pitchfork is dumb (#34985859340293849494 in a series.)

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."

er, on their resume, that is

(that said, some publications are actually very good with parity, including, germanely to this discussion, both Pitchfork and Spin.)

um, i'm not the one who was like "yeah, there are no jobs for anyone and also sfj is a man!!!" someone in this convo has an axe to grind and it isn't me (well, it's also me, but i didn't bring it up)

lot of tedious concern trolling from Mordy itt

where is Ann Powers writing right now btw? don't really see her name as
much as I used to

NPR still I believe

I'm starting to feel like I'm letting everyone down by NOT having gold teeth

totally bringing Grey Goose over to Maura's tho

one of the rites of passage of 2013 ilx is learning to never argue with mordy

(I cannot in good conscience keep my display name given the turn in conversation)

my boss went to lunch, everyone get over here with some Grey Goose

think we've determined that the answer to how to break it in the music writing biz is to just become manager of a borders and live in hoboken, alright

ilx 2013: a mordy'd curiosity

i want to see the working class woman make it too

xpost

also 'dash snowden' is a pretty good portmanteau, gj