Hacker CinemaBroke*
Broke*
2011 · Film
Is it possible for an artist to break? Following on-the-verge artist Will Gray through the recording of his debut album (featuring production by Grammy Award-winning producer, T Bone Burnett), Broke* chronicles the stories of artists and executives searching for ways to thrive in the face of today's music industry challenges. Featuring candid interviews with industry insiders and intimate profiles of some of the brightest emerging musical talent in the country, the film digs beneath the clichés and standard story lines to reveal an industry struggling to find a new identity and an artist who's simply trying to establish one. Can a new act be "broken"?
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3 comments on Hacker News
> stop making videos for awhile
It has a huge detrimental effect. Each day you take a break can set you back by several. From the article:
>> “I left for less than 48 hours and lost 40,000 subscribers on Twitch. I’ll be back today… grinding again.”
> move on to doing something else
There's not a clear career path to anything else. Many of them have spent their formative adult years streaming, and transitioning to another career would be incredibly difficult and likely pay significantly less.
Sure, there are the mega-streamers who have (hopefully) saved enough money that they could absorb that gigantic setback, or have enough celebrity that they can transition to something else, but I doubt the majority of them have earned enough to support a major life transition - like, say, going back to school full-time.
This is also one of the problems former professional athletes face, and there are actually a lot of interesting parallels between the two groups. "Broke" is a really interesting watch if you haven't seen it already that is quite eye-opening: http://www.espn.com/30for30/film?page=broke
If any of this is at all interesting to you, I'd recommend checking out the very excellent ESPN documentary "Broke": http://www.espn.com/30for30/film?page=broke
ESPN's 30 for 30 docs are really great, even if you're not particularly huge into sports. Broke is one of my favorites (after a "The Two Escobars"). It goes into a lot of detail about how ill-prepared many professional athletes are for the lifestyle, how they overestimate their net worth and their projected career duration, and digs into all of the different pitfalls new signees might face as they enter sport. It's easy to blow it off and say "whatever, they're all soft, tattooed millionaires anyway", but there's a lot of heartbreaking instances where people did the right thing and still ended up bankrupt.
Anyway, worth a viewing.
I loved the first bit of this; that Google invested the time in their employee's education of what was about to happen with sudden riches.
I know it's starting to happen, but professional sports needs this same educational process. Recently watched the 30 for 30 documentary 'Broke' and it was so heartbreaking to see what happens to these athletes who have come from nothing, get a ton of cash all the sudden, and find themselves back where they started after the paycheck stops.