Something that I get angry about occasionally is how so many people have had their hobbies stolen from them. Like people who’d tinker about in their spare time making music, now feeling like they have to monetise it, and feeling the stress of not being able to supplement their failing income because they’re just one artist in a sea of artists, someone without a major label giving them a push.
I don’t blame the people at all, we’re all just trying to get on in this increasingly shitty world.
I do a little radio show once a week. It’s reasonably popular, but not so much that I could ever think about giving up the day job, and my day job’s pay isn’t too bad in the grand scheme of things. But even I’m at a point where I’ve set up a Patreon where if anyone wants to kick in £3 a month, they can. Ultimately it just helps with the running costs of my VPS and domain renewal, and will hopefully give me enough to be able to pick up a new midi controller.
It’s fine, and people are happy to help out because they get to be a part of something they enjoy, but I hate that there’s been an increasingly vocal bit of my brane over the past year or so that’s been telling me that if everyone who listens paid £3 a month, I’d be ‘earning’ an extra £450 (give or take). According to my stats, the episode from a couple of weeks back is up to 250 listens on the podcast feed. That’s £750…
It’s my hobby. It’s a thing I enjoy doing. But if I’m not careful it’ll veer far too closely towards something I have to do, and that’ll kill it.
In his analysis, Marx identified four key aspects of alienated labour.
First, the worker is alienated from the product of their labour, which is appropriated by the capitalist and confronts the worker as a hostile power.
Second, they are alienated from the activity of production itself, which is experienced not as a fulfilling expression of creativity but as coerced, meaningless toil.
Third, this leads to alienation from their own human nature, or species-being (Gattungswesen), as free, conscious activity is reduced to a mere means of survival.
Finally, the worker is alienated from other people, as social relationships become reified and mediated by market exchange, fostering competition and indifference rather than community.
Looks like #2 and #3 apply directly to the situation in your comment.
Something that I get angry about occasionally is how so many people have had their hobbies stolen from them. Like people who’d tinker about in their spare time making music, now feeling like they have to monetise it, and feeling the stress of not being able to supplement their failing income because they’re just one artist in a sea of artists, someone without a major label giving them a push.
I don’t blame the people at all, we’re all just trying to get on in this increasingly shitty world.
I do a little radio show once a week. It’s reasonably popular, but not so much that I could ever think about giving up the day job, and my day job’s pay isn’t too bad in the grand scheme of things. But even I’m at a point where I’ve set up a Patreon where if anyone wants to kick in £3 a month, they can. Ultimately it just helps with the running costs of my VPS and domain renewal, and will hopefully give me enough to be able to pick up a new midi controller.
It’s fine, and people are happy to help out because they get to be a part of something they enjoy, but I hate that there’s been an increasingly vocal bit of my brane over the past year or so that’s been telling me that if everyone who listens paid £3 a month, I’d be ‘earning’ an extra £450 (give or take). According to my stats, the episode from a couple of weeks back is up to 250 listens on the podcast feed. That’s £750…
It’s my hobby. It’s a thing I enjoy doing. But if I’m not careful it’ll veer far too closely towards something I have to do, and that’ll kill it.
Marx had a lot to say about this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marx's_theory_of_alienation
Edit:
Looks like #2 and #3 apply directly to the situation in your comment.
Dude knew what he was talking about.
I think about this peach vinaigrette story a lot in that context: https://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/142qfal/uusername_unavailable_offers_us_a_cautionary_tale/
Please forgive the Reddit link.
God. Yes.