vocation to survive.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- test6554 4y agoThe problem comes when someone graduates with a liberal arts degree. Employers assume they were eating paste and finger painting for 4-5 years.
- AnimalMuppet 4y agoYeah. Liberal arts were distinguished from the "trades" (which today probably includes engineering). Liberal arts were for people who didn't have to work for a living. If you get that degree, but you need a job when you get out, then maybe that wasn't the right degree choice...
- devonkim 4y agoWell this part of the whole liberal fantasies of decently well-meaning intent but absolutely the opposite results. In fact, because the people that came up with the agenda were wealthy themselves they had trouble imagining the full breadth of support people would need following their expensive programs. These folks had so little idea of what generational poverty actually looked like it seemed patronizing even at times, which is in itself a form of racism (read: white / upper caste savior complexes). While I think it's valuable and actually essential for a liberal democracy to have well educated voters we've forgotten that money is power and therefore without a well capitalized voting bloc it's going to devolve into umm.... what we have now.
- madballster 4y agoCould go a long way to explain the “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations” figure of speech.
- bush-bby 4y ago“The science of government it is my duty to study, more than all other sciences; the arts of legislation and administration and negotiation ought to take the place of, indeed exclude, in a manner, all other arts. I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry and porcelain.” - John Adams
- SergeAx 4y agoI don't remember who said that, but the quote stuck in my mind. If you are musician performing in the underground crossing, there is a huge difference in your spirit if you are doing it just for kicks or if you have to bring home enough money to pay the rent and feed your family.