[eru]

Artists and musicians specifically get a lot of social prestige. Similarly for actors.

That's part of why many people are willing to have a go at these careers despite the well-known abysmal earning expectations.

It's just a lot of very willing supply and rather limited demand that depresses monetary earnings for labour in these sectors.

Compare also pay and conditions for programmers in the games industry vs those working on in-house corporate CRUD applications.

[Broken_Hippo]

Artists and musicians specifically get a lot of social prestige. Similarly for actors.

No, they - in general - do not. A few get this. A few more lucky folks make a living off of it. In the case of an artist, you are probably doing commissions and spend a lot of time on social media, in the post office, and such things just to tread water. Comic artists and animators you've never heard of go about their day in invisibility while they destroy their wrists, elbows, and shoulders for your enjoyment. (a number of these are contract jobs, too, which means no benefits).

Most musicians are pretty local or fly under the radar. Band teachers are usually musicians, and i'm pretty sure there isn't a lot of prestige there. Lots of "musicians" are working in such jobs, many are touring local circuits, picking music for commercials, and things like that.

The most common sort of artist or musician, though, is the unknown one. There are way more artists and musicians than we have space for in our minds. I'm not sure what sort of prestige you think folks are getting. Even worse, I'm not sure why that would be a substitute for decent pay. Supply and demand obviously aren't the constraints on wages people make them out to be.

[lmeyerov]

That's true yet still feels rosy ;-)

There's a lot of waiting tables, and if lucky, teaching gigs. Paid performance gigs are rarer and not that rosy either, eg, boring wedding music or sporadic & low-paid pop-ified club gigs. In COVID... yikes.

Prestige includes a lot of 'when will you get a real job?'

Even for the rare folks who 'make it', there's often a lot of weirdness, especially around the one-hit wonder commercial music circuit. Unlikely and hard to get there, and often ugly if you do.

Sound rough? Even worse in visual areas because even less money. Gallery scene is basically charity from upper crust and whatever small grants, if you're lucky. More likely, still waiting tables or some other day job. There are commercial gigs, but rarely related to your art: an artist's exploration of abstract oil painting is far from say musclebound video game characters for adolescents. Even if someone likes your aesthetic style, commercial versions for say a big hotel/ commercial/product are dead/generic for accessibility reasons.

I was around a lot of this in my early 20's. The entertainment industry is at odds with art. Happy to be away from it, and empathy for artists pushing through it.

[HPsquared]

It sounds like the main rewards aren't financial. Why do people pursue these careers?

It's hard to try and make money on something lots of people do as a hobby, it's the same situation in professional sports.

[jseban]

> No, they - in general - do not.

Yes they do. I'm both a musician and a software developer and the difference in social prestige is night and day, depending on how I present myself.

You're trying to refute the statement that musicians and artists get a lot of social prestige, by stating that they make little money and do work that's not glamorous, and that's irrelevant, it's rather actually part of what gives it prestige.

[throwaway675309]

I think it depends on how you define the word prestige. I work as a software engineer but also freelance composing music for mobile games, I wouldn't say that people are exactly "in awe" of what I do in either situation. Neither job is particularly difficult.

[jseban]

It's because you are not performing, it's the performance that's the awe inspiring part.

[notefaker]

> Most musicians are pretty local or fly under the radar. Band teachers are usually musicians, and i'm pretty sure there isn't a lot of prestige there. Lots of "musicians" are working in such jobs, many are touring local circuits, picking music for commercials, and things like that.

> The most common sort of artist or musician, though, is the unknown one. There are way more artists and musicians than we have space for in our minds. I'm not sure what sort of prestige you think folks are getting. Even worse, I'm not sure why that would be a substitute for decent pay. Supply and demand obviously aren't the constraints on wages people make them out to be.

I've been working professionally as a music creator for nearly 20 years. I think what separates the musician types you're referring to from actual professionals is an understanding of how to make money with art and when to pivot one's career, e.g. "live gigs are paying me nothing... how else can I make money with my music?" I'd be miserable if I'd stayed in live music beyond my early twenties or believed that teaching was an adequate substitution for being paid to create for a living.

Most hobbyist musicians never work beyond the genre or instrument they initially learned, like a "programmer" who learns HTML as a kid but fails to take their expertise further. It's a severe lack of business acumen, self-awareness, and desire to evolve.

[eru]

To remove some of the weasel words:

Posing with a guitar will help you get laid. Even if you don't play remotely well enough to make any money, or for anyone to really care about your music.

[webmaven]

> > Artists and musicians specifically get a lot of social prestige. Similarly for actors.

> I'm not sure what sort of prestige you think folks are getting.

Groupies, maybe? I've encountered them hanging on even celebrity impersonators (in Los Angeles) and cover bands (in Las Vegas), not just originals. Not to mention authors and visual artists. Most artistic scenes seem to attract them.

[jdthedisciple]

So whose fault is it that they're pay is not decent, if it's not a matter of supply and demand?