Less Tail, Better Face

I like to take on the newest econ gurus. The latest Blink / Tipping Point / WOW / Good To Great / Tom Peters / Peter Drucker darling is a guy who wrote about "The Long Tail".

While students of dream symbolism might recognize this idea as ass from the get-go, I gave him the benefit of the doubt long enough to read the dust cover and a few inside pages in an overstuffed chair at Borders.

"If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument." [Emerson]

As I still need to crack the publicity code, and could tip this puppy with downright minute amounts of cash (one and a half, two mil.), I went over to his website and extended his considerable tail for free (as his book suggests) with a comment showing my face. His original post suggested musicians give away their music and sell shows. (Lord help us all.)

Here's my response. I changed a few things, but it's 98.6% authentic. I thought it'd be fun to see how I'd do on a Larry King-like setting:

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Ouch.

I can only guess that there aren't any musicians around.

Give away the music to promote a show?

That's a horrible idea.

My issue with long tail stuff is that it's essentially a way to make money off of existent, aging goods and doesn't address how to create more (and more beautiful) faces. In this way it's anti-creativity and pro-business.

In a condition of true abundance, the solution is pro-creativity and pro-business. First, because it's not a zero-sum equation and second, because creativity is what's driving our current growth. Assuming we enjoy it, and the prosperity it brings, why on earth wouldn't we reward it?

It's our fear of money--premium priced content specifically--that stifles the real, honest, mature, and warm artifacts we crave in our mass culture. Why make them when it alienates the 18-34 year olds who pay your rent?

Would we be better off if Starbucks gave away coffee to sell cream and sugar?

If you like burnt 7-11 coffee in Styrofoam cups perhaps.

Having artists make money off of secondary pursuits puts culture at a distinct competitive disadvantage. Somewhat like breaking a finger for each song a pianist writes.

Better TVs, better movie theaters, better popcorn, more elaborate stage shows, bigger tour buses, more concert T-shirt designs to choose from and more infantile, more boring, more "extreme" songs, movies and tv shows is the result of lowering content prices. (Or allowing inflation to lower them relative to other goods and services). This we can clearly understand from our own experience.

Today's prices dictate tomorrow's quality. Even with millions of artists subsidizing their own production--and billions in government and non-profit subsidies--we haven't seen an increase in quality in most mediums since the late 70s. Call it cultural socialism—and it doesn’t work.

(Where we have seen advances they have usually come at the expense of production values and with the additional cost of more extreme and divisive content. It’s also worth noting that we lose our best artists at an incredible rate. To call it burnout would be to trivialize it, but it's an interesting question to ask why such a notoriously happy-go-lucky and lackadaisical bunch tends toward self-destruct upon entering the economy--ostensibly on their own terms.)

There are thoughts that take ten years to think. And there are unlimited numbers of songs, books, tv shows and movies that take longer to create than our current economy allows. Love, kindness, clarity and most other sophisticated attributes are simply beyond the scope of our current lowest common denominator.

Making artists sell shows to make music is like making scientists sell pies to do research. They may or may not enjoy baking, but it's wasteful, inefficient and humiliating enough to discourage the best and brightest.

It goes without saying that any industry or institution that treated its best minds that way would not be long for this world.

If we want a culture--values--as rich and mature as our material goods, we have to pay going rates. If we want an educated, relaxed, mature, loving, deep, fun and enlightened culture, it will cost significantly more than a depressed, violent, escapist, shallow, hateful, confused one. It's no different than hiring a nanny.

Being influenced by money is distinct from being dependent upon it. Culture does not rely on reward--folks are going to sing regardless--but it certainly is influenced by it. In fact, as culture is influenced by everything, how could the cornerstone of modern life--the economy--not have an enormous impact on it?

Personally, I don’ t trust artists who never talk about money. It’s right up there with sex and god as who, what and how we are.

Where the market has been allowed to work, choice and quality has exploded. We have hundreds of premium jeans to choose from. $50,000 mattress sets, $120 vodkas, $10 million dollar space tourism explorations. People pay $200,000 for four minutes of weightlessness.

And no premium popular culture.

We have more and more sophisticated, caring and well-rounded individuals and an increasingly stunted culture. How could the solution not be systematic?

Fixed pricing for content can't hold out long. It's getting hit from every side. If nothing else, once digital delivery does to network television, movie studios and publishing houses what it’s presently doing to the music industry, premium pricing will become so appealing that sub-standard artists will use it just to stand out. Happens in every other industry.

Put more interestingly, the richest people have the least time and energy for the 85 me-singing-in-the-bathroom Youtube videos it takes to find four minutes of fun. And this knowledge will become increasingly valuable until--bling, bling--someone decides to execute.

We pay Nordstrom, Saks and Barneys (and Wal-Mart and Target and the Gap) to assemble clothes we might like at certain price points, we'll pay to assemble content the same way.

It’s not a sin--though it is taboo. Which just means more money for whoever has the cahones to bring it to market.

Yes, the .$99 song market is saturated--as is the $14.95 book, and $34.99 DVD market. But it's a mistake to think that the future--either culturally or economically--is downmarket at a time when consumers are so demanding that even Wal-mart is trying to rebrand itself upmarket. Why pay for more garbage when increasingly it’s free?

Interestingly, the first example of this premium mass culture is already available. It's a book called The Love Artist. A paperback selling for $120.

How do I know?

I wrote it.


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That's my response. If I'm wrong, write a comment. If I'm right, buy my book and beat the entire world (but me) to the next trillion dollar economy. Do something.