The web would be more interesting if…
The web would be more interesting if people were willing to undertake real projects for no money. Creative people will waste umpteen hours letting us know what they think about cats or uploading their muesli to Flickr but as soon as the idea of making something real from scratch comes into play suddenly everyone has to have an earning model and salaries. That is probably the fundamental difference between the old and the new Internet.
I’m hoping the recession means folks are going to realise they aren’t going to get paid for their artistic enterprises online and then just go ahead and do them anyway. A shift backwards in expectations. I want: more magazines! More collaboration (real collaboration). More projects! Is that hopeless?
I want the Internet to be a funhouse where every room is something you couldn’t possibly have predicted. Do you realise how flexible this medium you’re paddling in is?
In another world and time, 8Asians.com would have no ads and would be similar to what my blog used to be - completely ad free.
What killed this? Jealousy. Jealousy in that you see other people around you doing similar stuff, and then you meet them at parties or social gatherings and they’re like, “I just booked a sponsor for $1,000 and I’m going to hang out in Asia for a week [true]” or “I just scored a sweet book deal with Random House and I’m only 20! [also true]” And you think your self, “girl, you’re like twelve years younger than me. Where’s my thousand bucks and book deal?”
And then you realize to your horror that you had a pretty successful site that has been around for years, and apart from random strangers recognizing you from Florida you don’t really have anything to show for it, besides your dad pissed that you’ve written about his business for the Internet to see. If my dad is going to be pissed at me, I might as well cash out from it.
Maybe that will change if I suddenly get laid off or fired, and free time is ample; but I feel like as I’m getting older I’m less creative, less funny and instead of having kids or a partner to spend it with, here I am, trying to do the hustle.
Grass is greener on the other side: It’s cliche, but it’s a human response to stuff and it applies to me just as it does to everyone else. It’s horrible to say, but it’s completely true.
