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A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

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Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#41

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

nindalf wrote: post #8

Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent. According to him, there is nothing special about folks creating podcasts, but there is something special about a singer-songwriter. He does not say why. Take https://www.patreon.com/sonicether who earns $50k a month creating shaders for Minecraft. That sounds mundane until you realise that he's probably enabling tens of thousands of people to…

This article is textbook bourgeois virtue signalling - also known as "snobbery."

The kind of art he supports already gets plenty of funding. No one seriously expects MOMA or the Met Opera to go bust any time soon.

Patreon is a successful alternative for relatively small-scale public-supported art. Of course it reflects public tastes. That's what it's for.

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#42

Post by GuiA »

nindalf wrote: post #8

Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent. According to him, there is nothing special about folks creating podcasts, but there is something special about a singer-songwriter. He does not say why. Take https://www.patreon.com/sonicether who earns $50k a month creating shaders for Minecraft. That sounds mundane until you realise that he's probably enabling tens of thousands of people to…

It’s good to keep in mind that the same classes of people who praise “transcendent art” today and criticize “ordinary art” would have done the exact same thing if they had been contemporaries of the transcendent artists they now adulate so much. Very few people found any interest in the works of Van Gogh or Monet while they were making them.

100 years from now, this guy’s socio-economical equivalents will criticize whatever is popular then while revering the lost transcendent beauty of Minecraft shaders ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Just let people enjoy things. I’ve also found that making things yourself is much more rewarding than telling people that they shouldn’t enjoy what they enjoy.

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#43

Post by scrdhrt »

phoe-krk wrote: post #17
nindalf wrote: post #8

Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent. According to him, there is nothing special about folks creating podcasts, but there is something special about a singer-songwriter. He does not say why. Take https://www.patreon.com/sonicether who earns $50k a month creating shaders for Minecraft. That sounds mundane until you realise that he's probably enabling tens of thousands of people to…

> Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent. This. Why should I allow anyone to define what kinds of art should I find transcendent and, worse, which kinds of art are non-transcendent ? This article is weird and full of stereotypes; it's written from the point as if art was easily and objectively classifiable. No, art is not classifiable like that, and something that one man calls ever…

Art is whatever you get away with.

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#44

Post by [deleted] »

bakuninsbart wrote: post #37

He mentions Kurzgesagt as a positive example - but ignores other educational channels like CGP Grey, CrashCourse and ContraPoints. - There's also many more highly educational podcasts and youtube channels that are very popular. Entertainment has shifted from TV to the internet in recent years, and as it grew more popular it also grew more mundane. - But looking at TV entertainment of previous decades, I think it is h…

[deleted]

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#45

Post by parsimo2010 »

I don't think that examining the breakdown of one funding source is indicative of a shift in culture. Especially not a funding source like Patreon. Patreon is especially suited for funding ongoing efforts or something that has a recurring payoff (weekly podcasts, YouTube videos, or regular releases of comics). That lends itself to "mundane" things as the author puts it. If you want to create a magnum opus you need to raise funds for a single big effort, so something like Kickstarter is a lot more appropriate. I'm sure if the author perused Kickstarter they would find many "grand" ideas. There is also traditional funding for established creators looking to do something grand. If you are a director looking to create the masterpiece to cap your career, chances are that you're getting a movie studio to pay for it based on your previous successes. The same goes for successful artists in most fields that can use their reputation to fund something grand. Looking at Patreon only gives you a single piece of the puzzle.

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#46

Post by Vinnl »

nindalf wrote: post #8

Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent. According to him, there is nothing special about folks creating podcasts, but there is something special about a singer-songwriter. He does not say why. Take https://www.patreon.com/sonicether who earns $50k a month creating shaders for Minecraft. That sounds mundane until you realise that he's probably enabling tens of thousands of people to…

I think they define it to some extent:

> It is between those who believe in aspiring to something greater and those who do not. (...) something greater and grander than everyday life.

So "transcendent" would mean "concerning things that are not common encounters in daily life".

What they do not properly motivate, in my opinion, is why that would be better ("high") than focusing on ordinary life. I wonder if they're also turned off by Impressionism?

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#47

Post by GuiA »

interfixus wrote: post #36
nindalf wrote: post #8

Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent. According to him, there is nothing special about folks creating podcasts, but there is something special about a singer-songwriter. He does not say why. Take https://www.patreon.com/sonicether who earns $50k a month creating shaders for Minecraft. That sounds mundane until you realise that he's probably enabling tens of thousands of people to…

It is my honest, non-facetious opinion that Randall Munroe ought to be in the very serious running for the Nobel Literature Prize. His oeuvre is wide-ranching, deep, consistent, informative, relevant, thought-provoking, stylistically groundbreaking, and extensively quoted by all sorts of highly influential people the world over.

Ah, but that’s not what the Nobel prize aims to reward :)

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#48

Post by qazpot »

interfixus wrote: post #36
nindalf wrote: post #8

Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent. According to him, there is nothing special about folks creating podcasts, but there is something special about a singer-songwriter. He does not say why. Take https://www.patreon.com/sonicether who earns $50k a month creating shaders for Minecraft. That sounds mundane until you realise that he's probably enabling tens of thousands of people to…

It is my honest, non-facetious opinion that Randall Munroe ought to be in the very serious running for the Nobel Literature Prize. His oeuvre is wide-ranching, deep, consistent, informative, relevant, thought-provoking, stylistically groundbreaking, and extensively quoted by all sorts of highly influential people the world over.

Although I don't agree with Randall Munroe being in Nobel Prize for Literature league, even if he was he would win it in his sixties.

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#49

Post by JumpCrisscross »

nindalf wrote: post #8

Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent. According to him, there is nothing special about folks creating podcasts, but there is something special about a singer-songwriter. He does not say why. Take https://www.patreon.com/sonicether who earns $50k a month creating shaders for Minecraft. That sounds mundane until you realise that he's probably enabling tens of thousands of people to…

> Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent

I didn’t find the author criticism the artists as much as their subject matter. Talking about Elon Musk or nuclear technology or philosophy is transcendent. Talking about the everyday life of a Charleston crab fisher is ordinary.

I like both! But I agree that pop culture fetishises the latter while looking down on the former. (It reminds of of revolutionary France, dialled down orders of magnitude.) I also agree that a healthy culture embraces both.

Virtue signalling in popular culture increasingly looks down on transcendent subjects as out of touch. It’s an interesting recapitulation of classical virtue signalling, e.g. eschewing rock for the opera.

Re: A list of the top recipients on Patreon shows an obsession with the ordinary

#50

Post by chippy »

nindalf wrote: post #8

Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent. According to him, there is nothing special about folks creating podcasts, but there is something special about a singer-songwriter. He does not say why. Take https://www.patreon.com/sonicether who earns $50k a month creating shaders for Minecraft. That sounds mundane until you realise that he's probably enabling tens of thousands of people to…

> Not sure how the author decides what is ordinary and what is transcendent

I think the author gives us a hint about what is ordinary:

"They tend not to be representations of noble ambition, or of a classical or romantic vision of how human beings might achieve greatness."

As an aside and don't take this personally - perhaps your question was actually "I am sure what they mean but I'm trying to disagree" ? Or perhaps it's "I wouldn't be able to make the decision if I had to do it"? I never know about this use of language. It's like asking "I don't understand why someone would vote for X" when the question is really about them actually understanding and wanting to state ones opposition to it? That type of question is not asking the reader "help me understand", right? It's confusing to me.

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