'Exponential Growth' Can Go To Hell
It's time for me to get political, a thing we've all been waiting for.
I’m tired.
And angry.
But mostly tired.
Every day I wake up to deranged news about the industry I work in. I have media friends that could potentially be laid off at establishments pivoting for the 10th time in as many years. Others infuriated by company-wide shifts on a moment’s notice. Places I once dreamed of working at have moved away from what made them great in favor of cheaper aggregation-based pieces that drive traffic but not conversation. Some of my favorite writers are looking for jobs despite the fact that some of them STARTED the goddamn places they were working at.
It’s a tough time to be in a field in which you and your brethren aren’t only not respected but treated like expendable cogs.
The Writers Guild of America is currently on strike. This started at 12:01 am Pacific Time on Tuesday, May 2 after failed negotiations, and it looks like we’re in it for the long haul. The most recent strike, back in 2007, lasted more than three months, and there’s no evidence that this one won’t last as long.
I’ll try to do my best to streamline this, but it’s pretty simple on a big-picture scale. The writers are asking for higher minimum wages, better health plans, opportunities for upward mobility, a set of guidelines when it comes to AI-generated ideas and better compensation when it comes to streaming. In the past, when a movie played in theaters or a show had a cable run, there would be residuals and money coming in. Now, with streaming, the writers (and most of the other actual employees) are being screwed over, not seeing much past the initial payment. It’s silly and in a just environment would be illegal for corporations to do this to the actual artists and workers.
I’ve been thinking a good deal about a tweet from writer Mark Harris. In it, he stated that:
What the WGA is asking for, for its thousands of members, would get writers $429 million a year. That's less than The Super Mario Bros. Movie grossed in the US in a month. So let's not pretend for a second that the demands are "impossible" or "unreasonable."
What the WGA is asking for isn’t a revolution or overhaul of the system (although I wouldn’t be against that) but a set of reasonable requests in order to keep it afloat. Those in charge of the companies have minimal creative talent, and instead, a desire to make money by any means necessary, even if it’s crushing the underlings.
Now, I’m not smart enough to extrapolate this to the rest of business in the United States, but even with my limited knowledge—I never finished Guns, Germs, and Steel—it’s obvious to see that this is just the latest iteration of artists getting worked over by the non-creatives, despite making enough money to keep going.
There’s one dreaded term in particular that really illustrates all that is happening here and it is exponential growth.
Although it sounds fine and dandy, it’s actually a scourge on businesses everywhere and ultimately destroying many high-functioning American organizations.
What exponential growth means, in this case, is that even if companies are making money, they still require an overwhelming jump year after year and the potential to heighten the profits. It’s the same business tactics we see everywhere. A newspaper could be profitable, able to pay its employees and put out good content, but if the suits that bought the business decide that there isn’t enough room to boost sales to the nth degree, then people start getting fired despite making money and putting out good work.
It may sound counterproductive but sometimes “good enough” is good enough. Not everything has to be a money-making scheme. Shouldn’t we just want to pay the workers liveable (emphasis on liveable) wages, so they don’t have to worry about health scares putting them in debt for the rest of their lives or businesses laying them off in favor of the bottom line?
I can’t embed tweets here, because head honcho Elon Musk is trying to ruin a perfectly-fine website (see the parallels here?) but there’s a thread I’d like to post.
Why does someone like the CEO of BuzzFeed get to keep his job after laying off a good deal of his own workforce despite admitting his own faults in the organization of the company? The man’s worth somewhere between $200 and $250 million. You split that amongst the workers and everyone would be just fine to continue on, keep on putting out stories and the general public would never be the wiser.
What we’ve built isn’t sustainable, nor should it be. The WGA deserves everything it’s asking for, and a good deal more. They want to replace the writers with AI? Well, we already have the abominable Young Sheldon, so there’s no need for that.
We’re currently talking about the WGA because this is technically a newsletter about movies, but this is just a microcosm for every walk of life. There’s no need for this to be what exists, and yet, there’s very little standing in the way of exponential growth. Unions are good. The work that the WGA is doing is commendable.
As great American bard Amanda Seyfried stated at the Met Gala, it should be “fucking easy” to figure this out.
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We all deserve fair and liveable wages. Thinking differently is arcane and should be treated as such. Life is hard. Why are we so set on making it all so much harder?
So, in short, good on you, WGA. This is bullshit. We’re all behind you.