We live in an age where creative types have unprecedented potential for self-promotion. Blogs, online galleries, Myspace profiles – we have at our fingertips the resources that creative souls of past generations could only dream about. Musicians such as the Arctic Monkeys and Sandi Thom personify the potential of the internet: overnight sensations that made their big breakthrough online. But are these artists the exception to the rule? Can anybody ‘make it big’ with the help of the internet? Does the internet foster and cultivate creative success, or hamper it?
You could argue that the internet presents the 21st century version of the ‘American Dream’, summed up below by American author James Truslow Adams (who, I’m sure, would have had a blog if such a thing existed in 1931):
“A dream...in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."
Do Adams’ words also describe the wealth of opportunity created by the internet? The biggest limitation is that internet success is not actually available to ‘each man and each woman,’ but rather is limited to those who have access to the web, which eliminates a large chunk of the world’s population. However, one could argue that the American Dream applies only to those who make it to America in the first place, so perhaps our comparison is still valid if we limit it to those who have internet access.
If we proceed with that caveat, it seems then that yes, the internet is the sort of place where prosperity and success can be found; provided you want to find it. What sort of people could use the internet to become successful? It seems the net provides a great opportunity for a select group of what I tentatively call the creators: visual artists (including graphic designers and photographers), musicians and writers. These are the big three. Visual artists can set up their own websites and online galleries or join sites such as Flickr. Musicians have the wealth of sites like Myspace, SoundCloud and even iTunes. And writers, who perhaps have it easiest of all, have writing opportunities surrounding them: blogs; forums; comment boxes; Twitter – the list is, for all intents and purposes, endless. The internet is the world’s biggest soapbox.
Before I proceed, I should provide a working definition of ‘success’ in this context, which is difficult it is a concept which differs for all, but I would imagine that for the aforementioned creators ‘success’ would mean exposure, positive critical reception of your work and perhaps financial prosperity as well.
With the myriad of options available for creators then it would seem that success would follow, right? It’s not quite that easy. The great thing about the internet as promoting tool – and, alas, its downfall – is the fact that it is so easy to use. Anybody with basic understanding of the internet (i.e. a lot of people) can become a self-promoter. Here are some frightening stats: there are a total of 161,754,549 blogs in existence, with 62,814 of those coming online in the last 24 hours.[1] If you’re a blogger (a mugs game, if you ask me) there is very little chance that your blog will differentiate itself from the millions of others out there. If you’re a musician, there are over 8 million other artists you have to compete with on Myspace.[2] And Flickr has over 500 billion images, with 3000 being uploaded every minute in September 2010.[3] If you’re a creator, you’ve got a lot of competition. You cannot hope that a record producer or publisher will blindly stumble upon your profile or blog. You still have to get out in the real world and work hard. Artists still have to pester small galleries for exhibitions, musicians still have to record demos and play shows, and writers constantly have to prove to Centrelink that they’re diligently looking for a real job.
The other problem with the ease of self promotion other than saturation is perhaps an even tougher one to overcome: the way society currently values internet material versus ‘real world’ material. While it is true that the internet can generate huge followings of your work, how often does internet success translate into real world success? Although it does happen it is quite rare. I would argue that a photographer getting an image published in a well respected photography magazine or a writer publishing an article or book would be greater than having 100+ followers on Flickr or Blogger, respectively. Of course, as mentioned above, it does depend on what the creator defines as success. But if the creator is looking to create legitimately critically acclaimed pieces of work (which, I believe, is the goal of most artists, writers, musicians) then the internet is a difficult place to achieve that, simply because our society still values ‘real world’ success and prosperity over its ‘virtual’ counterpart. I don’t know fully why this is: it probably has its roots in the ‘anybody can publish anything on the internet’ argument. It is possible that future societies will become more accepting of the internet as a legitimate publishing domain (especially, perhaps, for musicians and artists) but equally likely that they won’t, as people ultimately need others to tell them what’s good; and the internet subverts this by allowing anybody to become a (self)promoter.
What’s more, sometimes the success of internet sensations is a little over exaggerated: Laura Barton noted in her 2005 article on the rise of the Arctic Monkeys that the band also had mainstream radio support and airtime.[4] What this shows, perhaps, is the capacity of the internet to be a springboard to success; however it is very difficult to become successful based solely on website hits and downloads. The old maxims of hard work and talent (and a bit of luck) still ring true in any creator’s field. Which is what makes the original comparison of the internet dream with the American dream so apt: success and prosperity for all, but only if you’re prepared to work really, really hard at it. As they say in the real world: there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
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