In the entertainment labor battle that’s just getting going, the Screen Actor Guild members and Hollywood writers are severe underdogs. They’re up against it. “It’ being a combination of C-Suite greed; artificial intelligence-based content; too many streaming services chasing a fixed number of people with finite disposable income; a decline in digital advertising dollars; and Peter Santenello.

I didn’t know Santenello until yesterday, when a YouTube algorithm correctly guessed I’d like his stuff. Long story short, he’s a do-it-yourself filmmaker. Tonight, after my dinner date with the GalPal, I’ll watch the bulk of this film I started last night.

It’s very good in a substantive, folksy, documentary kind of way. Not slick or sensational, in this case, an up close look at some of the poorest counties in the country. Lots of other people agree apparently. The film sits at 10 million views in 7 days.

There are Santellos everywhere you look on YouTube and TikTok and other similarly ungated, entirely democratic/meritocratic outlets.

There’s a parallel development in journalism of course, where thousands of substacks are blooming. And just as with visual media, a portion are truly outstanding.

The Santellos of the new digital landscape are saying, “We don’t need television or movie studios or newspaper companies to take our content directly to people, all we need are our cameras, laptops, editing software and open access formats.”

Santello and other insightful, creative, hardworking entrepreneurs like him have breeched Hollywood’s moat. They have no intention of sharing profits or creative control with middlemen in hierarchical organizations.

This grassroots content is as predictably constant as the waves rolling in on Santa Monica beach, down Sunset Boulevard from Hollywood. It will be very difficult for SAG members and Hollywood writers to win much at negotiations from such vulnerable gatekeepers of the past.

Right now the two sides are not talking. Some expect the strike to go into 2024.

I’ll be splitting the difference, watching Santello’s stuff while rooting for the underdogs to defy the odds and somehow pull off the upset by improving their compensation.