Middleman Reign
Less than 20 years ago if one wanted to get his message out there, he had to approve his creation with some kind of a middleman.
This middleman was usually a white old male with a very specific taste in music, specific preferences in literature, a specific political view etc.
If one wanted to be a musician for example he had to be approved by some kind of a production company so that his music will be heard on the radio and sold in the music stores...
When I was about 15 and I recorded a few songs on a tape and send them over to 3 production companies.
The only thing I could do back then was to sit and wait for the answer and hope they would even take the time to reply.
Eventually one day I’ve got this letter from one of the companies and I was so excited only to find out that the answer was something like:
“Your music is very interesting but unfortunately, we've decided not to move forward at this stage..”
I felt like the only chance I had to be a musician was taken away without even any explanation...
Was there too many musicians at that time and they had no more room? Did I just suck?! But they wrote ”interesting”.. was it all just out of being polite?! I’ll probably never get to know...
It was the same for every field and every endeavour.
If one was creating art he had to find a gallery of some kind to present his art and maybe potentially even sell it…
If one wanted to be an Author he had to write a book and then find some kind of publication that would accept printing his book and publishing it in the book stores...
Middleman's Nightmare
Since the Internet came along there is no actual need for this middleman.
Every human being with an Internet connection could create any creation and expose it to thousands and sometimes even millions (if it’s any good) of people in seconds...
If one wanted to be on the radio he had to be accepted to one of the radio stations usually lead by one of these old middlemen.
I had a friend in the army and with a beautiful male radiophonic voice so obviously everybody was suggesting him to go to the radio because that was the only place you could use your voice as a job and monetize it other than television.
So he said that he has already applied and was waiting for an answer like his life depended on it…
With the internet the Podcasts appears and completely changed the map.. if one wanted to be heard he could get the right gear like a mic and a computer.. today you’d need only a phone and the “Anchor” app and you could upload your Podcast to most podcast platforms in seconds.
If I was 15 today I could record my music uploaded it to SoundCloud or Spotify and market it through social media or even create video clips for YouTube without MTV approval.
If one wanted to start a blog he used to need a web designer or a developer of some kind depends on the complexity but today we have these amazing platforms like "Wix" and "Builderall" for creating a blog in seconds with email automation and social platforms integration.
In some cases, you wouldn’t even need a blog. If you just want to write and get your message out there, you can go to places like “Medium” and write articles, free of charge, without even the need to create a blog or a website.
So things get easier and easier for creators every second...
Ever since the Internet was created every creation of every human being on the planet can be exposed and shared with millions as long as they’re connected to the Internet whether it’s music, poetry, art, photography, acting and dancing.
And I didn’t even start talking about things like “Patreon” where you can literally get paid for your creation and “Twitch” where you can get paid for the way you play games.. yes you read it right!
You get paid for playing games!
The time is Now
There is always a chance the mailman can be back in our lives
with the progression of VR development and the development of voice technology such as Alexa, it seems like it’s a great ground for big corporations to enter the field.
This way, every time you ask Alexa to find you a flight it would automatically prefer the huge and known companies so there could be less room from small players.
If most of humanity will be sucked into the virtual reality world, there is always a chance, big brands and corporates will invest the money in it and eventually, you will need huge amounts of money even just to show up on VR just like happened with the television and the radio. Big corporates took over and now you would be needing hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few second tv commercials.
This is the creators times! Every creator should take advantage of this beautiful era and get their creation out there! If you like to write, open up a blog. if you like to talk, make a podcast. if you like to draw and paint, get on Instagram, but please just do something! Don’t let this crazy era slip away regretting the person you could have become.
GO CREATE SOMETHING!