An Open Letter To Creators

Dear Creators of Contents and Things and Services:

I write to you at a moment of inflection.

Through events not entirely of any one person's making, we have arrived at moment of unparalleled opportunity.

First, due to events out there in the real world, there has been a sea change shift in direction that is manifesting itself now even as I write.  Based on reactions (even within the last week), there is a great retraction of policies and practices that have been in place for the last 6 to 8 years (or even a little longer).  This is not my opinion:  companies of all kinds are walking back what had been the overt practices of the past years.  For the first time in perhaps a decade, "having an opinion" that is not what was mainstream is now both okay - and in vogue.

Second, the existing intellectual properties and platforms that have filled the entertainment arenas and leisure times have either burned themselves to the ground or are in the process of doing so.  Of the franchises and lines of my own youth, none of them exist as the powerhouses they were.  They remain crumbling edifices, empires in a race to withdraw to their core before they are extinguished.

Thirdly, we are entering what could only be construed as a time of economic turmoil. Even with the best of outcomes, we have a long painful haul before we reach actual economic prosperity, not just a pretend prosperity largely fueled by money that we do not have being spent on corporations that return little to the land of their purchasers.

Now, more than ever, we need you.

We need your new ideas.  We need your new worlds, be they in film or streaming or written word or games or photographs or art.  We need your things, be they grown food or handmade goods or services.  

We need the things done by you.

A meteor of sorts hit the established world in the recent past, a meteor whose impact continues to ripple out in real time.  The large corporations and firms and "establishments" are the dinosaurs of this time, ponderously working to adapt to the times. The small creator, the small maker, can be responsive in a way the large organization cannot.  They are far more adaptable and far more responsive - partially, yes, because of their size, but also partially because of the fact that they have a connection with their customer or fan base, not just a webpage or media presences where inputs only go one way.

There is no barrier to entry by any of the usual metrics.  And one might think I am arguing for "one side" to create.  Not at all; I encourage all those metrics to create - with the understanding that in a way that has been forgotten in a generation, the market - the customers, the fans, the clientele - will determined your success or failure, not far away investment firms or overbearing activists who offer no financial support but only conditions for acceptance.

The world is open in a way it was not even a year ago.  Go Ye forth, and be creative.

Your Obedient Servant, Toirdhealbheach Beucail