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Writer's pictureChristopher McHale

CREATOR ECONOMY TIME SUCK

You are what you write.



I like the phrase ‘creator economy.’ After all, I’ve been making a good living from my creative for over 35-years. I know my way around creativity. I built tbe skills and got good at it. I’m a card carrying member of tbe creator economy. Or am I?


Recently, when I was pitching a project to an investor, it was suggested I might use the creator economy to fund my project. So I checked it out. I worked in digital marketing for video game industry, so I understood the bones of it. I watched some Mr. Beast. Looked at some influencers. And there’s Medium.


The writing platform is drenched in creator economy tips. On any visit to this platform I treated to lust of how to make money, side gig, retire from my writing.


This stuff is intersting. Blog every day. Use Google Trends. Use AI. The problem with all this though is simple. Time.


I’m a writer. A composer. A producer. Perfecting my craft, telling my stories, building my projects, writing my novels, my scripts, writing my songs, my creativity allows me no time for the creator economy.


Headspace is another issue. I need downtime to feel my way to creative solutions to my stories.


I’m a writer. A composer. A producer. Perfecting my craft, telling my stories, building my projects, writing my novels, my scripts, writing my songs, my creativity allows me no time for the creator economy.


Headspace is another issue. I need downtime to feel my way to creative solutions to my stories.


I’m an artist. The creator economy doesn’t really work for artists. We’re focused on our art. So in tbe end, this concept of artists can be supported by followers doesn’t work.


Here’s my truth of art. The last person you want in your head is your follower. You need to shut all that out. In this sense, the creator economy is not about creativity at all. It’s feeding on itself, some people claim to make money from it, and good luck to them. But having waded into the creator economy waters, I’m retreating to my studio and following the disciplines I’ve always used to create. And that mostly involves isolation to be honest. I need to shut the world out.


The creator economy is like a lethal third rail to my creative process. Social media y is a distraction, but I can manage that. What I can’t manage is writing for writings sake, outputting to feed some sort of weird, twisted attention dragon. And here’s the dangerous part. You writing could very well suffer, become generic, the writing serving less purpose. You become what you write.

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