Here’s the thing about SAG-AFTRA being on strike now too: while only 2% of union member actors are successful and wealthy, all of that 2% are popular public figures. The AMPTA had some pull with their Deadline Hollywood propaganda when they were only up against the voices of the handful of well-known members of the WGA, but ultimately Deadline is a trade publication. Most fans don’t read it, and the average person certainly doesn’t. Union actors posting about the strike on social media carry a much bigger and more committed audience, and will go a long way to get the public on the unions’ side.
You know, you see posts from WGA strikers about how they’re used to not working for months and can make do. The thing is, this is a really strong union and in a crisis like this, the successful members are even more visible to the rest of the membership, so they do what’s pretty much expected and send stuff to the picket lines: bottled water, pizza, snacks, you name it. The strike in ‘07 dragged on but at times it was like a party, until you remembered why you were there.
What I mean is, if you were a struggling writer, it was a place where you could get free food and water and network. This is standard, btw: it’s not unusual for someone who comes in to direct an episode of a show for a week to hire an ice cream cart for a day as their gift to the crew. It’s not unusual for a director to give parting gifts at the end of a film shoot, or a showrunner to do something nice for their staff at the end of a season. This is an industry where the few who luck into success are expected to show grace and generosity to everyone else. The AMPTA is made up of producers who don’t work on sets and don’t understand or participate in the communal creative process.
Now that SAG-AFTRA is also on strike and has joined the same picket lines the WGA has been holding, these same picket lines have not only increased in numbers, but you have incredibly wealthy people throwing their weight behind keeping people fed and hydrated, not to mention the networking opportunities across fields. The visibility has skyrocketed, there are now more well-known mouthpieces to give voice to the strike with a much greater reach than the WGA had, and there’s more money to keep people amped up and fueled. Writers and actors are creative, and more engaging for the public to get behind than whatever shill the AMPTA puts out in an article that most of the public won’t read. And for all the 98% of actors, let alone the struggling writers, the picket line is the place to be – because instead of the usual getting by without work for months, they’re now saving money on food and water. They can strike for a long time.
Plato makes up Atlantis as an allegory and over 2,000 years later people are still looking for it. You might as well be looking for Narnia.
Plato: Luxury and unlimited power are forces that corrupt human beings and lead them to being colonialist and stupid. The gods will punish Athens if we continue to exploit others for our own gain. I have invented this society as a parable to illustrate my point because I tend to use metaphor for a lot of things.
Everyone: But where are you hiding it though
Plato: I’ve purposefully included details like a mud shoal west of Iberia that doesn’t exist and references to a volcanic eruption that we all have cultural memory of as an obvious indication that I made this up. Are you paying attention? It’s a metaphor. I’m using literary references. You can go west of Iberia yourself. It’s not there. I explained where it is and it’s not there. You all know it’s not there. Please stop it with the luxury and exploitation. That’s my main point here.
Everyone: Yeah but where is it though
Plato: Orichalcum is just a fancy looking metal. It’s kinda like fancy copper. I made it up for this fake parable city.
Everyone: So it’s magic, then.
Plato: I want Athens to be a bit more like Sparta.
Everyone: Where’s the magic metal
Plato: I just think that greed is bad, generally. We should stop doing that.
So I was scrolling and saw this image in an article about the European heat wave,
And was like, uh, are you missing something there, buddy? Like all that red in northern Africa? Because that’s a lot of red.
And I was going to give them the benefit of doubt, since I don’t know much about the climate in Northern Africa, aside from Morroco and Egypt, which seem like really hot places, so you know, maybe it’s normal there?
“The region has been experiencing some of the most intense heat waves in recent years, but in many cases they’ve been under-reported due to misconceptions about Africans’ ability to withstand them.
“Africa is seen as a sunny and hot continent,” said Amadou Thierno Gaye, a research scientist and professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. “People think we are used to heat, but we are having high temperatures for a longer duration. Nobody is used to this.”
”The Sahel, for instance, has been heating at a faster pace than the global average despite being hot already. Burkina Faso and Mali, both in West Africa’s Sahel, are among countries that are set to become almost uninhabitable by 2080, if the world continues on its current trajectory, a UK university study found. Its people are especially vulnerable due to shrinking resources, such as water, and poor amenities, and a dearth of trees and parks means there are few options for places to cool off.“
just a reminder - do NOT boycott streaming services or not watch new things. the unions have not called for one for a reason. for one, it affects residual payments, which as minimal as those currently are, actors are still getting them during this time, and for two, studios will use lack of viewership as an excuse to cancel shows because you are showing them there is no demand. it deeply affects the industry the writers and actors stand to come back to once the strike is over
Also: going to these places puts pressure and demand on the company. Demand they can’t meet without actors and writers. That puts stress on them, and stress is good.
^^^^ive been looking for a rb with this addition because YES. if a customer wants a burger and there is no cook to make it, that puts pressure on the owner to pay the cook what they want so the customer will still give them money. if there is no customer, the owner has no reason for the cook to make burgers
Stop watching IF AND ONLY IF the unions call for a boycott. For the time being since they haven’t, streaming the shows actually helps. You’re not crossing a picket line to watch because that picket line does not exist unless a boycott is called for.
If you’re afraid of sending the wrong signal, here’s my suggestion: Try to watch the things that have been on there for ages that you haven’t gotten to yet. Don’t watch new releases if you can help it. That way they don’t really get data they can show to fuckwad shareholders and such.
i genuinely dont care if the creation of all media comes to a screeching halt btw i will very gladly live with no new movies no new tv shows no new anything for years if that’s what it takes for the people who create them to be treated like human beings. i hope every other facet of the entertainment industry goes on strike too and i hope all the ones that havent unionised yet will. i want media creation to become completely impossible and i want the people who could make it possible again to hold out until they get every single thing they want. btw
i feel like we dont talk enough about how distressing and disturbing memory loss issues are. forgetting what you were talking about halfway through a sentence, putting something down and instantly forgetting where you put it. having to reread one paragraph over and over again because by the time youve moved onto the next sentence you dont remember what the one before it said. always doubting if your memories of things are real, not being able to remember important life events.
its so incredibly scary, it feels like your mind is constantly playing tricks on you and you start to doubt whats real and what isnt.
“i forgot” is treated like a lazy excuse when it’s genuinely such a big issue for so many people.
gentle reminder that crying is actually one of the best things you can do to relieve all that tension and emotion in your brain, and not to resist the impulse because it’s ‘weak’ or 'unnecessary’ or 'a plea for attention.’ if you need to cry, do it, even if you don’t always know the reason. your body does.
Nihilistic Norwegian with a predilection for baby seals. They're sweet and taste REAL good. Can partake in role play as the character Brock Samson if engaged (though that rarely ever happens). Hopelessly uneducated (according to myself). Farts out something of substance every once in a while, but don't get your hopes up. Also uses cuss words every now and again. Have fun.
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