I excel without ever even trying With the slightest little effort

 

I have been thinking about this a lot lately. If I can be perfectly honest, if "hard work" were the true and sole provenance  for success, people like my mother would be millionaires.  On my grandmother's side (her mother's people), I come from a long line of coal workers, as in people who come from the "salt of the earth," and who rooted around in the coal mines. They all lived, worked, and died in poverty. SO, forgive me, please, if I just find this whole concept patently, demonstrably false. And just plain horseshit. If I may.

There was this HILARIOUS meme I saw (a variation of which is above), and it really got thinking--are any of your "indie" faves any good, or are their parents just rich? It just made me realize, almost everyone who has any degree of success in any of the media or the art realms is a god damn nepo baby. I know that nepo babies, and their cousin the Industry Plant, were everywhere, but it wasn't until very recently that I realized that almost everyone is a god damn one. Riches to more riches.

As an artist, I work my fucking ass off. I do everything myself, top to bottom, for better or for worse. YMMV on my skills and my work, but I do everything myself and everything I do is mine. Stating my distaste for nepo babies is not out of bitterness or "jealousy."  I am not "jealous" of the success of someone I don't know, or the success I don't think everyone has earned on their own merit. I am not jealous of people who are "farther" than I am, who have not worked as hard as I have, because everything that I do is mine. I am very proud of that. I am not a jealous person. No one is my competition, I am not in a competition with other artists. They can't do what I do, I can't do what they do. I don't think that having an honest conversation about this is "bitter" or "jealous," but instead commenting on reality. I am also not saying that these folks are not talented, but how much talent have we lost out on because of nepo babies clogging and over saturating the system? It cost money to be heard. It doesn't matter how good your stuff is or isn't, because that's not how this stuff is measured. 

I am not saying, again, these people aren't talented, and that they don't work hard, but there is a huge factor that they don't have to worry about, and, for whatever reason, refuse to acknowledge this as a component of their success.

The other aspect of this conversation that has worn down my very last internal resource as of late is how much some of these artists, who were born into astronomical intergenerational wealth beyond any of our wildest dreams allegedly (LOL) steal from other artists.  (I mean, for fuck's sake!) People, you have more money than God, why THE FUCK are you stealing from smaller artists, when you can just PAY THEM and CREDIT THEM for their services. YOU HAVE THE MONEY FOR IT. You have huge teams of people working on your stuff (mostly for you), and if you can pay them, you can pay the people *gestures broadly*--excuse me, allegedly, of course.

Again, I am not saying that these folks who have rich mommies and daddies and who went exclusively to exclusive schools and have their parents pay for every aspect of their lives (even well into adulthood) aren't talented, because talent does not discriminate based on class. The world discriminates based on class, race, and gender, and the the concept of meritocracy is, point blank, a ridiculous myth.

And, this is just an aside, but I notice that people who contribute the least to their own work tend to see themselves as these absolute mavericks, these untouchable geniuses who are just so astronomically more deeply profound than any other artists out there. We are talking about those who think, on the one hand, that never before had anyone done, seen, touched, or even conceptualized before their peerless genius, but somehow they were/ are also "relatable." Um, Sure Jan.  I mean, I don't know what about growing up in one of the wealthiest and most affluent cities in America, having gone to nothing but exclusive private schools,  and being insulated for most of one's life would make one "relatable," but, go off, I guess. Now, I am not trying to be the gatekeeping bad-experience police, or try to kick anybody off the trauma train, but come the fuck on. And, yes, of course, there so many human experiences that are wholly universal, but also ones that are privileged and specific, and it is a gross misrepresentation to pretend that being able to regularly vacation in foreign countries, having nannies, having etc, whatever--are universal human experiences. I don't know why those who contribute the least amount to their own work see themselves as being peerless geniuses also see the need to shit on other artists, but, sure, go off, I guess.

A lot of the times, we aren't even getting the best of the best, we are getting the top people who can pay for the top slots.  I am not saying that many of these people who are nepo babies or industry plants are not talented, because many of them are, but many of them are not, and it would be disingenuous not to ask ourselves what talent we are missing out on because of racial and socio-economic barriers.

I am not shaming anyone for being wealthy, in the same way I would never shame anyone for poverty, but I will be critical of people who refuse to acknowledge their wealth had anything to do with their success, let alone being the basis of it. It is perfidious to pretend that "hard work" is the sole root of success for those who have

So, my next question for my fellow indie artists (and not the ones whose parents work for the CIA or IBM or Macy's or whatever it is)--what do we do? And I mean this, what do we do? Do we even bother continuing to work so hard or even continuing to make music? The one thing that I think we have over some other people is our work ethic. And even if we never reach the heights of what others may consider "success," we did it ourselves. We know how to actually survive, we have a broader skill set. I am not just talking about music, I am talking about life. And whilst we may not have familial wealth, "connections,"--whatever, we know how to work. I know fighting with the streaming and YouTube algorithms are a nightmare, and are, by no means, the equalizer we initially thought they were going to be, it's SOMETHING. I think we have to stay in there and keep fighting. And I think it's worth it. But, and most importantly of all, we need to make the best art that we can, and keep reminding them of the quality of our work.

A couple covers here and there to trick the algorithms don't hurt, either.