Am I taking this too personally? Am I reading too much into the actions of an internet reviewer
Yes.
NOW BEFORE YOU GET PISSED OFF AT ME FOR HAVING AN UNPOPULAR OPINION... remember who I work for. Who my best friend is. The reviewer whose reputation on the site is often condensed into "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry..."
I know about taking shit on the internet too seriously.
Here's what you have to remember:
It's FINE to have an emotional response to a piece of media. Media is all about giving people emotional reactions -- joy, anger, sorrow, nostalgia, etc. etc. etc. It's fine when those reactions are reactions to the fiction and its presentation. (Or even fact presented in a way that is very deeply affecting -- the first time I saw Werner Herzog's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams," it did make me tear up, and that is nothing but a bunch of people filming cave paintings and commenting on what they depict and who might have made them.)
Doug is an extremely talented screen performer. He has an electric charisma and extraordinarily emotive performing style.
Entertainment sometimes is -- and MUST be -- more about what the audience wants than what the creator wants. Sometimes, what you create is something you do to meet a demand, which you benefit from.
That's not always a bad thing. If you have a product people want, and you have the option to sell the hell out of it, and if that gets you the kind of feedback and cash that allow you to live off of it, then YOU SELL THE HELL OUT OF THAT.
We should all be so lucky. Seriously. I've been on DeviantArt for 8 years and in all that time, I've made less from my art than I have working a part-time job for minimum wage in the past 8 MONTHS. I've made NOTHING working as an artist and co-producer, set director, and occasional co-writer for Brows Held High. I'm still doing all of these things, but I'm also still fishing for the one creative thing I can do that will be the magical thing people WANT to see and that will benefit me monetarily. I have a children's book being published as soon as I finish the illustrations. If that's the One Magical Thing, even though I never meant it to be a series, I'll keep doing it, because that's the thing people want from me. FOR MONEY! Goddamn!
That's not a bad thing. It's not torture to have to use your creativity to do something thousands of people want to set aside time to watch you do every time you do it. Doing NC episodes isn't something Doug has to sacrifice every other project to do -- he could always do them once every 2 weeks, or something, while working on other projects.
Doug is one lucky sonofabitch (with apologies to Mrs. Walker, who I'm sure is a lovely woman). He has CHOICES. He has TIME. He has the ability to dedicate himself to his creative, independent pursuits and he gets to live off of that.
Don't be sad that he tried something that didn't work. If you're going to be sad for anyone, be sad for those of us producers and artists who live from paycheck to paycheck with CENTS to spare, who only do that by working 2 jobs and living with our parents, who give up food and sleep and even sacrifice time with our families for the sake of helping each other out or cranking out commissions we're painfully underpaid for and which will only be seen by 100 people or less, EVER.
Doug isn't a victim here. Far from it. He has creative pursuits and the freedom to see which ones are successful and which ones are not and the time to test that over MONTHS or YEARS. Meanwhile, TGWTG isn't really very good at promoting its other producers a lot of the time. Producers largely rely on just being on the site to generate view counts -- and it DOES -- but it isn't good enough for most of them to live on, and artists and other crew get no recognition or promotion beyond a link under our producers' videos or a mention in the credits, if that.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2013-01-23 12:45 pm (UTC)Yes.
NOW BEFORE YOU GET PISSED OFF AT ME FOR HAVING AN UNPOPULAR OPINION... remember who I work for. Who my best friend is. The reviewer whose reputation on the site is often condensed into "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry..."
I know about taking shit on the internet too seriously.
Here's what you have to remember:
It's FINE to have an emotional response to a piece of media. Media is all about giving people emotional reactions -- joy, anger, sorrow, nostalgia, etc. etc. etc. It's fine when those reactions are reactions to the fiction and its presentation. (Or even fact presented in a way that is very deeply affecting -- the first time I saw Werner Herzog's "Cave of Forgotten Dreams," it did make me tear up, and that is nothing but a bunch of people filming cave paintings and commenting on what they depict and who might have made them.)
Doug is an extremely talented screen performer. He has an electric charisma and extraordinarily emotive performing style.
Entertainment sometimes is -- and MUST be -- more about what the audience wants than what the creator wants. Sometimes, what you create is something you do to meet a demand, which you benefit from.
That's not always a bad thing. If you have a product people want, and you have the option to sell the hell out of it, and if that gets you the kind of feedback and cash that allow you to live off of it, then YOU SELL THE HELL OUT OF THAT.
We should all be so lucky. Seriously. I've been on DeviantArt for 8 years and in all that time, I've made less from my art than I have working a part-time job for minimum wage in the past 8 MONTHS. I've made NOTHING working as an artist and co-producer, set director, and occasional co-writer for Brows Held High. I'm still doing all of these things, but I'm also still fishing for the one creative thing I can do that will be the magical thing people WANT to see and that will benefit me monetarily. I have a children's book being published as soon as I finish the illustrations. If that's the One Magical Thing, even though I never meant it to be a series, I'll keep doing it, because that's the thing people want from me. FOR MONEY! Goddamn!
That's not a bad thing. It's not torture to have to use your creativity to do something thousands of people want to set aside time to watch you do every time you do it. Doing NC episodes isn't something Doug has to sacrifice every other project to do -- he could always do them once every 2 weeks, or something, while working on other projects.
Doug is one lucky sonofabitch (with apologies to Mrs. Walker, who I'm sure is a lovely woman). He has CHOICES. He has TIME. He has the ability to dedicate himself to his creative, independent pursuits and he gets to live off of that.
Don't be sad that he tried something that didn't work. If you're going to be sad for anyone, be sad for those of us producers and artists who live from paycheck to paycheck with CENTS to spare, who only do that by working 2 jobs and living with our parents, who give up food and sleep and even sacrifice time with our families for the sake of helping each other out or cranking out commissions we're painfully underpaid for and which will only be seen by 100 people or less, EVER.
Doug isn't a victim here. Far from it. He has creative pursuits and the freedom to see which ones are successful and which ones are not and the time to test that over MONTHS or YEARS. Meanwhile, TGWTG isn't really very good at promoting its other producers a lot of the time. Producers largely rely on just being on the site to generate view counts -- and it DOES -- but it isn't good enough for most of them to live on, and artists and other crew get no recognition or promotion beyond a link under our producers' videos or a mention in the credits, if that.
[c]