The Economy of The Modern Creative Economy

***THIS IS NOT A TREND REPORT***?

atomic peace is proud to introduce The Economy of The Modern Creative Economy, a collection of ideas, experiences, and products exploring a new creative economy shaped by the hypersonic, hyperreal, hyper-capitalistic collisions of individuals, brands, genres, trends, and technologies that converge on and impact each other.

IN SEARCH OF CREATIVITY

Last year we posited last year that we are in the middle of a crisis of creativity being felt by brands, creators and ~consumers~ to varying effects. This feeling has been more pronounced recently as more people wonder how we got here ? And what, if anything, can we do??

This is an especially urgent line of questioning because we have historically found meaning, belonging and a sense of our shared humanity through creativity and creative spaces whether creating, consuming or simply participating from afar. While creativity is just one element, it is a contributing factor to our present day meaning crisis .

We are not here to shit on the creatives, creators, brands or otherwise doing amazing work, of which there is so much to be grateful for. There are moments of creative brilliance that can still feel inspired but if you feel like they are harder to find because of your algorithm, even harder to keep up with because of the overwhelming mass of content, and even harder for that work to embed itself into your soul, then don’t worry, you are not alone.?

THE GREAT PARADOX?

Tools that enable and produce creativity are more accessible and available due to the technology and platforms readily available to us. Unfortunately, the platforms have an outsized influence on both what we create and how we consume, dictated by the ever changing winds and whims of the gods of capital that corporate executives and shareholders worship. In order for Tik Tok to fulfill the promise of an infinite scroll, it needs an endless pot of short form content to keep you swiping down. That is, until it decides it wants to compete with YouTube for even more of your attention and demonetizes short form video in form of longer form, horizontal video. Or until it wants to turn itself into the biggest .99 cent store on the planet . The same bait that the platforms use to lure in people to create content for free eventually gets used to switch up on ‘em. It’s a pivot as old as internet time .?

This has implications on the creators that increasingly rely on these platforms for exposure and revenue. Everyone is brand. Everyone is a creator. Everyone is producing content. Everyone has a deck . Big brands and Macrocreators are in a race towards the middle to serve audiences the least offensive, most bland, digestible, franchis-able creative that they know can be easily and passively consumed in the background, all while printing a ton of cash.?

Even capital A Artists are forced to deal with the need to create content in order to support their work, now having to split time between their core creative practice and self employment as marketers, publicists, and community managers in the absence of a bigger team.?

Smaller and emerging creatives are increasingly creating out of a sheer sense of perceived necessity, a feeling of not wanting to get left behind in the great content race?.? As No Logo author Naomi Kein points out : “neoliberalism has created so much precarity that the commodification of the self is now seen as the only route to any kind of economic security.” Most of it what is created is bad but harmless, the abrasive, intermittent blare of a car siren that eventually recedes into the background.? The real danger is that by constantly feeling the need to turn out it’s become that much harder to determine what is worth giving your attention to.?

Even when something is objectively wack , it nonetheless has the potential to go viral, sometimes because of its wackness, as more people look to join in on the conversation of the day and pile on.? That wackness then gets rewarded for its wackness by brands and the corporate machine due to the the sheer number of eyeballs because at the end of the day it’s not about long term quality, it’s about mining short term attention, even if it comes from some wack shit.? Creators are aware of the phenomena and fall into the trap of audience capture , creating content they think might be rewarded, either by fans or the platforms, and if lucky, race to cash in a check and hope they can wring a couple more cycles of attention out of it.

This sheer force of acceleration at which we create and consume has negative effects on us individually and society at large. Nothing feels rational. Nothing feels real. Nothing feels like it has any meaning. And creatives, of which we all occupy some sense of identity to, now are feeling the fatigue and turning away, looking away, perhaps staying away.?

“When it appears either that there is no audience for one’s work or that one’s work will be appropriated and not directly acknowledged, the will to do more of that work is diminished”

• bell hooks, Art on My Mind

THE ECONOMY OF THE MODERN CREATIVE ECONOMY?

While we do love our alliterative strategic frameworks, the model above is borne out from a real recognition of present day conditions and not made to resemble more marketing wordplay. It’s a (working) approach for how we can acknowledge the realities of our present day. It is not anti-technology, we are not luddites. It’s not a one size fits all solution to getting rich or finding happiness. It’s neither nostalgia, nor utopia.?

What it is is a framework through which we can start to more intentionally fulfill our primal need to find belonging, meaning and our deep, divine desire to create. The act of creativity, whether actually producing a physical good, experiencing something new or having that ‘aha” moment from making a connection in your brain about two superficially disconnected concepts leads us closer to some form of self actualization . Culture provides a frame of reference through which we can identify what we care about and why. Far from a market-based, zero sum game we can all be winners because we are able to dictate the terms by which we participate our preferred outcomes:

• find a truth within a point of appreciation from culture that can only be mined and appreciated by going deep
• develop a personal sense of taste to determine what’s important, what’s good from what’s not, what’s worthwhile in all of the noise
• rally with other humans around the good stuff forging true points of connection

The Culture Economy, On Meaning

• HOW WE JOURNEY INTO THE NEW

From pilgrim -> tourist -> voyeur?

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• HOW WE ORGANIZE AROUND SHARED INTERESTS, PASSIONS AND BELIEFS?

From cultures -> subcultures -> scenes ->? nanocultures?

=:

An individualistic and frenetic point-time divorced from depth. We hurriedly peek into and graze different cultures, acting as spectators without any skin in the game rather than finding a home, immersing and participating for a sustained period of time.?

• For Brands: Stop chasing inflated, editorialized platform generated “trends” that don’t actually exist, and have no meaning, simply for engagement. Build with and around communities from the bottom up by investing in, partnering with and championing them.
• For Laypeople The desire and ability to go deep is a social differentiator. Being Mr or Ms “I have a random fact about that thing” is not only interesting at a kickback or dinner party, it’s? great for your own spirit. Fuck the shallow. Be a nerd about something(s).?
• For Creatives: Build for yourself and what you actually care about. Build for niche. Don’t get caught in the trap of audience capture .?

The Community Economy, On Connections

A sense of belonging is a basic tenet to deriving meaning from life. We used to actively participate in? cultural and subcultural groups. We now are faced with a shrinking monoculture that splinters into nanocultures seemingly every second. Increased digitization of the physical world and lack of quality third spaces, has led some to feel more lonely than ever , in search of something more. We don’t need any mor? passive community commonplace on social media but crave real meaningful connection.?

• For Brands, Think of “community” not as a passive, vanity measure,( e.g: IG following) that you hope ferments on its own but as a living, breathing organism that you must work to foster real belonging through.?
• For laypeople Explore forums, reddit and Facebook groups(!) to build a community around the topics and cultural centers that you’re most passionate about, then go out into the world and use this digital connection as a starting point for IRL connection.?
• For creatives, Scale is nice but can’t happen without a foundation. Think about how to build considered scarcity, creating? inwards first from the people who most get you, and realize that everybody can’t be invited to the cookout.?

The Curation Economy, On Taste

The proliferation of content, rise of AI, continued browsing of algorithmic feeds and a race to the blandest creative have left people feeling dizzy about where to even start consuming, what is of quality, or what they even like personally.?

• For Brands: Tastemakers are back! Taste is the most important differentiator if you are in any creative industry moving forward, whether you have an Instagram account or lead a major television studio. Having good taste and appealing to other people who want to be associated with good taste can be a core pillar that differentiates you.?
• For Laypeople: Taste against the algorithm. Explore physical spaces, where and when available, where you can talk to a record head or a movie geek about things you love and explore some human recommendations. Sign up for a niche newsletter.??
• For Creatives: Lean into your own taste, into your weird and document it. Make moodboards. Then make some more moodboards. Use Pinterest to get inspired.?

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The ideas that we will explore over the next few weeks and months will produce against this model in the form of our studio projects, client partners and of course, more writing.?

We hope you’ll stay tuned and stay engaged.? You can learn more about atomic peace by checking out our website and read our launch manifesto here . Follow us on Instagram .?

Hit us up directly if you’d like to talk about any of this or anything else [email protected] ?