“Starving artist” is stuck in our heads like “for the birds.” Both phrases rarely apply.
The danger
Creative workers are vital. As more stuff is automated, the work that will be left for humans will be solving complicated problems (creativity). Harnessing creativity becomes more valuable as time goes on. Skills like compliance and memorization diminish in value.
The idea that “starving artist” is such an earworm implies the opposite. It makes parents fear a black sheep. It makes children get back in line for a law degree. It makes creatives devalue their own work to find legitimacy. It makes employers and art buyers expect a discount.
From privilege into poverty
When humanity got good at acquiring food, water, and shelter; life got easier. We had time to make tools, and life got easier. We had time to make weapons, and life got easier. We had time to make art.
Same now. If you’re from a poor family, you’ll most likely need to work and pursue things that will help earn money for your family. But, if you’re from privilege and fear of poverty isn’t on the radar, your parents are more likely to encourage you to choose a career considered more frivolous… less directly about acquiring food.
More rarely, resilience can be a privilege that leads to creative work. You might be born into a scarce situation, but learn to thrive in scarcity, so you have more wiggle room to try stuff.
The worst college majors
- Miscellaneous fine arts
- Composition and speech
- Clinical psychology
- Cosmetology services and culinary arts
- Visual and performing arts
- Human services and community organization
- Educational psychology
- Drama and theater arts
- Interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary studies (general)
- Library science
There’s this study done by Bankrate that ranked college major above by lowest income and employment rate. Regardless if artists are less paid or more paid than other workers, there are some problems with the study.
- This is based on people having college majors, and how work panned out in their major field.
- Artists are more qualified by experience than certification (unlike, for example, engineering).
- Many artists don’t go to college before starting a career.
- This study may exclude a lot of creatives who began working immediately, and therefore got faster experience than college kids.
- An artist might train in one field and move to another, so according to this study, they would be unemployed in their field.
The baller artists
- Kanye West > college dropout
- Tyler Perry > high school dropout
- Howard Stern > majored in broadcasting and film
- Dwayne Johnson > majored in criminology and physiology
- The Chainsmokers > majored in music and music business
- Ed Sheeran > failed college
- Taylor Swift > signed at 16
- Post Malone > college dropout
- JK Rowling > majored in French and Classics
- Ryan Seacrest > journalism major dropout
According to this Forbes article these artists are in the top 20 earning celebs. They are probably not starving (involuntarily).
Unfortunately, celebrity is often seen as the flip side of the starving artist coin. You go from hungry with purpose to empty and rich.
Artists don’t starve. They become baristas
The way capitalism works, if you come from privilege, you probably stay in privilege. If you can’t afford food, your community, family, mental health, and knowledge of society will probably help you out quickly.
If you fall out of privilege, you become an entry-level worker, not an artist anymore. From my experience, this is unlikely to happen.
Alternate phrases
If you’d like to change the dialog, the culture, and the potential for weirdos; here are some alternate phrases…
- thriving artist
- impactful artist
- legitimate creative
- world-builder
- cultural icon
- passionate creator
- soul engineer