The TOUGHEST Video I’ve Had To Make…

I have talked about these pieces individually across a lot of videos and streams, but I never put them in one place. This is that video. How the entertainment landscape got this way, why people right of center have almost no presence in it, and what that means if you are trying to build something.

I use “right of center” on purpose. Not just conservatives. Libertarians like me, apolitical folks, old school blue dog types who got pushed right because the paradigm moved. Anybody who differs from the people currently holding the institutions.

Some of what gets covered:

Why “just make something good” is not the answer. Quality is not the qualifier for the mainstream either. An entire economy exists off complaining about mainstream quality and people engage with it anyway. Engagement cements status. Apathy would hurt them far more than criticism ever has.

Why this is not about talent. There are extremely talented people right of center working right now whose work you like and whose politics you will never hear about, because the environment makes them keep it quiet. I get those messages. I meet those people at cons.

How we got here. Breitbart said politics is downstream from culture. The right has mostly operated the other way, pouring money into lobbying and elections while treating the arts as unserious. Walt Disney was testifying before Congress about infiltration of the arts decades ago. One side understood what art does to culture and acted on it for fifty years. The other side did not.

Why you are not taking it back. The people holding it now understand exactly what they are holding, and that is the thing that separates them from the people they took it from. Hijacking a meme is not a strategy. Virality is not an alternative.

My own experience, from metal and hardcore where I was the only one on that side of the room on most of those tours, to starting a comic company where the rule for everybody who works here is leave it at the door, and getting labeled anyway.

The part nobody wants to hear. Right of center audiences are reactionary rather than proactive. What brought a lot of people together was reacting to the mainstream, and that does not convert into support for something new. Being an alternative is not a business model by itself.

And what I think you should actually do instead, including why reaching people who are not perpetually online matters more than another cross promotion.

We made over 16 million dollars in four years. Not once has anybody right of center approached me about investing in building something bigger. People on the left have.

If you are an aspiring creator, comment. I want to see what you are working on and I have some ideas.

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