pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

i'd certainly say that freelancing is doable if you're not locking yourself into one area of writing

i made fine money freelancing but most of my consistent money came from writing about sports and general news

curious what percentage of smugness and dismissiveness in record reviews these days results from pecuniary insecurity, resentment thereof and toward such a spendthrift profession. 5%? 15%?

everyone's talking past each other on one point, I think. it isn't really about the supply of available work and money for work. Well, OK, it is. But it's also, more immediately, about the demand for your work as a freelancer, or lack thereof. how much work is out there undeniably is going to affect how willing publications are to take a chance on new writers, but all of this is moot if you aren't in demand.

totally. freelancing is pretty much about being open to any sort of opportunities that crop up. perfectly possible to be specialist and generalist at the same time.

xps

(the analogy I always think of is casting actors, for what it's worth.)

yes god forbid anyone is sympathetic to somebody in a rough situation

― socki (s1ocki), Thursday, October 24, 2013 12:35 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

hey there's a lot of commiseration to go around in this thread, i'm just saying going "this is all i know? what do i do now?" is kinda funny given how long things have been headed in this direction.

i think the acting comparison is a good one. yes it's possible to make money, even a lot of money, being an actor. most ppl trying to be actors though are not going to make money and if you are trying to be pragmatic maybe don't move to hollywood (or nyc) quite yet.

yeah. except everyone can name a million actors who got rich off it and we're sitting here watching The Dean of our profession bounce from gig to gig hoping he's making an okay living.

it's no 94k plus bennies

i literally know nothing about xgau's situation but i'm pretty sure he could've gotten a gig better than "columnist at msn" if he wanted to/needed to

i don't think there was a shortage of people reaching out to him w/ gigs, i'm sure his life is at a point where he can afford to pursue keeping a pet project (consumer guide) alive to whatever end

yeah, if anything you're more likely to make it as a hollywood actor than as a successful music critic. something to keep in mind next time yr scoffing about that fb friend who thinks they're a big break away from being the next ben affleck.

xgau's been quiet, which makes me think he did land a steady gig (his acolytes seem to think so)

also: writing memoirs

somedude haha i am flattered that u used my little jab in your handle that's touching. I'm sorry if i came across like a know it all we are all feeling the pinch these days. that article the other day about "should journalism programs teach coding?" blew my mind. j-programs are the biggest sham in academia today. all the value of a philosophy ba + the mirage of a career at the end of 4 years. j-programs should not only be teaching coding they should be teaching fucking air conditioner repair. 20 years from now we would all be kicking back talking about how lucky we were to learn a trade while those lit majors are shlepping lattes haha.

at least lit majors get to read great works of art for a few years + hopefully enrich their souls. i'm not sure what you get from a journalism degree except lectures about not making up quotes?

nb i've never taken a graduate journalism class

move to South Florida: we can use more A/C repairmen

wonder what would happen if the pfork office ban on juggalas and juggalos were ever lifted. all this upper-middle class kvetching can't be helping the random consumer prospect for the next stooges or metallica

the idea that there is no money to be made in music journalism is a fallacy

You're right, it is really easy to make money in entertainment journalism. You can go into advertising, or clean houses, or be a lawyer or bartend or all sorts of things that pay the bills while you do writing. See? Easy!

Seriously, though, I don't see how one can make a living as a freelancer without a day job. And even then, you really must be totally flexible and constantly hustling for more work and more gigs the second after you hit send on whatever assignment you just cranked out.

The comparison I always use is working for a car manufacturer in Detroit. At a certain point, the factories just close, you know? And it's not as simple, or sympathetic, to just responding with "do something else."

is it worth noting that all the people mentioned by name as successes in dash's posts are white dudes? not that i don't agree with some of his points but, ugh

i don't think it matters if the 3 ppl making a living in an industry are 3 white dudes or 1 white dude, 1 white dudette, and 1 black dude. the problem is that there's only room for 3 ppl, not their identification.

RC surfaces btw: http://www.spin.com/reviews/omar-souleyman-wenu-wenu-ribbon/

the problem is ABSOLUTELY twofold, mordy. it's hardly an either/or proposition.

why? bc diversity? meh.

ah, the old "meh." thanks for your insights.

in terms of casting I was thinking more along the lines of the fact that even if you are horrifically talented, there are thousands of other people as talented as you. (Obviously the comparison between writers and, I don't know, Broadway chorus lines is a bit more complicated -- for that matter, "A Chorus Line" is rather applicable here! -- but the underlying concept is the same. Given that which talented person makes it over the other thousands of talented people is more or less a matter of luck, your entire trajectory depends on dozens of lucky breaks executing themselves perfectly, all while never, ever being able to forget your marketability (vis-a-vis age, your resume trajectory, whether the roles you chose to take on [where 'chose' is 'passed an audition finally'] were smart moves, etc.)

maybe some of us are tired of white dudes serving as the default arbiters of culture? just a thought

i didn't stop trying to make a living writing music crit bc i was frustrated about representation. i stopped bc i was frustrated that i didn't have money in my bank account. i don't know how the color of the faces of the ppl who made it would've changed that equation.

Kinda annoyed that this anon dashsnowden ding-dong is trying to turn what I wrote into something about some kind of P4K vs SPIN thing. I answered a question on Tumblr about my personal reasons for choosing to no longer write for Pitchfork. The reasons being, I felt grossed out by a lot of their practices and even a little bit bullied and I had access to other outlets that I felt better about writing for (because I didn't feel restricted by the editorial staff and all of them paid better). ONE of these places was SPIN. I knew my Tumblr answer would be analyzed and probably shared and misread by a bunch of people (which is why I tried to chill out on my usual cheap shots) but thought, "Hey, I'm in a position as relatively comfortable freelancer to speak on this thing and maybe that can be constructive or helpful to some people out there." It isn't pro certain publications propaganda. It's about what Pitchfork couldn't do or doesn't want to do and why I didn't like that atmosphere. My story is similar to a lot of people's experiences with Pitchfork, I think. There's a trail of writers who wrote for them, got "bigger" or gained more access and haven't returned.

I have been freelancing full-time since 2011. I am 29. I have a Literature degree from a mediocre liberal arts college. Before freelancing full time, I taught English to at-risk kids and worked overnights at a Borders. Then, I managed a Borders and then, a used bookstore and wrote for fun and the extra money it afforded me. I "went for it" in 2011. lived in New Jersey so I could train it into the city (and not pay NYC rent or live in that terrible city), did a little networking and established enough connections that I have been doing pretty well since then. I moved back to Baltimore this year. I make about 3k a month freelancing for a bunch of people (almost all of my writing is linked on my Tumblr so you can see my workload). My rent is $800 because I wanna live alone and I spend a ton of money on weed and my injured-for-life dog that means the world to me. I do all right. It's possible. And I am a pretty huge asshole who has burned a lot of bridges!! Nevertheless, I am halfway out the door on this writing thing because it's super unstable, duhhhhh.

it's fine -- be concerned about that if you want. i just don't think it's related to this conversation. the problem would still exist 100% no matter who those 3 ppl were. maybe you'd feel better about the problem, but it would be the exact same problem. xxp

thank you mordy for finally bringing this thread into popcorn.gif territory

xp What about Nitsuh? Kelefa? Ann Powers?

it's absolutely related to the conversation, but okay, whatever, keep on keepin' on

nitsuh and kelefa are not writing about music primarily anymore. ann is it.

BUT WHATEVER, I'M JUST BEING HYSTERICAL ABOUT THINGS THAT DON'T MATTER AT ALL, SORRY EVERYBODY

"i can't feed my kid bc there aren't enough well-paying music crit jobs for me to ply my trade, but hey, at least the writer for the new yorker is a woman"

i don't know about that term "hysterical" maura. i think it's sexist?

Ugh that is so not the argument I am making here, but please feel free to keep missing my point. Jesus Christ.

What is Nitsuh up to these days?

He's still writing for NYMag, just not as the music critic.

the point that is missing here is that women, too, are worried about paying rent, and byline parity isn't an abstract issue for them but a thing that directly affects whether they are able to

ding ding ding

xp Good for him. I admire Kelefa for making that transition.

I think there are more women in UK music journalism but nothing close to parity.

This is also why the real (albeit very partial) victories over racism and sexism represented by the Clinton and Obama campaigns are not victories over neoliberalism but victories for neoliberalism: victories for a commitment to justice that has no argument with inequality as long as its beneficiaries are as racially and sexually diverse as its victims. That is the meaning of phrases like the ‘glass ceiling’ and of every statistic showing how women make less than men or African-Americans less than whites. It is not that the statistics are false; it is that making these markers the privileged object of grievance entails thinking that, if only more women could crash through the glass ceiling and earn the kind of money rich men make, or if only blacks were as well paid as whites, America would be closer to a just society.

(thx horseshoe for the ref)

miss the days when record critics were mostly geeks women wouldn't look twice at so they collected records instead

Lol Mordy. Okay, whatever you say. Let's just keep on keepin' on.

I don't know why you're trying to turn this into an argument between the working-class guys just trying to make it, man, and the elitist leftist women who just want frivolous things like jobs and paychecks and the ability to not be career failures

Because he's trying to prove that he's not a sexist!!!!

POINTING OUT INSTITUTIONAL BIASES IS THE REAL BIAS

it's not about wanting to make $500,000K a year and be all like gold teeth, grey goose, it's about the fact that (I really like the publication and don't really know the writer but nevertheless) even gigs like personal-advice essays for teenage girls who read Rookie go to dudes with stuff like "The 50 Hottest Women in Tech."