In 1848 Sam Brannan famously ushered in the California gold rush. Upon the precious metal’s discovery, Brannan toted a vial of gold around the state promising riches and glory to any brave man willing to rise to the occasion. The kicker is Brennan spent the week before the announcement buying up all of the mining equipment in town. In the years after he reportedly sold as much as $5,000 (about $155,000 in 2020) in goods per day to miners.
Meanwhile in 2020…
Today Silicon Valley delivers a virtual 49er experience to our pockets. Anyone with a smart phone can make a social media account with the chance of becoming a viral sensation. What’s better is we don’t even have to pay for supplies! All we have to do is give away our art for free on a regular basis… But before we become digital prospectors it’s worth asking, “Is there any gold left?”
When a new social app is born users are rapidly expanding their virtual social circles. During this digital gold rush a token-few content creators do strike gold and become paid influencers (most of these lucky winners are exceptionally attractive, child prodigies, or were already famous). Silicon Valley proudly displays these new-age winners as proof they’re creating more opportunities than they’re destroying. But as the app gets older it becomes harder and harder for new artists to gain followers. This happens for the same reason your parents don’t make friends with new neighbors anymore: social circles can only get so big. Have you tried making a Facebook page for your band lately? It’s like yelling into the void. You’ll have better luck mining with a younger service like TikTok, but sooner or later that will run out of gold too.
Like textbook pyramid-schemery, many of the successful profiles are now selling their secrets on how to make money on social media. For a small price you can win the great battle of the algorithm. Please don’t fall for this. It’s Brannan selling shovels, but there’s no gold left.
What Now?
Today I tried to Google “what percentage of content creators actually make money on social media” and found nothing. Ironically, I did get an overwhelming number of pages telling me “how to make money on social media”. When I limited the results to exclude the phrase “how to” I literally got zero results. Right now we’re either too afraid, or too busy mining for gold, to ask this question.
Hopefully this post isn’t a huge downer. I remain optimistic the internet holds the potential to support a middle class of musicians! However, currently I don’t see any way social media is a viable option. Although I don’t have the answer yet, I’m confident we can build a sustainable music industry together. But first we have to stop looking for gold.