There's that old saying "you get what you pay for". Hollywood has been taking advantage of the streaming paradigm shift to get away with paying writers less and less and making them do more in less time in worse working conditions, so it doesn't surprise me that current writing is oftentimes scraping the bottom of the barrel. Hopefully, if the writers are able to get a bigger slice of the pie and more investment into the shows themselves, they'll have more incentive to write good stuff. Also, this will encourage better more expensive writers to take on more work.
It's a sign of the times. A lot of people just like watching short articles or videos which are not Hollywood creations. Whether it's kids or adults, I'm am positive almost everyone doesn't just glue themselves to newspapers, magazines and hollywood productions like before the net. Ok, maybe my 84 year old parents do (they've never had a celphone), but for anyone else who knows how to a use a PC or cellphone they probably do a combo surfing the net and getting the content from nobodies (where most dont even do it as a FT job but just upload shit after dinner when they have time) and the rest is traditional Hollywood content like TV shows and movies.
It's not about scraping the bottom of the barrel because 99% of the stuff people sift through on social media is just everyday people uploading videos or doing tweets. It might be good, it might be trash. But people have no problem going for that content. For entertainment (which some of us brought up pages ago) you dont need to be Shakespeare to be good at it. Thats why there's legions of media wannabes. There is zero mandatory qualifications. Anyone can do it. That's why there's so many YT stars.
You just got to do something entertaining. And it can even be a 5 year old kid eating chocolate cake. Hey maybe the kid has 2M views and the parent who uploaded it years ago has made good click money off it. You never know. Put it this way, some of the popular YT stars doing FPS and map layout videos probably makes more money than the average Hollywood writer. And that's them playing video games getting their start probably during the Xbox 360 days doing Call of Duty videos on some shitty 480p video feed before YT upgraded to 720p and 1080p. But hey, it's entertaining. I watch that stuff too. I dont care if he does the videos in his garage with zero budget and zero SAG membership. Nobody cares either except subbing to his channel for more good videos.
If breaking into Hollywood getting good contract money is tough, then use those so-called skilled writing and acting jobs and be a YT star? Surely, they can use their awesome skills and beat moms and dads doing dopey tik tok content or 5 minute videos. But if they think they cant, think social media is low brow content, dont want to do that route, or prefer the job security of a union contract then so be it. But people have choices in life. Nobody says a media employee has to be a SAG member. Mr. Call of Duty dude who analyzes the bullet spread of AK-47s vs ACR isnt.
Most media IMO isn't even well written nor do people really care that much about. I think more people care about the acting (esp if it's a well known celeb who is the face of the TV show or movie) and having good production values so it doesn't look cheap. I'd put writing below those factors. Thats probably why all these brainless cartoons and Superhero movies make tons of cash while some cleverly written drama might make nothing. One is whiz bang spectacle. The other is who cares, maybe I'll watch it 2 years later on Netflix if I get around to it.
No, that's not it. We know a lot of these "writers and actors" are broke dreamers who selectively revel in the starving artist stereotype. Thing is that that's their problem. They should find a different job if they're so poor chasing these ones.
That's what you get when there's no required qualifications. As Evilore said pages back "swarms of fill ins waiting". Pretty sure there arent swarms of doctors and IT guys waiting. They get gobbled up so fast, it always seems like like there is undersupply.
But when has anyone in the history of media and entertainment ever heard: "Oh shit, the industry is in crisis mode. We dont have enough writer or actors". I've never heard it.
The problem of whatever shit compensation they claim is really aimed at other people. There's too damn many of you going after the same jobs dumbing down the offers. The media people with skilled credential of an arts or journalism degree should be looking back at all the zero qualification people and telling them to fuck off and let them have priority access. Media companies just follow whats out there. Lucky for media people there's a SAG contract to artifically prop up compensation, whereas most workers dont have that and live and die by what is offered. But hey look at that. Even nonunion people can get a job and good pay too. So it shows management doesnt nickel and dime non-union workers to the past penny. They'll pay if they need the talent or fight for a tight supply of people (ie. tech companies fighting for coders which is a very technical job you can just wake up one day and wing it as a tech professional thinking you can learn it in the next 24 hrs)
Everyone has read up on celebs and it's not like they all graduated from Julliard. Some got into the career doing arts and theatre. Then you read some who were usually people who were kind of down and out struggling, they audition for a part, do a great job out of nowhere and 20 years later they are mega million stars. Hey, thats awesome. The guy went from janitor to celeb. So anyone can be successful.
But just like sports where a ton of these guys come from nothing, you get the mega stars promoted making it look easy making bank, but most people who gun for pro leagues sports dont even get drafted. A small number are good enough for minor leagues. An even smaller number is good for semi-pro or pro leagues in crappy leagues. And then the cream of the crop are the Major League stars where the minimum salary is $1M no matter what.
Hey, the fame and stardom is there. There are zero academic or trade school qualifications. You dont even need to graduate high school. It's all talent and personality. And there's a shitload of them hoping to get a great career on that alone.
