Joseph Gordon-Levitt has had quite the career. After getting his big break on 3rd Rock from the Sun he has gone on to snag some pretty impressive roles in Hollywood blockbusters likeInception, The Dark Knight Rises, and Looper. But it’s what he’s doing for his next act that could have the longest lasting impact: creating a production company turned tech company with the big idea that it can save creativity.
That may sound grandiose but the motivation is actually pretty simple. Over the last decade or so creativity something that has been falling victim to a declining culture, one that has been overrun by an all-consuming 24/7 attention grab economy where formulaic click-bait is continuously churned out by bloggers and YouTubers who use SEO to created targeted content reverse engineered for maximum effect. It’s a vicious cycle that drowns out actual art, leaving society worse off for it. Where is where Hit Record’s new approach would come in: more collaboration, less self-promotion.
As Venture Beat puts it, “It’s worth diving into Gordon-Levitt’s thinking here. He strongly believes that social media and tech platforms are screwing up the incentives for creativity. If you’re focused on figuring out how much attention you can get, or what the box office numbers will be, or whether you’re going to get famous, your priorities are twisted. (Gordon-Levitt recommends everyone reads the book Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier.)
‘If what you’re going for is posting on YouTube, or Instagram, or platforms that monetize through the ad model, where they’re really just going for sheer volume and have the ability to manipulate people through ads, virality is the measure of success,’ Gordon-Levitt pointed out. ‘And I think this is exactly at the heart of what’s interesting to me about doing [HitRecord]. I think if that is your measure of success, you’re going to undermine a lot of what’s actually meaningful and joyful about creativity. And I’m actually concerned for the human race’s creative spirit, because so much of our collective creativity is now destined for these platforms that are monetized by this sort of attention economy model. And it twists one’s understanding of one’s own creativity, and what the value of being creative is.’”
As a creative who gets zero attention and who has virtually nothing to show for seven years’ worth of effort I am all for changing our priorities. I’m never going change my style and write click bait stories. Never going to sell my soul just to go viral. Never going to drive myself crazy worrying about how many likes or comments I get. Would I like to be famous? Sure. Would I like to make a real difference in the world? Of course. Am I going to change who I am to do that? Never.
That’s why I hope Hit Record takes off. Billed as GitHub for creatives it has a chance to build a burgeoning community that would restore some of the lost luster to the art of creativity. And if the platform is successful then maybe people like me, who create content just for the pure joy of it, can finally find a home.
Is Hit Record the Greatest Idea Ever?
Leave a comment