Chris Gethard on how the comedy and creator economies are cratering
Jesse David Fox always has great conversations about comedy on his podcast Good One, but he’s recently had a bunch of really great conversations about comedy on his podcast Good One.
Here’s Chris Gethard on the decline of the creator economy and the middle-class comedian:
I want to see who establishes a new, viable, actually DIY pathway that divests itself completely of the algorithms. Whoever starts thinking, Man, we need to rebuild this, will be the next group of artists that define what the next phase is. It’s like the Warren Buffett philosophy of, “When the market bursts, that’s when you get in.” I think we’re at the end of what was the podcast, Patreon, social-media thing. I don’t envy anybody trying to launch a podcast now versus ten years ago. Are you telling me that a video podcast hosted by an A-list celebrity where the video has exclusive distribution on Netflix is in the spirit of podcasting? What is that except a nonunion television show? So what’s the next thing? Please, young artists, find and build the new and more societally healthy infrastructure. And guess what? They’re going to find a way to take that, too. But they’re moving the pieces on the chessboard right now, and I think we, as artists, are chasing the terms they’re dictating to us.
All 90-minutes of this episode are worth your time. The entire conversation was insightful, refreshing, and a little depressing, but also surprisingly energizing. The comedy world is better off when Gethard is a voice in it.
(Here’s a link to the podcast on Overcast and, if you must, here’s a link to the video podcast on YouTube.)
Similarly, at the end of last year, Jesse hosted Adam Pally who made a similar observation, noting how podcasts are just television now:
I think what we're doing right here, like, I was joking before that this is union busting. We've union busted television. We're on television right now. We're being filmed. We're being directed. We're being moved to better shots. We're being lit. And we're being miked. That's television, baby. We're on a chat show, you know? And, like, the unions were busted out of it and so were our salaries. I get paid to go on Jimmy Kimmel. I'm not paid shit to come here. You know what I mean? And you're probably not paid that well to do this. And so, like, that's new. And not necessarily beneficial. Because what are we— we're, we’re, the snake is eating it’s tail. We're talking about talking about the thing. You know?
I didn't really need another reason to malign the rise of the video podcasts, but it is, however, delightful to watch Jesse laugh along in agreement while Pally lays it all out. Ironic!
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