This update was originally sent to the Artist Corporation email list. Back in April I stood on stage at the TED conference in Vancouver to publicly share the idea of Artist Corporations for the first time. (You can read my process diary about that here.) But| Yancey Strickler
This week we’ve been catching up with friends and people in our creative community. Each person we’ve talked to has brought up Metalabel. What people appreciate about Metalabel, they tell us, is that it celebrates the small and the unusual. It gives them permission to think| Yancey Strickler
This update was originally sent to the Artist Corporation email list. Since this project became public in June, we’ve been working hard behind the scenes to establish connections and follow the process to make Artist Corporations a reality. This means passing laws. Yes, laws. Starting today, we&| Yancey Strickler
Two wild assertions we can’t 100% back up but pretty sure are true: 1. Art and creative expression have never been more present in society than today. 2. More people listen to, watch, and make creative work than ever before. In a 2023 survey of Americans: * 86% said arts| Yancey Strickler
I recently read Galileo’s Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson, an exquisite historical science-fiction novel about the Italian scientist’s life. A central highlight is a story Galileo wrote in 1623 in his book The Assayer (one of the original diss tracks) that’s unlike anything he wrote before or| Yancey Strickler
Cofounder of Kickstarter, Metalabel, and The Creative Independent. Author of "The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet." Writer and entrepreneur.| Yancey Strickler
It’s recently dawned on me that I’ve spent most of my life working on the same problem: how to get creative people more power. I haven’t known this is what I’ve been doing. I’ve just been doing what seems like the right thing to do.| Yancey Strickler
Hello friends new and old. After the first two weeks of a creative listening tour, a string of thoughts about the state of the creative internet on a Monday morning. A new book that teaches you how to see This past week Antimemetics: Why Some Ideas Resist Spreading, a book| Yancey Strickler
No AI, no lengthy edits, just a single-shot on a Sunday morning. In a flow state with the void I’ve been in LA this week, an experience that always has me staring into the void. In LA you’re on an island physically and mentally. A deep gaze inward,| Yancey Strickler
The other day I found myself having lunch with a well-known musician and book editor. They were talking about the nature of their work and how they decided what to do and not to do. I listened for a while before I finally spoke. “I feel like I haven’t| Yancey Strickler
It’s hard to grasp how uncertain the present feels until you’re in it. Looking back, we compress complex stories into simple narratives with clear outcomes. One of the first things you learn about JFK, for example, is that he was assassinated. But for people alive then,| Yancey Strickler
Time moves at different speeds depending on your creative practice. As a filmmaker your projects move across many years, each second of the final outcome agonizingly negotiated and constructed. As an author, your work unfolds over years — from the long process of writing to the journey of publishing. As| Yancey Strickler
Hello friends new and old — It’s been a minute since we last talked, so I felt like saying hi. Everything mostly okay with you, I hope? Here’s what’s been going on with me: An expanding, focused life — In many ways my| Yancey Strickler
The faster something grows, the faster it can also die. That’s a lesson from a book I constantly return to, The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, a readable and enlightening guide to how to make something stand out. One of their laws is “The Law of| Yancey Strickler
It's 6:30pm on a Monday and I'm standing off-stage waiting for someone to call my name. A small microphone hugs my face, held up by bendable metal wrapped around my left ear. A wire snakes down my back before tucking into the waist of my pants. "Our next speaker,| Yancey Strickler
Last year, a dozen writers (including me) published a book together about how we live online. No publishers, no complex arrangements. But also not quite self-publishing, something better. The project served as a kind of guinea pig for how far a fluid configuration of collaborators could take a project using| Yancey Strickler
We live in a world that wants things now. An urgency culture that continues to increase in pace and demand. But this year I learned there's wisdom in letting things take their time. Sometimes the most powerful thing you can do is wait and let an idea reveal what it| Yancey Strickler
In the past thirty years what it means to be an artist has dramatically changed. Before the internet being an artist meant operating in a very specific area where the gatekeepers, critics, and ways of doing things were well-structured and defined. You as the artist plugged into this system if| Yancey Strickler
How the internet has changed what it means to be an individual, and how society has changed in a result| Yancey Strickler
In his sci-fi trilogy The Three Body Problem, author Liu Cixin presents the dark forest theory of the universe. When we look out into space, the theory goes, we’re struck by its silence. It seems like we’re the only ones here. After all, if other forms of life| Yancey Strickler
