
A Brilliant 1895 Novel on the Emptiness of Literary Fame - lermontov
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/brilliant-1895-novel-on-the-emptiness-of-literary-fame
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pram
If you’ve ever had first hand experience with being in an artistic/creative
“scene” a lot of this is familiar. Especially on places like tumblr. There’s
no shortage of self aggrandizing sociopaths all jockeying for status.

Most of the interactions are very transactional, based on favor trading and
prestige. There’s tons of cliques that have pointless animosity towards
others. The people themselves are usually very moody and depressive. It’s a
very hostile and unpleasant environment.

I guess there’s nothing new under the sun!

~~~
empath75
Yep, I used to do club promotion and DJ, and yeah, that's all very familiar. I
started out as one of those ass-kissing hangers on, moved up to the point
where I was playing fairly big gigs and knew important people, and suddenly
people were kissing my ass, instead. It's a weird thing where the more
successful you are, the more people are just willing to do stuff for you for
free. There are a lot of people who have very little talent or very little to
say, who nevertheless want to be heard, and a surprising amount of the
entertainment industry is dedicated to taking money and time from them.

The difference between successful artists and wannabe's is vast. I once opened
for one of the most popular djs in the world. He got paid something like
$30,000. I got paid $200. For a gig that I bought $350 worth of records to
play. And I'd have happily _paid_ for someone to give me that gig.

~~~
Bakary
How big is the difference between successful and wannabe in terms of skill?

