Asakiyume mita

I was reading a review of a book about writing--according to the reviewer, the book was more a memoir of the writer's experience than a how-to book. The writer has had enough success that they're able to support themselves through writing and freelance projects--which is to say, they're pretty successful!--but they're not wildly famous.

At the end of the review, the reviewer noted that the writer offered a word of caution about Patreon. The author apparently said few of their fans "had put their money where their mouth was" in terms of support on Patreon.

Man, that attitude bothers me: the implication that you're somehow unsupportive if you won't support someone on Patreon. I mean, clearly you're less *financially* supportive than people who offer patronage, but really loving a person's work doesn't necessarily equate to having the resources to support them with a monthly donation--and shouldn't! Patronage of the arts has a big overlap with enthusiasm for those arts and artists, but it's not the same thing! Huge foundations or hyperwealthy individual donors don't expect to love every project or cause they support in a personal way. They may love some of them personally, but other projects they support for the sake of nurturing the terrain or the overall culture/society/world. And I think this is true on a micro scale, too. I love the people I support on Patreon, but I don't love them more than all the writers/artists I'm not supporting. The people I support on Patreon, I'm supporting in part because I love their work but in part because I want this type of work out there, or because I want this particular person to have financial support (or both).

Fans can't be expected to be patrons for everyone they love. Speaking as a writer, I don't want to only reach people who can "afford" me--I want to reach everyone. That's where patrons, whether institutional or individual, come in--they makes it possible for lots of different artists/writers/whatever to have support, and for people who can't afford the actual cost of the creative thing to enjoy it anyway. (We can also support these things societally, through our taxes--hello, National Endowment for the Arts, etc.)

Speaking as a reader, as a kid I grew up reading library books. I received some books as gifts, but it was nothing to the mountain of library books I read. It took me a *long* time as an adult to realize that if I loved an author's work, I should be buying their books. Now I do that, but I don't buy every single book of every single writer that I enjoy, and I certainly don't support them all with monthly subscriptions.

So that's the difference, for me, between fans and patrons. Things get even more complicated when you throw friendship into the mix: friends will support you through rough times, including rough financial times, as best they can, and friends will encourage you and cheer you on in your artistic endeavors, but if you're expecting friends to support you on Patreon--even if it's only semi-consciously, as in, you're disappointed that x or y or z person isn't doing so--then you may want to reexamine how you define "friend." (I don't know if there are any people who actually feel this way; this paragraph represents more my sense of defensiveness and oppression in the face of the number of my acquaintances who have Patreons.)

...This is probably more of a medium-length harangue than a brief one.

I posted a version of this as a comment on a Goodreads review, but it's more appropriate for an LJ post.

I really hate the notion that talent and genius excuse a person from appalling behavior. The trade-off that people seem to accept and be fascinated by goes like this: "On the one hand, the character is selfish, self-centered, heartless, demanding, you name it. On the other: they're a genius! Such art! [or: such science! or: such insights!]"

Stuff worth doing--art, science, whatever--takes time and concentration, and any time a person is putting into that is time not spent doing other stuff, so sure: a person dedicated to [fill in] is going to be less available for whatever the folks surrounding them want them to be available for, and this can seem selfish, and people can argue back and forth about where to draw the line. But even a person who's giving themselves pretty much 100 percent to whatever-it-is can still be kindly and considerate when they're interacting with people..... or they can be assholes.

But this goes for people who *aren't* 100 percent dedicated to [fill in]--just ordinary people living ordinary lives, trying to balance out all the demands they face. It's the same struggle, just less extreme. But we take the notion of dedication to [whatever], add in the fairy dust of "genius," and then, voilà, people [or at least, characters] are given a kind of carte blanche.

When you ramp it up to "genius," then you get to add in the notion that their contributions to overall society (their discovery of a cure for a horrible ailment, or their creation of a heartbreaking work of staggering beauty, etc.) are worth--or not worth! the novel or biography will be happy to delve into this--their flaws in other aspects of life.

Maybe it's that kindness, patience--all the things that the Sherlock Holmeses of the world are excused from engaging in--are undervalued. You can be a genius in mathematics or painting or philosophy or physics, but we don't talk much about geniuses in kindness. Those people get to be portrayed as lovable losers--"He spends all his time chatting affably with neighbors but can't finish the Big Project at work."

... The problem with expanding this rant is that I start seeing nuances and exceptions and arguments with my own position.

... Short-form summary: Life is full of conflicting demands, and there's interest in how people manage it, or fail to manage it. But the valorization of the selfish genius--I'm sick of it.