Hollywood Shuts Down After 160,000 Actors Walk Off the Set
3 years ago by Move to lemm.ee to c/world
low-effort junk TV like dating, survival, cooking and other shows like it.
... in other words, exactly the shows that don't use actors or writers
Dont they also have writers on these? With most of it being scripted and dramatized, sbd. gotta make all this stuff up. Also the whole set-up the catch etc. I thought these were done by writers too.
I don't know how other companies work, but I work at a company that produces a lot of reality TV shows. They definitely have writers that will lead the direction that the shows take (for example challenge ideas for a dating show or maybe bow they deliver hints to a blind customer cooking show) and they'll have some leading questions in interviews (or even asking to phrase things for more drama if the contestants want to and they usually say yes) but you'd be surprised at how unscripted the ones we produce are.
I actually think the movies they star in and write are shit too.
Just looking at the list of movies held up by the strike makes me weep with joy.
Glad greedy shitbags who make nothing but garbage are fighting each other.
I haven’t had live TV in years and it’s quite shocking to see what the average user deals with. Junk TV + ads that play 30% of the time is absolutely insane.
Yeah, I’ve had the same experience. We don’t have live TV, and when we occasionally hang out with friends or family who do I’m always flabbergasted at the frequency and length of ad breaks nowadays, and similarly amazed that despite a nearly endless list of channels there never seems to be anything I actively want to watch.
I can't believe the people that allow commercials to blare in their living rooms without diving for the remote control like the house is on fire. Is it just me? and they just continue normal conversation like it's somehow possible to hear them.
diving for the remote control like the house is on fire
lol this is me, it's not just you 😂
Our house is generally on the quieter side. Partly because some of us are on the spectrum, and partly because we like to actually hear each other when we converse. Haven't paid for TV in years, don't miss it.
My parents still have cable TV (I just got them a Roku not long ago, so fingers crossed...), and at this point I can't stand to watch it for more than about one and a half commercial breaks. It's hard to believe anybody willingly subjects themselves to that trash when ad-free alternatives are available.
I had one of them first TiVos, then upgraded to them expanded versions modes online for 1TB of shows. The 30-second skip button pressed six(6) times would effectively (skip) the ads. Never looked back. When I see or hear a commercial at someone’s house it rocks me like I’m in a different dimension and time.
Personally I rarely watch TV in real time, so the only time of year I ever really see commercials is during the NFL season.
Bruce?
You forgot animated sitcom that either lasts 6 episodes or 16 seasons
lol only 30%?
jokes but i agree.. i remember going to visit some relatives and sat and watched tv with them.. i too was so shocked at how they'd sit idly thru commercials jarring into their show, slapping them in the face..
i can't stand it. just about anything i watch, when i watch, is commercial free
I think they get that from most half hour shows are 22 minutes and hour shows only 42 minutes.
But if course networks have been known to cut them back even further to squeeze some more ads in
Yeah. I’ll watch an occasional Gordon Ramsay here and there. I’m more referring to the baking shows, kids cooking shows and similar. But you know what I mean, replace all variants of cooking with the many variants of home improvement, how many do we need?
Even the most high effort shows have so much useless digression and pointless characters that are developed and killed off in a single episode.
Good. More please. Hold these cucks accountable.
Destroying the planet for infinite wealth.
You wanna get really mad? A new practice they were trying to pull off was bring in some young good looking actors; do 3d body scans, record a bunch of voice data, and then have them allow the studios a perpetual license to use their likeness for a few thousand bucks. How evil is that?
It’s only a matter of time for desperate people to sell their likeness to a company doing that. If there was a company out there saying they’d pay you $3k to do a full body 3d scan, record 1 hour of voice lines, and own the rights to your image…do you know how many people would do that? (Probably a significant amount)
Evil and awful yes, but people are desperate for cash in this economy and most people wouldn’t truly understand what they are giving up to the company
Let's hope some never become desperate, because they see through the lies and wouldn't be doing anything for money. They'd have fun watching things break.
This. I want more strikes. I'm tired of everything going to shit and the masses sit back and do nothing. I've gone to a few protests recently, and honestly it's cheap therapy for me. Feels nice to actually DO something.
And what have you actually accomplished with marching and shouting? I went to quite a few BLM protests back in 2020, got tear gassed and shit along with my friends, and yet still haven’t seen anything meaningful change.
Change is slowwwww, my brother. It's rare that an actual upheaval happens and things shift noticably overnight.
It is and always has been a long, long struggle, and there is no final victory, only temporary triumphs that must be vigorously defended, because the enemy will never stop trying to take back every inch.
Change doesn’t have to be slow and we don’t need to make more excuses for the people able to make the change. Protests outside of the US have shown how to accelerate change in the direction they want. At this point though, it appears that a lot of people have given up hope that anything will change
I think it's even more goddamn nefarious than just destroying the planet for wealth - if some of the shit I've been reading is right, then AI has changed the game and this strike is our fucking chance to get ahead of the shit that these studios want to pull. In what world is it okay to pay an actor a single day's worth of work and retain their likeness in pepertuiry using AI generation.
I'll admit that I'm not very knowledge on the whole workings of the AI part of it, but I do feel like every actor should have full control over their likeness and how it should be recorded and how it is applied to AI.
I don't care how fast AI can pump out "high quality content" because I refuse to consume any of it. I really hope the strikes are successful.
If it is high quality, why do you care how it was produced?
But it's not the high quality content that's threatened by AI, it's the mediocre gargabe. It's the endless stream of poor quality TV shows and movies which are produced not as art, but as a means of steady predictibile income for the companies involved. That's the industry aspect of the business. This side of the business consumes most of the talent in the industry. They all know it's not good and they all hope they will get the funding to actually work on the things they know will be high quality. I think AI will allow them to do that.
Further more, this strike is not just about AI. I think this aspect is the one media outlets care most about and gets reported on more. The entertainment industry has suffered a major shift with streaming platforms and the movement of money from production studios to streaming platforms has left the employees behind. They're getting less money from streaming platforms but still do the same work. That's what the strike is about. The industry didn't care for them when it changed.
To answer your question about quality: it matters because it's not real. The act of producing something of quality is what makes us better people. It ties into motivation to be better. Computers automating repetition doesn't hinder that (as much, it does affect learning curves). The notion that computers be used for an output that would normally require creativity is just throwing away the essense of creation, the end product is not the only thing that benefits us. There's no objective to why it was created, an AI writing something that evokes emotion is a party trick. All it really does is promote consumption and demoralize innovation, and ironically it hides behind innovation as the end-goal of the project. It's just dead. One of the most beautiful things within creating something of value is the very process of creating it, having the passion and desire to do so, and the will to bring it into existence. AI is a cursed attempt at trying to replicate this process, and by lifting that kind of burden from a human inhuman.
I agree with you when it comes to AI in its current form - I wouldn't even call it a party trick, just dumb luck. Machine learning through repetition will use existing ideas and tropes.
However you can provide the model with unique ideas, new tropes, characters, environments, and settings. The model in its current form could generate something nearly usable (script wise) and still be a valid piece of art with some cleaning up. Just because you save time doesn't make an idea less "good"
In the future we could have near sentient AI that generates actual pieces of art far faster and better than a person can.
There’s no objective to why it was created, an AI writing something that evokes emotion is a party trick.
Then it's not valuable. The question still stands: if something is truly valuable, does it matter how it was created? You are not answering this question, you are simply pointing out why AI in your opinion cannot produce art. My question is a bit "tongue in cheek", of course. It cannot be truly answered without a specific example of creation. I'm asking it to prove a point: we're dismissing something we don't understand.
All it really does is promote consumption and demoralize innovation
I'd argue that this is what Hollywood already does. And as you rightly argued through your comment, it brings little artistic or creative value.
To me, it's the same feeling as the teachers that wouldn't accept papers written on a computer (after an age where we know how to write) because "it's less honest".
I'm not good at drawing. I would love to try to make a game. Anti-AI luddites are happy that I will never produce something because I am incabable of doing something that an AI could easily accomplish.
i refuse to believe AI can replace totally of the human part in the industry. Yeah some of the weak actors will be pushed out as they are not doing the job good enough, but it’s inevitable that one day technology is advanced that AI can actually replace human workforce. Like car manufacturing industry that have massive machines to assemble car parts, but also there are things only human can do. We don’t need crappy scriptwriters writing rubbish soap opera that my 10 year old daughter can write because they are no more generic than a AI churn out script. It’s like hiring a typewriter operator in 2023. Or rubbish actors that are like reading their script out with minimal effort and skills. It does not make sense.
typewriter operator in 2023
There's this people called stenographers who are paid quite well, they can write hundreds of words per minute and essentially transcribe a conversation in real time. They are hired by courts to create records of the sessions, by journalists, parliaments and to transcribe subtitles for audiovisual media. They use this cool typewriter like machine called a stenotype that was invented in 1880. The thing is, they tried to replace them with speech recognition computers. They discovered they needed a human to sanitize input for the computer, essentially a person who can speak really fast and really mechanically, repeating what others said in the room, or what was said in the movie or whatever, into an oxygen-mask-like sound proof microphone. So, they still had to pay someone to be there. Many places decided they could just pay the stenographer and receive higher quality products despite the slightly higher costs. Then YouTube tried to use machine learning to auto-create closed captions. Before that they used a community contribution approach that depended on volunteers to take some time to transcribe the subs. That change to automation was such a fiasco that some big YouTube channels now advertise that they pay an actual company with humans to do the closed captions for their videos in the name of proper quality accessibility. Because automated closed caption tends to do interesting stuff and it's even worse when they try to throw auto-translation into the mix.
The point is, people tend to not understand technology and how it relates to humans, specially techbros and techies who have the most skewed biases towards tech and little sociological understanding. Nothing can be accurately predicted in that realm, and most relations that result from the appearance of new technology are usually paradoxical to common sense.
I'm looking for an interaction with the artists. I do not care what an AI produces... and I don't care what a marketing team or boardroom of producers produces. I'm looking for an artist's vision.
I'm looking for an interaction with the artists.
How exactly are you interacting with them while sitting on your couch looking at a screen?
This is an appeal to purity argument. You've invented some higher standard (that doesn't really even make sense) with the purpose of excluding the thing you don't like.
Do you understand how art works at all?
The audience responds en masse by tuning in, paying up, being changed, perpetuating the ideas back into the culture through the filter of their own personality, chatting about the thing, praising or criticizing the artist.
This is an appeal to purity argument. You've invented some higher standard
Nope. It has absolutely nothing to do with "purity." It has to do with humans doing the ancient human thing of making art. Dancing, singing, telling stories. You're bringing in the abstraction of purity.
Hollywood (in its crudest aspect) is already an AI algorithm for churning out trash. That's why I tune out already. Because it is not humans telling each other stories. It is pure corporate manipulation. More AI in the hands of producer-goons just means more corporate manipulation and less humans telling each other stories.
AI in the hands of an artist is a tool for exploring and creating. AI in the hands of corporate goons is the total opposite.
not wanting to see things you don't like. In art.
If it is high quality, why do you care how it was produced?
To me, this is comparable to fiction vs. non-fiction.
Personally, I do already find fiction less engaging, because there's nothing romantic about these stories. With which I'm not referring to a love story, I mean that there's no sense of wonder of what lead to these events. It happened that way, because a writer wrote it that way.
And yet, the one thing still tying fiction to reality is the writer. You can still wonder what life experiences they've made to tell this story and how they're telling it.
Our current narrow AIs don't make life experiences, so you lose even that strand of meaning.
Yeah. It'll be nice if all the drivel in Hollywood were automated.
If you think you're so good at what you do, then you can be what the AI learns from to improve.
Everyone else? Well, tough tamales. This is what progress looks like and blue collar workers have been feeling it ever since the industrial revolution.
That's not what progress looks like, but you do you, fam. We'll be over here on our new federated sites watching stuff made by actual human beings while Hollywood starves to death as everyone else stops watching that garbage.
Or we will campaign the federal government to ban the tech outright and your lazy shill ass will have to actually do something useful to make a living.
We'll be over here on our new federated sites watching stuff made by actual human beings
slowly puts away stable diffusion community subscriptions
I, too, got mad at the creation of the personal computer and lobbied congress to ban them because they aren't as real as my subjective interpretation of reality, work, and honesty.
No we don't. They can do something else.
It's called the free market, baby.
Blue collar workers have been finding new ways to make money ever since the industrial revolution. Don't be a Luddite.
If these people still want to make art, nobody is stopping them. They just have to get a real job too, like everyone else.
It's okay. I think they can survive and still lead a higher quality of life than the vast majority of people on the planet.
Jobs that are necessary for the survival of our species.
Jobs that people don't do for fun. They do it because it needs to get done.
People will still act even if they don't get paid for it. Will they, deliver food just for the fun of it? No, I didn't think so.
That is one way to view it. However due to everyone, in including blue collar workers, having their lively hoods threatened by AI we need to ask the question if were okay, as a society, for there to be more jobs eliminated than created. Are we okay with the current ways and (some would say the illusion of) the free market controlling everything? Are we okay with letting people suffer needlessly? Would you be okay with looking into the eyes of someone you know and saying "too bad that's the free market baby!" Because it's starting with the arts but it's not stopping there. It's only a matter of time before it will not need many warm bodies to do things. The knowledge works are next on the list and it won't be long after that where manual labors will be impacted. This is all WAY before we even hit AGI.
I'm not saying that AI taking jobs is a bad thing. I think it is an amazing thing but we need to start embracing it as an opportunity for things to be more Star Trek and less dystopian hellscape. That means changing this mindset that a lot of us have and start asking ourselves how do we want the world to look in 100 or even 500 years from now.
HTH
The free market kind of sucks at making art and I think it's okay and good for the government to subsidize it.
I saw a great strike sign- "I refuse to memorize lines written by a machine."
But why? I feel like people are twisting their arguments against AI. Or they are being twisted against.
Why does an actor care where there lines come from? We live in a world where The Room was written and released, but AI content is going to be the end of media? People aren't that special. Our thoights aren't that special. We don't have souls. We're just thinking machines, and nothing we create is more unique than something that we created creates.
But why? ...
Because this is about enshitification of life for studio exec profits. It's not really about where a machine can or should be a part of creative works, but HOW they are being used.
Nearly very industry in which LLMs are being used in the latest hype wave, it's not being used to improve anything but concentration of wealth in the hands of a dwindling number of individuals by worsening product quality and real ability of any of humanity, outside of those of hereditary wealth, to be get by.
because I refuse to consume any of it
I guarantee you already have and didn't notice.
There's a philosophical argument to be made for sure, and I'd probably even agree with you. But the reality is that the technology is here, and it'll be used in pursuit of the almighty buck.
That's what makes it especially insidious. We want entertainment made by people, for people, not by AIs for corporations and their pockets.
I'm fine with AI content. It's going to make making media so much easier for people who aren't inherently artistic but have a vision they want to show.
There are already teams of humans ready to do all that stuff. AI adds nothing there. The non-artistic person with a vision can already collaborate with skilled artists.
But more importantly, we are not worried about artists using AI as a tool. We are worried about corporate goons using AI to fire all creative staff and generate manipulative trash.
Stop being lazy and learn how to make your own shit. You aren't entitled to other people's skills.
Questions for everybody else:
Who actually thinks like this?
Why are big Lemmy instances allowing obvious shills to concern troll and forum slide on their servers?
I hope there is some kind of "label" that comes out of this like the Surgeon General's cigarette warning. "This movie is 87% AI generated" so I won't have to bother thinking about whether to skip it. Fuck lazy & greedy movie makers. They'd giveup their immortal soul for $3.50
I do too hope the strikes are successful. That said, you've likely already been consuming generative technology for some time now. Disney alone has nearly a decade of research into it already. Advanced VFX applications use all sorts of generative tech too. When I was working in LA we referenced public data all the time. I know it's gotten a huge spotlight on it given private AI capitalizing/evangelizing it all but the very real threat of digital scabs taking people's jobs needs the biggest spotlight right now. I do think the tables will turn if nothing good can come out of Hollywood and those artists begin weaponizing that same tech against the execs. I see what studios are doing as no different than impersonation & identity theft by using this tech to limit working hours to skirt union protections.
There are many issues besides AI stuff that are causing this strike.
Yes, with the quick emergence of AI in all industries, we do need strong workers rights agreements and laws to address it, but AI isn't really the primary issue.
People pick positions in these arguments that are too stringent and not realistic. There will be places where AI is useful in this industry. The union just needs to make sure AI isn't abused in order to completely replace certain types of laborers.
I understand your desire to support the SAG-AFTRA strikes, but I think you're wrong to say that you'll refuse to consume any AI-generated content.
First of all, it's not clear that AI-generated content will be of lower quality than human-generated content. In fact, there are already AI-generated images and videos that are indistinguishable from human-made ones. As AI technology continues to develop, it's likely that AI-generated content will become even more sophisticated.
Second, even if AI-generated content is of lower quality, it's still possible that it will be enjoyable to some people. There are many people who enjoy watching low-budget movies or reading self-published books. Just because something is not created by a professional does not mean that it cannot be entertaining.
Finally, boycotting AI-generated content will not actually help the SAG-AFTRA strikes. The strikes are about ensuring that actors and writers are fairly compensated for their work. Boycotting AI-generated content will not affect the studios' bottom line, so it will not put any pressure on them to reach a fair agreement with the unions.
I think a better way to support the SAG-AFTRA strikes is to donate to the unions or to spread awareness about the issue. You can also write to your elected officials and urge them to support legislation that protects the rights of actors and writers.
I hope you'll reconsider your position on AI-generated content. It's possible that this technology could have a positive impact on the entertainment industry, and it's important to keep an open mind about its potential.
It's funny to me because all these people are saying exactly what everyone used to say about mobile phones, about the internet, about computers... I know so many people who railed against the internet saying they'd never use it and that computers only make things more difficult - now they're all yelling on Facebook about how the evil corporations they work for aren't letting them work from home lol
AI will keep getting better and the way people use it will continue to evolve, there will be truly great things made by obsessive outsiders which speak to people in ways nothing has... Just like with every minor technical or social Innovation in art. Many of the giants of the old era will vanish and many new greats will grow and start to stagnate into conformity...
I'm excited for the future and all the interesting things it brings, we can't just stop creativity and progress because some affluent performers want guarantees of stability which just don't exist in reality
Fuck hollywood.
This would be good opportunity for people to start new film studios and such, founded on more equal profit sharing. Let greedy pieces of shit shrivel and die without labor to exploit. There is no negotiating with those kinds of people as they will just try to find ways to force and manipulate people to do what they want.
It's the circle of liiiiiife capitalism.
People dislike a greedy business.
Start a humble competing business.
Greedy business falls in line or fails.
Competing business now free to push profits, becoming greedy business.
People dislike a greedy business.
Actually, they moved to Hollywood so they wouldn't be under Edison's camera patents.
They should call it "United Artists"!
And.... Jeff Bezos already owns it.
It's also worth noting that many of the "indie" production companies are backed by billionaire money. For example, Annapurna (movies: Her, Zero Dark Thirty, American Hustle, games: Journey, Stray, Kentucky Route Zero, Outer Wilds) was founded by Megan Ellison, the daughter of Larry Ellison of Oracle software, worth about $150 billion.
Indian Paintbrush, the production company that has financed all of Wes Anderson's movies since 2007, is run by Steven Rales, CEO of Danaher, worth $7.3 billion.
It's not just production or indie firms either - CAA (Creative Artists Agency) talent agency that represents people like Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, The Weeknd, Bob Dylan, Aubrey Plaza, Bradley Cooper, Cardi B, Chris (Evans, Hemsworth and Pine), Salma Hayek and thousands of writers, producers and directors, is currently in final talks to be purchased by Francois-Henri Pinaul, who owns Gucci, Balenciaga, Girard-Perregaux and Christie's auction house, is married to Salma Hayek, and is worth about $33 billion.
So if we’re going to have AI replacing Actors, Animators, VAs, Writers and everything there’s going to be a lot less people to pay and ticket prices will go down by 90% right?
The whole population will benefit from AI and not just people who already make way too much money like it happened with pretty much every other technological innovation right?
Just like WallStreet, the ultimate goal is to also replace audiences entirely with AI sentient viewers. That way they can create millions of viewers who will be pre-primed to want to watch the same pieces of media several hundred times. They can even view the movie at 500% speed so they can do so in a shorter timespan than meat viewers. OpenAI will be the first company to offer culturally insensitive and politically neutral 100% synthetic audiences to feed your Hollywood releases. For just cents per 1 million viewers/hour you too can release a blockbuster. This includes Twitch and YouTube audiences!
Dont listem to them, they are trolling
The whole population will benefit from AI and not just people who already make way too much money like it happened with pretty much every other technological innovation right?
Humanity benefited from the invention of the printing press. Humanity benefited from the industrial revolution. Humanity benefited from the invention of computers. Humanity will benefit from AI too, greatly so. This is not what is up for debate. Some people made fortunes from it, but does that matter when you compare it to how much good it brought about?
Did it really benefit that much from it though? We can now be infinitely more productive while working, but are still required to work the same work week and have the same purchasing power, if not less in some countries. And the products made with that work cost pretty much the same, even though it costs much less to produce them.
Very rarely a technological innovation actually ended up improving common people’s quality of life, and the ones that did were due to being improving of the end product in nature.
AI doesn’t improve the end product (rather, currently it worsens it), it just improves the efficiency. And like with the Industrial Revolution, people will get paid the same, will have to work the same amount of time, and their end products will cost the same. CEOs will benefit from it and no one else, if history says anything.
So your argument isn't against AI, it's against studios. Or your argument is against us, and our complacency when it comes to corporate or profit overreach.
I don't see how you could take that as an argument against AI in general. Stanley Yelnatz wasn't wrong for looking for the shorter shovel.
Sure, just like my gripe is mainly with school shooters rather than with guns, and with crazy billionaires rather than with social media.
But since you can’t realistically regulate the users to a healthy level, you have to regulate the tool. Because, just like those other two things, the benefit it brings to regular people is minuscule compared to the harm it can do.
You have a serious agenda huh champ
Wow it's almost like people's tolerance for ruthless exploitation isn't infinite. Hollywood's disgusting parasitic grifters can get fucked.
I honestly don't know how I feel. Most content feels like 'consume our product/content and give us monthly fee' instead of nice shows and movies. Everything seems to have a point where it pulls me out and I find myself questioning if I'm crazy or if everything feels like shit.
There are some amazing gems, but for years it feels like Hollywood has cared less and less about making cool and engaging media and are instead of focusing on manipulating people.
I'm sure the problem is coming from the top, but writers and actors have been pretty shit too
I think that's in part due to nepotism. It seems like everyone who's successfully in entertainment is the child or grandchild of someone else who was successful in entertainment. The same is true for the music industry and its starting to become true in the AAA gaming industry.
When people start to get those jobs because of their family connections rather than their ability everything goes downhill. The most obvious example outside of entertainment is politics.
You're worried about the 1%, this is about the 99% behind the scenes, doing supporting roles, building sets, etc . Don't let movie execs take your eyes off the prize, that's what they want.
I'm interested to see how Hollywood evolves post strike. Hoping that this will allow Writers and Actors more agency when making their products rather than having to conform to whatever shitty money grubbing practices that the Execs usually force on them
Oh boy at this point most of them are just fighting for their jobs, not even worried about actually making the work they want to be. If thats the kind of change you want to see in Hollywood, its gotta come from the consumer.
This is one of the reasons why I strongly believe that if you want to do any kind of art and are passionate for it, you should never make your income depend on it. It's why even though I've studied Masters in game development and was always passionate about games, I work as a Red Teamer in cybersecurity instead, and then work on my games as a hobby.
And especially if we're talking about games, where you can just get a regular IT job as a programmer that pays more than you will ever make (assuming you don't get to work on a AAA project, but the you basically have zero agency about the game and are still just a code monkey), the best course of action (which I regret not doing, but my classmate did and is a lot better for it) is to just take advantage of the fact that IT pays comfortably, but instead of just making more money just work parttime for a "regular" pay, and use the free time for your projects.
But every time an art becomes business, it will inevitably suffer for it. There are rare cases of small indie studios getting lucky to be able to uphold their vision and still earn enough to afford paying their employees comfortably, but sooner or later you get into a point where you just have to start considering stuff around marketing that's totally unrelated to the art in itself, but usually forces you to compromise your vision
I'm actually pretty glad that generative AIs will probably really soon replace most of the artists required for mass production of such big budget commercial titles - because then the only option of someone who wants to do that kind of art will be a smaller indie studio or a hobby project, which may not be as successful and will probably end up as a niche, but it will also mean that a lot less artists end up with their passion sucked out and destroyed by execs forcing them to do shitty generic money grubbing stuff - because that will be done by AIs, and keep on being as generic as it is now.
Gonna offer my two cents as someone who entered the industry during the last writer's strike. You'll see some interesting creative divergence as said creatives crave expression and reach out to new venues like YouTube for the first time. It was one of many changes to the industry at that (and now this) time. I use generative tech because it's part of this exploration of the taboo. Back then, YouTube was the taboo because it was effectively working for free and with no insurance or protection by comparison to a stable studio gig. Take away the studio gig, anything and everything could be opportunity for change and especially so the longer this goes on tbf.
I've barely even noticed this writers strike because I've hardly even bothered to watch any new Hollywood movies or TV shows in literally years. Everything I have seen recently has been complete garbage. So I find myself watching older shows again and again, more YouTube content, educational and history stuff like that...heck, I've been following some modern film critics like Red Letter Media and just watch their commentary vs the real thing, and it's usually much more entertaining.
I think Hollywood is going to use this opportunity to replace the writers with AI. If it works great, if it doesn't work, nobody will notice or care.
I subscribed to Britbox and find the writing and acting of much higher quality. Plus, the stories are generally more interesting with more feeling. I mainly watch that, watchTCM, and certain YouTube channels.
Other than the nightly shows, you won't be seeing the impacts of these strikes for months. Films and shows take a lot of time to go from inception to finished product. For movies I wouldn't be surprised if the impact doesn't happen until next year.
To wit -- we're just now, seeing the tail-end of a lot of the COVID-19 shutdowns percolate up through the delayed releases and shortened seasons for a bunch of shows, and most of those shutdowns were gosh, almost 2 years ago now.
If you want a gem, I recommend checking out Undone. It's by the same guy who made Bojack Horseman.
You can stream it for free here: https://fmovies.to/tv/undone-70zyj/1-1
Just make sure you have a good adblocker, like uBlock Origin.
Everything is shit. Quality is down and prices are up.
People gladly have been lowering their standards for years so those profiting off of them can make even more money.
Most actors are awful these days. Like, look at Chris Pratt lmao. That guy is terrible but very popular among children and manchildren.
We don't have this generations' Tom Hanks yet.
The only way to watch live action stuff that isn't kiddie-bullshit is to watch things in other languages. They still have integrity and aren't just loading their actors up on cocaine to cover up bad acting.
This is probably the worst take I've ever heard. It's actually amazing how much i disagree with almost everything you've written here.
And, Tom Hanks is still acting, Tom Hanks is literally this generations Tom Hanks.
There's so much excellent acting and directing in the world at the moment i just can't fathom how you have come to your conclusions.
Banshees of Inisherin? The Whale? Everything Everywhere All At Once? Succession? The Bear?
There's loads of great acting out there. Maybe the issue is you're buying tickets to Chris Pratt instead of other things?
The big name movies now are so cringeworthy and require zero thought on the part of the viewer. I'd be almost embarrassed to go watch them. The worst part is that I used to watch them because there was just nothing else to see, until one day I was so bored that I walked out of the theatre. To my surprise, I was even approached and given a refund by the manager without asking... maybe they watched it too and understood the pain.
But are those the things that get marketing? I'm with you on loving that content, but none of the main theatres in my area (a city of 7 million) even show them. A couple will put them into the standard screen theatres at oddball times to fulfill their contracts, but the good content is in the local dollar theatres where, of course, the movie gets less traffic.
I think what they're saying is that the movies that you're "supposed" to watch are things like those god awful Harry Potter prequels (literally any fanfic amateur could have written them better), the ten thousandth Marvel movie (seriously, just stop), or those Adam-Sandler style low effort white trash movies that run solely on the recognition of the probably male and supposedly "so talented" lead actor.
But are those the things that get marketing? I'm with you on loving that content, but none of the main theatres in my area (a city of 7 million) even show them. A couple will put them into the standard screen theatres at oddball times to fulfill their contracts, but the good content is in the local dollar theatres where, of course, the movie gets less traffic.
I think what they're saying is that the movies that you're "supposed" to watch are things like those god awful Harry Potter prequels (literally any fanfic amateur could have written them better), the ten thousandth Marvel movie (seriously, just stop), or those Adam-Sandler style low effort white trash movies that run solely on the recognition of the probably male and supposedly "so talented" lead actor.
When most people pick movies to watch in a theatre it's typically based on which movie no one will object to. So it needs a bit of action, a bit of romance, a bit of comedy... It also needs to have brand/actor recognition. So you get Marvel. There's nothing wrong with this, but it's a different market from the one you're in.
Chris Pratt is definitely not a great actor, he's mediocre at best. However, he's in tons of blockbuster movies so that's why he's popular, not necessarily because people think he's talented.
The other stuff you said is just nonsense. There are tons of great, well written, acted, and directed movies. You just have to look outside the mainstream/blockbuster releases. If you only focus on the big releases from major studios like Disney, then yeah you'll think that it's nothing but shallow garbage. But there's way more content nowadays, so it's harder to sift thru the massive diluge of content out there.
There are not 'tons.' There is very few quality content out there these days.
I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but it's becoming harder and harder to find in a sea of shit perpetuated by people with low standards.
As a gen X I can tell you that quality is not down and that you have tunnel vision. Go watch some 80s/90s shows lmao. Most are garbage, with only a few gems. It has definitely gotten better as competition increased.
There's a bit of a point there, though. As summarized by Futurama,
Fry: Married? Jenny can't get married.
Leela: Why not? It's clever, it's unexpected.
Fry: But that's not why people watch TV. Clever things make people feel stupid, and unexpected things make them feel scared.
Hollywood caters to what people want. What people want is often not "good".
Um. So watch other languages. They have integrity and.no coke. Cause coke actors.. they are low paid and have to stay up and beat their bodies down to get paid.
Got it. This is fascinating fabrications Your imaginations almost rivals your thoughts.
What's it going to take to actually do something about these ultra-rich leeches literally destroying our planet and everything good on it to inflate a number in a bank somewhere? How do we actually build up the initiative to stop it?
All our other problems seem largely centered around our inability to appropriately respond to extreme greed. Not only in actually actively stopping it, but in even identifying it or being able to properly censure it in the first place. The moment you start talking about the rich being the cause of our problems, there's a section of society that starts tuning you out. I definitely feel like as things get worse people are starting to catch on, but even once we're there, where do we go?
If we actually get to the point of agreeing that excessive wealth is inherently misanthropic and should be a crime in and of itself, how do we make it a crime while so much power sits in the hands of those who'd be on the losing end of that decision?
I hope the WGA and SAG can spark a change in people's consciousness around labor. I'd honestly love to see a lot more interviews and independent podcasts coming from the picket lines. If there's anyone who can convince Americans to fight for the value of their labor, it's the people write and play the parts in the stories they love.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/BQQpW7TuBy4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
If you still have the bird app or some other method, send your support of solidarity to your favorite actors. They will definitely appreciate it.
Hi there! Sorry, no movie promotions, I'm on strike.
Funny meme, nice AI generated profile picture.
If they ever find out about this account I can just deny everything, it's great, right?
What about my favorite studios ?
I'm... not sure?
Fuck the studios. Go union!
I don't know what you're talking about, I'm on strike.
Despair is the enemy of progress.
If you insist on being so cynical and hateful that you reject people who are trying to improve society somewhat, then I think you should leave.
I'm glad more and more workers are realizing the power they have over the industries they're working in.
Without the workers, the businesses have nothing. We really need to have a serious revolution before they replace all jobs with AI robots.
Burn Hollywood burn, taking down Tinseltown
Burn Hollywood burn, burn down to the ground
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=h
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
"Low income", as defined by the state, is anything below $70,650 in Los Angeles county.
Good question! I looked up the poverty line in LA specifically. And here are the results:
Persons in Family Household - Poverty Guideline (annually): 1 person - $14,580 / 2 persons - $19,720 / 3 persons - $24,860
This is a very quick look for an answer. I don't fully understand the results.
The long and short of it is $25,000/year is over the poverty line for a single person household but barely over the poverty line for a 2 person household. It is the poverty line for a household of 3 or more people.
It is unclear how this factors in housing, and if it includes owning property and renting. A 3 person household is generally considered to be two adults and a child or dependant. Livable, depends on what you considered livable. If owning a house and starting a family is part of having a libable life, I would say they are probably not earning a livable wage.
Source: Californial Department of Public Health https://www.cdph.ca.gov/...
Edit formatting
That chart looks like it uses the federal poverty line. A sweeping guideline to cover all of the US.
Good, I hope more join in and walk until Hollywood caves...They won't like this negative attention. 😁
It's too bad the directors guild already made that deal.
What do you mean?
The DGA ratified an agreement last month. If they hadn't, we would have three major video unions on strike instead of two.
Gotcha. Thanks!
What do you mean?
incredibly based. fuck the execs. fucking parasites
Having 20 writers so you don't have to pay them as much really dilutes any narrative structure.
They're fighting a losing battle, but I hope a side effect of it is that new people come in and change both the economics and artistry of Hollywood. Most Hollywood content sits in a very rigid box. It's repetitive, unoriginal, and unappealing. People are encouraged to eat ramen for every meal in order to "make it", simply because far too many of them try (which is partially the result of the "follow your dreams" narrative in America as well). The further down you are, the worse your compensation. Good ideas get missed or thrown out and relegated to dollar theatres all the time.
If this strike goes on long enough that it starts to flush people out, I'm ok with that. Sucks for the people who are going to lose their livelihoods, but for some of them that was an eventuality. Hopefully in the end creators will have more creative freedom and receive more proportional compensation.
The movie industry needs a bigger market for independent movies. Look at the videogames, the indies are holding the creativity among a similar crisis for the aaa titles as for the movies. We need an "EA Orginals" for the majors...
Indy game industry has exploded thanks to benevolent monopoly of Steam. There was a chance for indy cinema when Netflix started, but that's long gone with every studio having their own streaming service.
Agreed, A21 has a few outstanding originals each year
A21 is for children and family, right?
They’re fighting a losing battle, but I hope a side effect of it is that new people come in and change both the economics and artistry of Hollywood. Most Hollywood content sits in a very rigid box. It’s repetitive, unoriginal, and unappealing.
My two cents is there's a structural issue that's converged to strictly Campbellian story-telling as the end-all-be-all structure. Sure, you'll have something come out of HBO or AppleTV that breaks it, but AAA movies rarely break it.
Solidarity ✊
Hollywood is dead anyway. They just make superhero movies for china now
They've been making alternate versions of every movie for china since 2008. Especially disney. Disney is such a cuck to china that they declared all the winnie the pooh characters as public domain to appease Ping.
Good to see actors, many whom get just the base for their work, stand up for what they deserve.
I have mixed feelings about this. I hope they all are compensated fairly, but technology keeps getting better and capitalism latches on to the absolute cheapest solution. If that includes firing most employees and using AI to save billions a year then they will do it. I think this will just excacerbate AI proliferation in the end. Alas, no one gets paid to strike in America.
Just like the last writers strike produced an endless unmitigated firehose of reality TV and bastardized all the good TV channels, this move is going to double down on that model
AI isn't going to be able to do what actors can do. Not for some time yet. The content will probably start off okay, but we've already seen issues with AI used for "creative" purposes. It sucks. The quality of content on streaming platforms is already hurting. This is going to make it even shittier.
Something will get figured out, because now there are gonna be a lot of people sitting around at home with no bread and no games.
The actors' anti-AI protests are much, much stronger than the writers' (and I say this as someone who is nevertheless 100% supportive of the writers' demands vis-a-vis AI). Because the actors are literally talking about studios demanding to have the right to use their likeness. That's not a technological hurdle that has to be overcome, it's literally just profiting off of someone else's image without having to pay them. A mere $200 to hire an actor for one day, and they own their likeness in perpetuity; that's what studios are supposedly asking for.
The writers' case is still very strong, in my opinion. Because their fear (and I think it's very founded) is not that their jobs will be replaced by AI. Not in a real sense. But that they'll be forced to do like 90% of the work for like 50% of the pay because of studios' use of AI. The way studio credits/payment works for writers, "revising" an existing script pays less than writing a script fresh. So if the studios can create a really shitty script with AI and hand it to a writer who has to do a significant amount of work editing it to be in an actually-usable state. But because they're being paid to revise it, not write it, they don't get paid commensurate to the amount of work actually being done.
In theory, the writers' case could eventually be harmed by actual use of AI in a way that the actors' simply cannot (an AI could theoretically eventually replace an actor entirely, but that's not the debate on the table right now). I think that "eventually" is much further away than most techbros seem to suggest, because frankly LLMs are just not as close to AGI as it seems they usually get thought of as. But that eventually could happen, and then the nature of a writers' job will have to change more substantially in a way that does hurt them quite a bit more. Though it's worth noting that AI is even further away from doing the less-obviously-"writery" work writers do, which often sets them on the path to becoming directors and producers, and without that pipeline for creating the higher-level roles, film studios are going to struggle to keep making films.
This is why governments need to get involved legislationing profits from AI work. Shareholders can't be the beneficiary of lower costs from AI when it means workers lose their jobs. There needs to be an AI specific tax, to support people losing their livelihoods.
I think they are doing the right thing before AI gets firmly set in as the "norm" and that laws are put in place that movies have to use human actors, or they get labeled properly as AI movies so we can skip them if we don't approve of AI taking over the industry.
so we can skip them if we don’t approve of AI taking over the industry.
Spoiler alert: Nobody will give a fuck, people will watch AI movies, and human actors will lose their jobs.
The only question is, shall we tax AI usage and implement UBI? Or watch as entire industries full of people will be laid off? And HOW to tax AI usage? Just implement huge taxes on dividends, stock buybacks and annual salaries and bonuses > 10 mill?
Very true. The amount of luddites in this thread are amazing.
It sounds like angry old people telling at a car in the horse era. It's happening whether you like it or not. Taxing it as a special case is ridiculous, especially since it just means you move your operations to a friendly jurisdiction that won't tax you.
Happened with a large portion of Hollywood moving to Canada awhile back.
It will happen with AI. Embrace it and find a way to make money with it. Fighting it won't do any good.
This is what separate successful people from failures. Most people are failures because they can't envision a way to adapt so rail against progress. Those that see an opportunity instead of a problem are the ones they are going to succeed.
Well, yeah. That's part of why they're on strike lol. They are very aware of that threat. Everyone is
Now I can finally catch up with my backlog!
I don't know why you got downvoted. Because you watch TV? So what? Either way, I liked your comment!
How's that boot taste?
It's just kind of disgusting to be saying this shit jovially when people's lives and families are at stake and actors are publicly threatening to burn down CEO's homes. It reeks of sociopathic shit having absolutely no empathy or support for what people are going through.
He clarified his words after some people naturally started to take it a little too literally, but I don't think he needed to.
Whoever that "anonymous exec" was who said they wouldn't even start to negotiate until strikers started losing their homes deserves to be pilloried.
He clarified his words after some people naturally started to take it a little too literally, but I don't think he needed to.
Whoever that "anonymous exec" was who said they wouldn't even start to negotiate until strikers started losing their homes deserves to be pilloried.
Good to see some solidarity. I wish it happened more. I'd have thought that the spread internet, allowing easy and covert communication, would have caused a proliferation in the number and efficacy of labor unions, but alas.
I'm not following it much either so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt but I believe it's a combination of the actors deciding to support the ongoing writer's strike, in addition to having some of the same concerns as the writers with regard to their rights in a changing digital landscape (see the somewhat overblown AI craze currently in progress).
Just like when reruns first became a thing, the actors are striking to be paid for the use of their likeness and their performances. With TV reruns becoming less popular, yet people are rewatching old favorites on streaming, the actors rightly want to be paid for streaming rewatches. That is one of the biggest things. Streaming platforms are making big money from hosting old shows, and the actors want their cut.
Rich people upset they can't keep up with other rich people.
Nothing to see here. They're just trying to live as lavish a life as possible while doing as little actual work as possible. Yes, I'm talking about the actors.
It's not about needs. It's about wants. Greedy people and their supporters get upset whenever someone points out the difference.
bro, like 75% of actors have 2 other jobs they're working to keep a roof over their head lmao, no including all the electricans, makeup, set builders, CGI, etc that work on movies. You should educate yourself. Only 0.1% of them are living like kings, and most of those are nepo-babies with connections to land the big roles.
Sure. The leading actors in a production are crazy rich. But according to indeed.com, the average actor earns between $7.25 and $36.00 an hour, averaging at $15.29. For every lead, you've got countless little people backing them up. Strikes aren't just about the crazy wealthy leading actors. It's also about the dude pulling in $15 an hour. In fact, the leads aren't going to license their likeness and voices to the studio execs, so they really have nothing to worry about. But they're here standing in solidarity with the people who don't have that luxury, who will go in, get a $3000 cheque, then never work in the industry again.
Just to be clear, you're busy simping for the billionaires who run the media industry, pointing to the millionaires who are saying they are being nasty to everyone in industry. Says a lot about you, buddy!
Just to be clear, I'm not in favor of anyone with above average wealth having more so long as children go without food and water.
I'm not in favor of the actors or the owners. Copyright and patent laws need to die so none of them get to live lavish lifestyles at the expense of everyone else.
I don't believe for a second that you actually believe this. I think you're just a concern troll trying to hide behind the inequity that allows kids to go without food and water while pushing the false narrative that every actor earns millions of dollars a year and thus doesn't "deserve" to strike. If you really are concerned about kids, then perhaps stand in solidarity of the hundreds of thousands of people NOT earning seven figures so THEIR kids may be guaranteed food and water, and pressure the folks who ARE earning seven figures to show a little charity for the kids you're so concerned about.
I for one, look forward to interacting with our sentient overlord artists. All hail AI.
boo hoo
🥾 👅
On one hand, Hollywood is abusive both economically and ethically. On the other hand, I despise copyright-based industries and the workers that uphold them. I can't bring myself to support anyone in this conflict.
Workers don't exactly get a choice about property laws mate. Workers do not own private property.
Personally I think actors and writers are overpaid, but I support their right to strike. I also support the studios avoiding the strike by avoiding all SAG actors and other guilds because like I don’t think they’re that much better than non-union members
One of the main features of this strike is the companies are trying to get extras to sign away their likenesses. The companies then intend to use their likenesses "for eternity and in every universe" (the actual wording) as computer generated images to abolish their jobs entirely. Actors are not particularly happy about the attempt to get them to do work that will abolish their own existence, and the higher paid actors see it as inevitable that this expands to include them to if they don't fight it now.
There is nobody avoiding the strike at this point. Everything has ground to a halt. If anything starts again the guilds for crews, camera operators etc are planning to join.
I do agree that it’s bullshit to pressure actors into signing away their likeness and knew this was a main feature, but SAG is joining the wave that WAG started and I don’t support increasing their residuals. WAG and SAG are basically the cool kids club of landed gentry. I believe people should be able to form unions to pursue self interests, but that doesn’t mean I blindly support every union strike.
Regarding union strikes, I personally don’t get why sanitation workers don’t strike to get a lot more money, they certainly deserve it.
Regarding union strikes, I personally don’t get why sanitation workers don’t strike to get a lot more money, they certainly deserve it.
Mostly caused by a lack of radical leadership. You tend to find the unions getting shit done have reds running them, often from groups like the IWW or other entryist parties or salters (Chris Smalls amazon union are leninists and it took an absolutely massive salting effort to achieve), doing work in this space is extremely difficult because entrenched liberals are do-nothings and shifting them out of leaderships is not simple as reaching workers and convincing them that the leadership is trash is a lot of long and very hard effort that often requires salting the workplace as well.
So tldr it's about getting the people that want to stir shit up into those leadership positions and those people aren't liberals.
Man, this comment is naive as hell. I'm disappointed to see so much anti-labor sentiment here. But what else should I expect from that username.
You're talking about ruining the lives of tens of thousands of people with families and children, have some fucking empathy you psychopath.
I think this is a little hyperbolic?
The vast majority of those actors have other careers.
"Ruining lives" probably isn't accurate.
No, I'm not lol.
Calm down. Your emotions are controlling your argument.
These actors will do just fine if they can never act again. They'd just have to get a regular job like anyone else.
They'll still be living a higher quality of life while working less than the vast majority of people on the planet.
You're just mad that someone says we shouldn't be passing a bunch of money around at the top. I suggest you brush up on the definitions of 'want' and 'need' because you call me a sociopath.
They don't need more money. They want it, plain and simple.
I don't care for people who want more money. Because they get it, others who need it don't.
The super famous ones do but for every one of them there are thousands of poorly paid ones. What the studios are doing would remove the possibility of even becoming well paid in the future. These strikes are about helping the people not at the top, and about protecting their upward mobility.
Don't bother. This guy basically believes that if you aren't living in a mud hut in Africa, you have no right to complain about anything.
He's all over this thread and his opinions are the worst.
Except those on strike aren't at the top. Go after the studio execs and owners to find the money.
They get paid more than people in poor countries, but they don't live in a poor country. Their wage may be 10x higher but so is their cost of living. So they are still fucking broke.
You need to remember that this isn't just about people at the top. Day players get $1000 a day for what can be a 20-hour day for a two-week shoot and then get nothing for a few months. They barely qualify for health insurance, which is often the reason they do it. They are, if anything underpaid.
Yes, there are extremely wealthy SAG-AFTRA members. There are also SAG-AFTRA members living in one-bedroom apartments.
The median income of SAG-AFTRA members is under $26K a year. A tiny, tiny percentage of actors are what you would call rich or even well off. Most have a second job and still struggle to pay rent.
Tribe? Explain please
Probably referring to the 12 tribes. I try not to apply to much logic to racist shit. Waste of time.
Oh no! Anyway...
Edit: In case the subtlety slipped by some folks, I was pointing out how very unimportant the film industry is as a whole. I stand by the folks striking for better conditions and pay, but without Hollywood the world will continue on. Humanity doesn't need a new Marvel movie to survive the next year. Food, water, construction, transportation, these things are critical infrastructure. But I do not care if Hollywood stops making cookie cutter movies for a while, let the studios feel the crunch. Who can honestly say they are totally caught up on all the shows they want to watch, anyway? Go watch something you didn't have time for before, because the newest season of "Someone else's life" just aired. Go make a new friend, read a new book, or explore a new place. Don't want to or can't for some reason? Ok, go watch anything else, there is more media then you consume in a lifetime available for you to peruse on the internet.
To add; this is, in my opinion a bigger deal than UPS. There are other freight companies. It’s bigger than the railroads. We have other shipping. We only have one Hollywood. Entertainment sucked the last time they striked. It started all the reality shows.
How's that boot taste?
What boot? The boot of the industrial propaganda machine that I'm refusing to be concerned about when it just might have to slow down on producing another cinematic universe for merchandising? Screw the studios, let them deflate a little while the people who do the work strike for better conditions and wages. I'm sure the next Thor movie can wait a couple more years before becoming a lunchbox.
The workers get to choose what gets produced do they?
You are complaining about exactly the same people that the workers are striking against.
You are complaining about exactly the same people that the workers are striking against.
Yes, because as a worker of any kind, I stand in solidarity with the people who are looking for fair compensation for their time and work.
The workers get to choose what gets produced do they?
Yes. If I work at a chemical plant, then find out the plant has been poisoning the town I live in, my most effective way to stop that happening is to refuse to make more poison and convince as many of my neighbors and colleagues who work with me to do the same. The boss won't come down from his office and make it himself, will he? As the person making it, I'm morally responsible for it's existence.
The actors are also stepping on others.
They care more about living well I'm Hollywood than children in Burundi getting food and water.
All this money is so they can live as lavish a life as possible and show off to their friends. They want this money for acting instead of doing something else useful for society.
They get mad when I point out they don't work that hard and have a lot of excess wealth.
The workers have no control over anything in Burundi. What a bizarre thing to attack them with.
honestly, I can see this only affecting the little guy like always, big stars probably can afford to lawyer up and earn money for the AI usage of their image. Not to mention that adding extras in the background is many times easier to get away with rather than the main character
If the following and drama that vtubers has can teach you something, is that celebrity worshipping is not going anywhere.
Celebrity worship in some form or another will never go away.
People will just transition to worshipping celebrity AIs. I for one welcome our new AI overlords…
While I agree that the compensation has been way too low for the working class, I fucking hate how this is used as an excuse when it hits certain group. "what are we waiting for?" as if the real working class (employees of supermarkets, fast food chains, gas stations, etc) haven't being fucked in the ass for a long time. But now it "hurts me, let's have solidarity". No sympathy for them. Eat shit.
How exactly is attacking other workers going to help workers?
Children in Burundi should have been born in a country with a high cost of living.
These big name actors are fighting for the people that are part of SAG that are extras or do stunts who make jack shit from most productions. These people are fighting for members of their union, this has nothing to do with anything else.
Excellent comment. I'm just going to add some numbers ans a source to it.
If you're in the United States and are working as an actor, your income is closer to Minimum Wage than to the big names in the entertainment industry, with wages (not salaries, these people are paid by the hour) ranging from $7.75 up to $36.00, averaging at $15.29. We talk about the big names, but these are the people really being hit. Hollywood execs don't even want to pay these wages. They'd rather give you a month of wages in order to have access to your voice and face for all time. This is even worse when you factor in that your image might get big...imagine being a fresh face right out of acting college, going in for your first audition, and they say "We like you. We'll give you $3000 if you just enter our scanning booth and spend an hour saying nonsense lines." That pays your first month's rent (barely), but lo and behold, down the road, your likeness is earning the studio execs a cool billion, and you ain't getting a penny of that, because you signed a contract saying your likeness and voice could be used by them at no compensation for you for all time.
THAT is a big part of what this strike is about.
lol, wut? How much do you think the average actor makes? Not everyone is Adam Driver…..
What a shit take. Seriously, how is this bad for others? Trying to delegitimise these peoples work shows me you have no idea what you talking about. Do you understand what a class war is?
You know what? I refuse to believe someone can be this dense. I took the bait, my bad. Troll.
Lots of people in this thread think this is about A list actors only apparently
as if the real working class (employees of supermarkets, fast food chains, gas stations, etc)
White collar and blue collar workers are also part of the real working class. The bottom like 95% of earners are. We need to stop labeling ourselves as different groups and start working together. Doesn’t matter the type of job you have, more than likely you are being severely underpaid and under appreciated.
Yeah man I don't have beef with individual millionaires. It's possible to become a millionaire without stepping on some necks. Billionaire, not so much.
Your slip is showing.
@lemmy.world
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Ask Historians !askhistorians@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/...
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
go to feed...
@lemmy.world
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Ask Historians !askhistorians@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/...
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
go to feed...
I’ve been “striking” for a long time now, against junk TV in general. There’s an occasional awesome show that delivers but 95% of it is low-effort junk TV like dating, survival, cooking and other shows like it.
I haven’t had live TV in years and it’s quite shocking to see what the average user deals with. Junk TV + ads that play 30% of the time is absolutely insane.
save