Tag Archives: Substack

Actors And Writers Are Up Against It

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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.

What’s Next?

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The humble blog, at nine years old, is a true outlier. Most bloggers sprint from the gun only to hit the wall quite quickly and bag their plans of blogosphere glory altogether.

So, props to me for the longevity. Correction, props to you for inspiring me to keep on keepin’ on. Whether you “like” a post, leave a comment, tell me about a post that made you think, or just keep silently returning, it’s all motivating.

I get inquiries from tech firms all the time that say they could help me grow the humble blog through their search engine optimization (SEO) expertise. I haven’t hired any of them because I’m an outlier in another way, I’ve never cared about monetizing the blog. Even to the point where I actually pay for it to remain ad free.

Being content with a small, internationally inclined readership doesn’t mean I don’t think about mixing things up on occasion. I suppose, that could mean enlisting the services of an SEO team, although I have no idea how to evaluate their relative merits. It could mean changing formats too. I could vlog (video blog); however, many people say I have the perfect face for radio, which brings us to the coolest kid on the “personal journalism/communication” block—podcasting.

When I think about podcasting, which I really learned to appreciate in 2020, I assume we’re just approaching or just past “Peak Podcasting”. There’s no danger in it fading away, but there’s definitely going to be a shakeout with 15% of the best ones getting 85% of the audience. And I have no illusions about what it would take to be in that 15%, largely a dedicated team outworking the 85%.

I suppose though, I could have a humble podcast, since I wouldn’t be depending upon it to feed my family. 

I’ve been contemplating what’s next when it comes to personal journalism/communication. Many would say the future is Substack. Substack is definitely a part of what’s next, but I anticipate some unknown format evolving to compliment subscription-based blogging, vlogging, and podcasting.

In the last twenty years, a significant swath of phone-less Sub-Saharan Africans skipped landline telephones in favor of inexpensive, cellular ones. Similarly, I could leapfrog podcasting and make a real go of the next format if I had a better, more concrete feel, for the future.

Is your crystal ball any clearer than mine? What do you think is around the corner? Five years from now, how might you “consume” news, hear stories about other people and places, and educate yourself about things you care about?

What is lurking on the personal journalism/communication horizon? Put differently, what should PressingPause become?