Interview 2

  1. Questions:
    1. What’s the nature of your business? What’s the usual process for a job?
    2. How would you compare getting clients online to in-person?
    3. What’s the most difficult aspect of getting clients online?
    4. Is quality of work or pricing rates more important in attracting new clients?
    5. What do you think is the biggest setback to upcoming content creators?
  2. Interviewee 2-5:
    1.  
    2. Interviewee 2
      1. Oct 9th / 8:00pm / Discord Call
      2. Summarized bullet points of the interviewee responses:
        1. Confidence, Defiance
        2. Independence, Autonomy
        3. Develop a reputation, build a name for themselves
        4. In-person networking, internships
        5. Needs money, takes time, takes lots of energy
        6. Family, Peers, online-forums
        7. Online networking isn’t as effective because of the detachment and lack of immediacy
    3. Interviewee 3
      1. Oct 12th / 4:30pm / Dining Hall
      2. Summarized bullet points of the interviewee responses:
        1. Confidence, Determination
        2. Autonomy, Success
        3. Develop a reputation, build a name for themselves
        4. In-person networking, social media networking
        5. Social Media is ineffective, in-person takes time and money, social media account was literally hacked
        6. Peers, online-forums
        7. The technicalities of online networking makes it more difficult to keep followers, let alone active ones
    4. Interviewee 4
      1. Oct 13th / 12:00pm / His car
      2. Summarized bullet points of the interviewee responses:
        1. Inadequacy, fear, anxiety
        2. Integrity, genuineness, authenticity
        3. Find a way to make revenue off Internet content-creation
        4. Crowdfunding, Selling merchandise, Donations
        5. Depends on audience motivation which is usually limited, takes some money to produce merchandise let alone ensure it’s quality
        6. Peers, online-forums
        7. A lack of reliable, dependable forms of revenue leads to anxiety and burn-out
    5. Interviewee 5
      1. Oct 15th / 2:30pm / My car
      2. Summarized bullet points of the interviewee responses:
        1. Anxiety, ruthlessness, desperation
        2. Success, survival
        3. Gain a sponsor/producer through his work, make a name for himself
        4. In-person networking, internships, contests
        5. Contests are horribly saturated with competition, most/best sponsors are in big cities, internships means no money for some time
        6. Peers, online forums, books
        7. People fear having to lose their authenticity in order to be successful at all
  3. Analysis: The main goal for everyone more or less was being able to find support for their work, whether through a sponsor or a grassroots audience, in order to make money from them. Attention-seeking is one thing, but marketing asks of them to maintain real relationships where both sides want to support each other. Everyone mentioned how ineffective online marketing was to in-person, and how they were willing to travel hours to meet clients and sponsors; the anonymity of the internet alongside it’s lack of intimacy or immediacy makes it nearly impossible create meaningful relationships, let alone maintain them. In terms of money the only options were hoping to survive off community support through selling merchandise/art, crowdfunding on Patreon or Subscribe star, or online-sponsoring through companies like Skillshare or Lootcrate; or the alternative of entering the mainstream industry and working on mainstream media, which asks for more dependency, costs, and necessity to conform to industry standards and demands.
  4. Reflection: It all starts with building relationships with people who can help you, true and genuine networking. But it’s not enough to simply find people to leach off of, it’s about both giving and taking. The most successful business partnerships are genuine bonds and true friendships, people who will stick with you in your darkest hours. Such genuineness and camaraderie being formed and facilitated through the Internet alone is inconceivable. In-person connection, seeing the other person’s face and knowing them as in all of their facets, as you would know yourself is the only way; the internet can only facilitate those bonds, but it cannot create them, at least not reliably.