Creating Real Value
By Ry
A.K.A
Rhath
G’day mate
I might be about to show my filthy lefty colours a bit more clearly, but I’ve been thinking about value.
I spend a lot of time online, as we all do. I see endless amounts of ‘positive’ advice for artists on how to ‘hustle’ their way to the top or how to ‘value’ their art. This all then couples with all the anti-capitalist content I watch, which I think resonates so much for me as I see way too many artists and friends of mine depressed about the state of the world and their own lack of ‘success’ in life.
Profit is a terrible metric for measuring art. Well, I would argue that using profit as a metric to measure anything has no connection to real value. Value is resources, time, and meaning for people. Profit can be generated by benign bullshit; if you’ve ever complained about TikTok as an artist, then we’re on the same team.
I completed a small business course a couple of years ago to try and build Vibe Union up, and I straight up had to lie the entire time about how ‘profitable’ it was going to be. I got told off for keeping only 10% of ticket sales to pay for the website and other expenses (which didn’t actually cover these things fully anyway). They pointed out that this business was going to fail. Monetarily, they’re right. But our success, of course, has been measured by the huge community response we’ve gotten and the many gigs we’ve run with incredible artists. And perhaps most importantly, a sense of real purpose and value that Jason and I feel in running Vibe Union.
I know full well and have known since I was very young that I cannot see money as a motive. Whenever someone says, “Think of the money,” when you’re working a job, you find a waste of time, my brain just seizes up. Time is value to me.
Time to relax; time to work on things I see holding real-world value. Time to work with the community.
I’m good at doing this; making time. I barely ‘work’ a ‘real’ job. One day a week in a café to put some money in my account so I can pay my bills and keep making something of value.
But I realise that the insidious brain rot of capitalism still finds its way into my mind, as it does, I’m sure, for everyone.
Art is an escape. By that, in this case, I mean, art is a path to the ‘top’. It’s like anyone who wants to ‘hustle’ their way to becoming a billionaire one day to escape the grind. So, grind your way out of the grind. And hustle culture infects much of the dialogue around music online as well. Grind your way to stardom, to ‘success’. And the worst part of this is that, as it’s tied to your art, an expression of your ‘soul’, you feel you have failed when you don’t see this type of success.
But art has value. The community has value. Real value.
Money measures how much a market values a product, temporarily. It fluctuates.
And on that point, as small artists, we are fighting for market value that is just not there.
We’re living in times of extremely high cost of living, and we rely on people paying for our music (which has been commodified and made essentially ‘free’ through Spotify, YouTube, etc.) or people drinking at venues so the bar makes just enough money that they can pay us a pitiful amount. No dig at venues there either; hospitality is also a terribly unprofitable business in the grand scheme of things. We’re fighting over scraps, both with venues and each other.
And I want to cap that last part off with: I am by no means saying artists shouldn’t be charging a living wage for their work; they absolutely should. If you’re playing corporate gigs, DJing in a club that is making bank, or seeing Spotify make enormous profits and you get high streams, fight for your cut.
But my point is that valuing ourselves as artists and the things we create using money as a metric will always fail to recognise its ‘real’ value. Art is human nature. We are blessed to live in a time when we can create so easily and freely.
If we want to value art and ourselves as humans in a way that feels connected to the human spirit, I would argue that we need to fight for a society free from the profit motive entirely, as it’s all connected. We can see a society where we don’t rise to the top individually as a ‘success’ story, but bring everyone up to enjoy life and art to its fullest.
Join a union. Don’t willingly exploit yourself through ‘hustle’ culture. Make art, and start to properly question capitalism as a system for humanity.
-Ry
If you enjoy what we do, if you want to support us (Purely optional mind you), consider supporting us on Patreon. A few dollars goes a long way in keeping the lights on, paying for our website and helping us do more cool stuff.
Graphics by Rhath