Seth D. Michaels: an actually good Sydney Sweeney-themed think piece is “The Money Is in All the Wrong Places” by @mckinneykelsey.bsky.social defector.com/the-money-is...

an actually good Sydney Sweeney-themed think piece is “The Money Is in All the Wrong Places” by @mckinneykelsey.bsky.social defector.com/the-money-is...

The Money Is In All The Wrong Places | Defectordefector.com You can always tell who in Hollywood has family money by their Instagrams. People like Dakota Johnson, who have a Hollywood lineage deeper than the Mariana Trench, post only rarely. They post about so...

This, right here: “Sweeney could have an entire career of choosing only hits, of never taking a break, and still not reach the kind of money the generation before her made more or less passively once their work was done.” That’s the problem. No residuals. Which should go to crew, as well.

Slight sidebar - Matt Damon talked about a similar problem with making films (and I guess TV) now; there's no second wave via DVD sales now, so something has to 'hit' in cinemas to makes its money back. End result is less gambles are taken, everything and everyone suffers as a result.

Yup-yup. True dat. And, I liked the communal activity of shopping for physical DVDs and music too. Plus, the fact that I then OWN it. Streaming is not just ripping off the artists, it’s ripping consumers off, if we have to pay extra to stream movies we’ve already bought to own, like Prime does.

I would've owned adventure time on DVD 20 years ago. Instead I watch or rewatch it (and whatever else) on streaming. The money is still being made, just through a different mechanism where taking a cut before the artists is easier.

The lack of artistry and risk is definitely a problem, but I think that's more to do with artists having no money than studios not making enough.

Damon used Behind the Candelabra as his example - he was given the chance to make that film, but feels like if he pitched it today it wouldn’t happen. Too much of risk without that possible second wave of sales. Studios are also literally binning films for tax purposes. Whole model is broken.

Yes, I am guilty of the same - the content tap is always on, so we all just keep on drinking from it.

And this is despite a very long list of retroactive (ie. illegitimate) #copyright extensions. I knew these corporations robbed everyone from public domain works but I had no idea how badly they exploit the actual authors...

About these copyright extensions: archive.org/details/Copy... / www.cgpgrey.com/blog/copyrig...

Yes, copyright extension that harms the public domain is also a significant problem, largely created by Disney’s desperate desire to protect total expressive ownership over the Mouse.

If I’m already a subscriber, they host Movie X on the platform, but it’s not free, even if I own it, just because it’s not a big, popular, or even just a recent movie? Why am I being made to pay to “rent” anything on that app, when I’m already a subscriber?

I think if you can provide a snapshot of the UPC code on a DVD you own, you shouldn’t have to pay to “rent” in on a streaming service you’ve already subscribed to. Otherwise the companies aren’t just failing to pay artists, they’re double dipping on customers, too.

As someone who has spent my whole career in a gig economy & living in Austin, I can tell you gig workers of any kind are ill-prepared for an emergency; let alone feeling secure. Musicians are still playing the same $50-100 gigs they've been playing since the 60s. Only in '64 that $100 = $994.89 now

My husband has been a working musician in NYC since the late 80s and its the same. The average he gets to play a gig hasn't changed since I met him in 97. Our rent, however, has quadrupled.

When I moved to Austin in 1982, rent was about $100-200/mo. Rent is NOW 2000+ per mo. The gigs STILL pay $50-100 on avg. I know someone who was the MD for Ray Charles. He had a trio gig 5 nights a week, paying $150/night per man in 1969. In 2024, that would = 1,260.56 PER NIGHT! Or $327,735 per yr.

100%

There are a lot of fantastic lines in this but I’m disappointed that people think that working to own a $3m house and being wealthy are the same thing. Sure some athletes and actors get paid too much, but they’re all still workers. Class isn’t your bank account.

Class remains, as it has always been: do you work for your money or does your money work for you?

Or, more accurately, do you work for your money or do others work tor you

Reminded of the tweet that was something like "I don't trust you to Eat the Rich, because you would all eat a bunch of doctors and musicians and the Rich would just laugh"

It's so weird that media still sees a million dollar property as this big mansion when the average house price in LA is 1.4 million dollars owning a decent property in most major cities requires a million dollars in debt is something any rational person should be upset about

I am reminded of the Chris Rock bit about Shaq being rich but the white guy signing his paychecks being wealthy

yes!

$3 million for a house in LA is pretty low, tbh. A 2 bedroom bungalow in Pasadena is $1 million.

These celebs don't do any real work

Holy shit this is incredible.

We make a thing, the corporations continue to profit of off repeat views of our work to infinity, but we who actually made the thing, get either no cut of that, or a pathetically tiny bite of that. Or worse, have the work shelved or outright destroyed, for a lame tax break. THAT is wrong.

Just checked what three million dollar houses in LA look like on zillow, and of course they're nice but not some insane mansion. www.realtor.com/realestatean...

13310 Mulholland Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210 | realtor.com®www.realtor.com 13310 Mulholland Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210 is pending. View 30 photos of this 4 bed, 3 bath, 2676 sqft. single family home with a list price of $3000000.

You're not going to find anything livable for less than $1 million in LA. For $500k you might get a burned out trailer that someone cooked meth in.

Jeez, I'm sure glad I'm in a an apartment complex that drug dealers use the parking lot of as a market in one of the highest-crime cities in my state, instead of this dump I hope Sweeney can scrounge the money to make it to a nicer neighborhood :C

There was a piece about Tina Fey some years ago about how this talented and capable person with phenomenal success could not start a family. In Fey’s case, it was because any break she took would financially wreck the many people who worked on her show. Something wrong with this system

The philosophy of corporations is that not doing everything to maximize profit is an affront to them. Not being able to squeeze every last penny is, to them, as if they're being robbed of something.

This is an interesting read - some things are a little different in the UK (paid parental leave), but other elements of it ring true still: the loss of residuals, the uncertainty even some of the biggest name artists face, etc. Entire entertainment industry is being choked by neck ties.

The system has always been rigged, but the article points out, quite rightly imo, that the rigging has expanded to the point of system overload. It's easy to see the roots of the coming societal collapse herein. "The first in line They're gonna eat the rich" - LCD Soundsystem, 'Call The Police'

“We’re North American scum. We’re from North America.” - also LCD Soundsystem

When oh, we all start arguing the history of the Jews You got nothing left to lose Gives me the blues

Once you start thinking of money as what it is a tool for resource allocation it becomes incredibly obvious how true that statement is!

📌

what a fantastic read.

Excellent

My 16 y.o. kid actor bumps up against nepo-babies here in NYC all the time. He’s enjoyed some success and still believes his talent will carry him but I have my doubts.

That absolutely can happen. Sweeney, among others, is proof that it does. He may not, however, wind up with the luxe lifestyle of the last generation of successful actors. That is harder to do now and has become exceedingly rare.

People born into wealth have huge advantages, and having those advantages can make them seem blissfully unmaterialistic —is there more to it than that?

I don’t agree with all of that but it was very well written

What do you disagree with?

Trying to think of a nice way to say it - this and other writers have a way of overstating the importance of writers and writing as a way of projecting their anxiety over journalism’s collapse. It’s a self-preservation reflex that everyone has, writers just commit it to print.

She's using that as an example of what's happening to everyone. Over the last 50 years, the rich have gotten all the productivity increases, if it had stayed how it was, the poor would have their income more than double, and everyone would be better off.

Same situation with working musicians and songwriters

My biggest problem with the article is that it says the Millennial generation will inherit the Boomer's cash hoard. What about my generation? WE DEMAND OUR INHERITANCE! You M's and B's think you can ignore us? Just pass us over like some out of date gallon of milk?

Hear me now and believe me later: you do not want to face the wrath of Gen X! When all, like, 10 million of us get together and take over this country's institutions we will remember who our friends are.

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