So Why Make Any Thing When Nobody Cares?

 

A rather long winded video by Venus Theory on something I thing every creator/maker thinks about. YouTube counts those minutes, so videos need to be far longer than necessary. 

I have thought a lot about "why?", and write about it every so often on this BLOG.

He does say "we do these things because we have to, and that makes us happy.." or some words to that effect. 

I have said more than once "I make things because I have to, to remain a Happy Camper", as I get down if I don't, and feel I am wasting my time/life if I aren't making something regularly.  I have felt this way since I was a little kid, and is probably the way I found to self medicate my condition. 

Before I retired, I had to make things in my working life and that meant my own projects were not always something I needed to work on every week. The need to make something is like being hungry, where the hunger goes away after you make something, and the day job could satisfy that to an extent. But the hunger comes back, and how often depends on what is being made. 

After retiring, and only doing random freelance illustration gigs every so often, means I spend much more of my time making my own things in my studio. For Venus Theory that is all about Making Music and Making Videos about Making Music.  For me, that is drawing, illustrations, painting, sculpting, model making, making comics, making music and in the last few years, making short MUSIC + COMICS. Like this on a recent RICK BEATO rant on obvious fair use and record labels.

Or this on the DEVO documentary recently saw on Netflix after watching THE DIRT and STRAIGHT OUT OF COMPTON:

Me being retired means financializing what I make isn't a concern any more, but that is a significant factor for Venus Theory.

So the answer to the question in the title for myself is: 

"I need to, to keep being a Happy Camper". 

It would be nice if more saw or listen to what I release, but I do stuff that interests ME, and I have always found very few shared my interests.  

You are not going to get any validation from the Nethereals that surround you. I learnt that in High School. Attending the 30th High School reunion reinforced that no end.  

YouTube showed me a video about Music Promotion related to Streaming Services a couple of days ago. Basically talking about Bandcamp, compared to Spotify, and one of the guys there had done a few types of promotions, such as promoted (with paid advertisements on Facebook) that anyone could download his bands album for free on Bandcamp, and had found no one would bother to go to Bandcamp and do that. 

His finding was downloading and owning music isn't something that the vast majority (so probably 99.99%) of listeners care about any more. They stream Spotify, and that is all. The way people in the 60s & 70s that had an AM Radio on a POP channel and never changed it.  Downloading or collecting music files is of zero interest now.  

On the Creator side, the majority of independent artists on Spotify get about 10 plays of their tracks they upload. This majority will never get any kind of payout either. 

As someone who only puts his music on Bandcamp (as hate the Spotify exploitation business model, as I don't see what I do as worth paying $20+ a year to just have it on Spotify via Spotify owned DistroKid), all download "pay what ever you want and $0 is fine too",  I found that all interesting.   

My own plays on Bandcamp are abysmal. But the point is, I don't do it for the plays by others.

But have had far more on Soundcloud (that I don't bother to use any more, and think most plays are bogus there anyway), and on YouTube with old car illustrations music slide shows and shorts.

I have similarly found I don't care for the popular activities where ever I have been. In Japan here, where more than a few Americans seem to want to share all the trivia in their daily lives by live streaming themselves constantly, and even get more likes for doing it in a Kimono or something, is something I have no interest in. That is just really weird to me. Many call themselves Creators but I reserve that word for something else... for those like Venus Theory.

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