a fun one.

Your classmates and yourself are surrounded by this perpetual knowledge that things are weirder now. All of you want to do different things, and all of you have the same dream of creating a story that consumes and inspires others as much as the stories you grew up with consumed and inspired you. Every single person in that room has an OC, or a grandiose story in their mind they've had since they were a kid; even the professors. But there's this understanding that, even with all the absolute, complete and utter passion you may have for this concept; there is no promise under the current environment of late stage capitalism that promises any of it.

We talk about it all the time. Generative AI slop, theft of animators time and work, the impossibility of being hired as companies push out want ads without ever having the intention of actually hiring them. Hell, Disney just a few weeks ago sent out to hundreds, if not thousands of applicants, that they just weren't doing any hiring. No one got hired, not one, out of everyone who applied; and they just closed it off saying "sorry, yeah, no one got hired. haha!" And call it potential industry nepotism, because there's a high chance if there was a hiring, it was inside the company. But this happens everywhere and with everything, and if there's not that failure, then there's always some clause in the fine print telling you that all your work now gets to be chugged into a soulless machine so that they can keep making money off your work after they've laid you off. It's like watching this whole thing crumble and you, a lowly college student who hasn't even learned how to use goddamn Maya without wanting to die, are paying witness to the already pipe dream you worked years toward just be... permanently disfigured.

And yeah, the Animation Guild is on strike; that's an extreme bout of hope. But where even does art come into any of this now? We don't have the same freedom and capability to create that we had before. People consume slop because they just want to consume something, anything, just to forget how fucking miserable everything is. And you're sitting here knowing just how much potential is missed, knowing that streaming services gut what could be incredible series and cartoons just for the sake of it; limit them to a handful of episodes and throw them to the gutter the moment they have to pay too many residuals. You know everything that you could create, no matter how incredible, could be reduced to absolute garbage and there would be nothing you can do about it; because the people who have the money, don't want to spend that money on a dream. Your life's dream and work could become reduced to a couple thousand view YouTube essay on mediocre writing and a lazy concept.

And I'm so tired of being aware of this. I can tell we all are because we all are just... throwing ourselves into this work. We've already had the comments; "you guys are one of the most respectful bunch we've had," or "i'm really excited about this cohort," or subtly telling us that we're almost too aware of where the industry is now and how little we really stand out. We're realistic.

It's harrowing. And it sucks.

I know there's way worse world issues going on right now and most of them tie into why art is on the decline as a whole. But part of me keeps this constant hope that, maybe, the student sitting behind me will get to make their story into a reality someday; or the student sitting beside me will be able to make a living doing what she loves. And maybe the environment will change the more I learn.