0:03 [Music]
0:06 Society has always hated artists this
0:07 hatred is not the way you think hatred
0:10 really expresses itself I mean artists
0:11 aren't being burnt in mass or being
0:13 beaten up on the road in fact on the
0:16 surface people love to consume art they
0:18 binge TV shows they blast music hang
0:21 paintings on their walls in fact people
0:23 seem to love art but the people who
0:25 create the art you love Society has
0:28 spent centuries making sure that these
0:30 people stay powerless
0:32 Winston mang one of the most famous
0:35 painters of all time just sold one
0:38 painting while he was alive think about
0:41 that just one he died penniless alone
0:43 and convinced that he was a failure
0:45 today his work sell for like hundreds of
0:47 millions of dollars or whatever but none
0:50 of that goes to him nor did he ever see
0:52 any of this wealth France Kafka a
0:55 pioneer of existential thought was so
0:57 disillusioned with what his work had
0:59 brought him in his lifetime that he
1:01 instructed his best friend to burn all
1:03 his work after he was dead his friend
1:05 disobeyed him and Kafka went on to
1:07 become one of the most celebrated
1:09 thinkers and writers of the 20th century
1:11 and even when artists do succeed in the
1:13 lifetimes they're often met with
1:15 hostility Nina Simone one of the
1:17 greatest musicians of the 20th century
1:19 was blacklisted by the US government for
1:21 a work in civil rights activism she was
1:24 monitored by the FBI driven into Exile
1:27 and spent years struggling financially
1:29 despite her massive influence this isn't
1:32 just all bad luck it is a pattern and
1:33 this is a pattern that's been repeating
1:35 for a long time and let me show this to
1:38 you in this video One history repeats
1:40 itself throughout history artists have
1:42 always been controlled by the powerful
1:43 during the Renaissance the only way to
1:45 survive being an artist was by getting a
1:47 patron I'm going to make him an off can
1:50 refuse a king a noble or the church that
1:52 meant your creativity or your output
1:55 wasn't totally yours Michelangelo didn't
1:57 paint the 16 Chapel because he wanted to
2:00 the pope wanted him to paint it Le Da
2:02 Vinci one of the greatest artists of all
2:04 time spent most of his time designing
2:06 war machines not because he loved
2:08 destruction but because he needed the
2:10 money from the Duke of Milan his genius
2:12 was at the mercy of those who funded him
2:14 fast forward to the 19th century and we
2:16 had Romanticism and the idea of the
2:18 starving artist the belief that
2:21 suffering is necessary for great art
2:23 that if you really love what you do you
2:24 should be willing to suffer for it but
2:27 in a way this was never a romantic idea
2:29 it was just a way to justify underpaying
2:31 the artist who lived in that time period
2:33 all under the guise of Romanticism let's
2:35 go over some more Charles bodair one of
2:38 the most influential Poets of all time
2:40 dies in poverty Edgar aleno the father
2:43 of modern horror lived in financial ruin
2:46 his entire life even Freda Caro now
2:49 considered a feminist icon spent much of
2:50 her career struggling to be taken
2:52 seriously and I don't know why but this
2:54 mindset exists solely for artists and
2:56 creative thinkers no one tells doctors
2:58 to work for exposure you'll be laughed
3:00 out of the room no one tells Engineers
3:02 that their passion should be the reward
3:04 for their work but to make suffering a
3:06 part of someone's identity is pretty
3:08 unique to artists and intellectuals and
3:10 it's something that most of us have emed
3:13 and maybe even embod that without pain
3:17 there is no success why I want to ask
3:20 why do you the customer value the most
3:22 poyant works of art as almost being
3:25 valueless and why do you as a creator of
3:27 it accept that pain is a part of the
3:29 process it's a sadistic relationship I
3:32 think that Society has with its thinkers
3:34 this myth keeps artists desperate and
3:36 desperate people are easy people to
3:38 exploit this is why and an artist
3:40 willing to sign away work which is
3:42 potentially worth millions for pennies
3:45 is a patron or an Investor's dream
3:47 infinite value for minimal investment
3:49 and if you thought this would have ended
3:51 a while ago the 20th century arrived
3:53 corporates took over the places of kings
3:55 and Emperors Hollywood locked actors
3:57 into brutal contracts for example Judy
4:00 Garland while working on the visit of o
4:02 was made to take amphetamine so that she
4:04 could keep working insane hours record
4:06 labels have always taken majority of the
4:09 royalties while the artist keeps scraps
4:10 and it's basically a choke hold whether
4:12 you listen to them or you're faced with
4:14 failure Prince had to change his name to
4:17 a symbol just so that he could get Fair
4:18 compensation painters were told that
4:20 their work had no value unless a gallery
4:23 owner decided otherwise Jean Michael Bas
4:25 at one of the greats of her time whose
4:28 paintings now sell for over $100 million
4:30 was seen as a street kid and never
4:32 respected while he was alive and today
4:34 streaming platforms play musicians
4:37 pennies gigs are lowering costs everyone
4:40 is trying to squeeze the artist in 2025
4:41 while the CEOs of these companies are
4:43 richer than any musician to have ever
4:46 lived social media buries post unless
4:48 artists pay for promotion AI models
4:50 still work to create AI generated art
4:52 without ever crediting the artists who
4:53 work they have scraped their data from
4:55 the game has always stayed the same just
4:58 the tools have changed two the system
5:01 keeps artists poor on purpose there's a
5:03 phrase that people love to say if you
5:05 love what you do you'll never work for
5:07 another day in your life but I believe
5:09 only a person with a great love of pain
5:11 or a sadus could have coined this term
5:13 it sounds nice but in reality it's just
5:16 a way to get people to accept low wages
5:18 imagine telling a lawyer you should be
5:19 grateful that you get to defend people
5:22 in court and uphold the law you don't
5:25 need money you are defending people you
5:28 are a good man go Mr lawyer defend
5:29 people out of the goodness of your heart
5:31 the lawyer laugh in your face man but
5:34 musicians hear this every day so do
5:37 artists writers actors anyone in the
5:39 creative field hears this every day you
5:41 should be so grateful that you do what
5:43 you love for a living and I do think
5:45 this is politics of Envy just because
5:47 you feel that it must be so much fun to
5:50 make music or art as your profession and
5:53 you don't love your job so it's only
5:54 obvious that you get paid while the
5:57 artist struggles it's so obvious rather
5:59 than questioning yourself that why the
6:00 hell hell are you doing a job that you
6:03 don't love your reasoning goes to
6:05 because I do a job I don't love so a
6:07 person who loves a job must suffer it's
6:10 a self-hating argument in my opinion and
6:12 I think you should really ask yourself
6:13 why you spend most of your day doing
6:15 something you don't want to at all and
6:17 when artists do try to make money they
6:19 run into the next problem which is The
6:21 Gatekeepers record labels decide which
6:23 musicians get funding streaming
6:25 algorithms decide who gets heard Gallery
6:27 owners decide which art gets exposure
6:29 Publishers decide which books get
6:31 published and in our current system this
6:33 funding is like a giant choke hold
6:36 around your neck do what I the patron or
6:39 the corporate or the label wants or we
6:41 cut your work off this is the template
6:43 of what we want and if you don't fit in
6:46 goodbye see you thank you for coming
6:48 next please that's why most mainstream
6:50 art sounds and feels just like a
6:53 McDonald's meal a great investment but a
6:55 bad burger and as artists we aren't
6:57 competing with each other we're
6:59 competing with the people who own the
7:01 system and 2025 is showing us the
7:04 endgame of these corporates make artists
7:07 replaceable AI can now generate music
7:09 write books make paintings in mere
7:12 seconds if art is cheap artists are
7:15 worthless and that's the game point
7:18 three Society needs art but refuses to
7:20 Value it every major movement ever was
7:22 fueled by Art music fueled protests Bob
7:25 Dylan songs became Anthems for the Civil
7:27 Rights Movement film shaped public
7:29 opinion Charlie chaplain's The Great
7:31 Dictator mocked Hitler openly while the
7:33 rest of the world was silent literature
7:36 sparked revolutionary ideas George O's
7:39 1984 exposed
7:40 authoritarianism decades before it
7:43 became a warning sign artists don't just
7:44 make things that are pretty and play in
7:46 the background and keep your mood Pepe
7:49 they are The Originators of the ideas of
7:51 tomorrow they change minds they
7:53 challenge power they expose corruption
7:56 these are ideas which dream up a reality
7:58 that doesn't exist right now and may be
8:00 implemented years
8:02 these are the ideas that matter that's
8:04 why every authoritarian regime censors
8:06 artists first do you want to know if
8:08 you're living under an authoritarian
8:10 regime just see if your government
8:12 sensors art straightway sign the more
8:15 repressive a system is the more it fears
8:17 art and in Democratic societies they
8:20 don't ban artists they just make sure
8:22 they can't survive government SL funding
8:24 for the arts school remove music and
8:26 painting from the school curriculums
8:28 companies refuse to pay Fair wages for
8:30 Creative Works done for them and then
8:32 they tell us the artists that we're not
8:34 hustling hard enough or we have our head
8:36 in the clouds but here's the thing
8:38 without art Society collapses without
8:40 music art architecture there is no
8:42 culture without writers there's no
8:44 history without painters there's no
8:47 Beauty when people look back at 2025 200
8:49 years from now they're not going to be
8:51 going over your auditing books they're
8:52 not going to be studying your financial
8:54 statements they're not going to be see
8:56 whether your company had a successful
8:58 quarter what will be remembered will be
9:00 what did your buildings look like like
9:02 how did people live what were the
9:04 writers thinking of what did the song
9:06 sound like that's what they will refer
9:07 to as being the culture of this time
9:09 period not the over inflated piece of
9:11 real estate you just invested in number
9:14 four the only way forward the truth is
9:16 the system isn't going to change on its
9:18 own artists enjoyed in retrospect more
9:20 than in real time we don't really see
9:22 artists as human beings we see them as
9:24 characters so we're never really close
9:26 to one and we wouldn't want to be but
9:27 there are ways to fight back for us
9:30 artists and Hope that terrible
9:32 double-edged sword keeps pushing us
9:34 through even when probability isn't on
9:36 our side but that's what it is the
9:38 internet age may have buried us under so
9:41 much content that we literally don't
9:43 know what to see anymore but underneath
9:45 this Avalanche there is a ray of light
9:47 for the first time in history you can
9:49 literally do anything you want to and
9:51 find someone on this planet who connects
9:53 with you on the same subject direct
9:55 communication with people who want to
9:57 hear your voice is possible for the
10:00 first time in human history and as
10:03 artists thinkers creative people maybe
10:06 that's all we need to do keep talking
10:07 and find the people who listen
10:10 crowdfunding patreon band cam direct
10:13 sales patronage from the people who
10:15 actually want to consume your art and
10:17 not from the powers who want to mold it
10:18 because let's be honest large
10:19 corporations and big money own
10:21 everything and the only way forward for
10:24 people like us is to communicate and
10:26 build a relationship with the people who
10:28 care about what we do that that's it
10:31 anyway I love my work and I love making
10:33 music and this is a song that I'm really
10:35 proud of having made if you liked it
10:37 please leave a comment and let me know
10:39 thank you and I'd love to connect with you
10:40 you [Music]
