I was in the process of making some artwork to post tonight, but I randomly came across this video. I'm still an anime fan, but when I was younger I was a HUGE anime fan. It was probably the single largest inspiration for me wanting to become an artist.
Later on I found out that animators in Japan were really underpaid but until this video I didn't know actual figures. The girl interviewed says she's bringing in anywhere from $300 USD to $500 a MONTH. Now I know Steem is a global platform, so depending where you are in the world this might be a lot or a little, but she's in Tokyo. In Tokyo, that is NOTHING. That is not even remotely enough to survive. She's able to live in her apartment because her landlord crowdfunds their rent and it's a dormitory specifically to help animators.
In the video above she mentions that some of the veteran super badasses are in the same boat and don't make much more than her. Mind you some of these people are some of the most skilled artists in the world without a doubt.
Here we are, now on the dawn of Communities and when I hear about this, I can't help but think this is one of those situations where Steem could dramatically change not only a ton of people's lives, but that entire industry.
Anime is incredibly popular all around the world, and if Steem had a community where these artists posted their sketchbooks, rough animations, practice, whatever they could share, it would not only draw huge crowds of content consumers that would love to see that content, but even at the current Steem price it could make a huge difference in these animators lives. Those crowds that this would draw would need to deal in Steem to support these artists. Obviously they have a ton of support as their rent is currently being mostly paid via crowdfunding. I've said before that Steem has the best technology in the world for supporting content creators, we just have bad UX so most of the power is squandered, but by taking these features to their full potential
- Upvotes
- Donations/Tips/Direct Transfers
- Beneficiary System
- Delegations
- Rev Sharing through ads or some other mechanism
Steem has a completely unique value proposition that is offered nowhere else on the internet or in the world. It seriously kills me a little everyday that there is nothing really pushing these things as far as they can go, anyway that's a tangent, not looking to beat that horse tonight.
This is something that I'm definitely going to look into starting once Communities launch. I'm not sure how big the Japanese community is here, but it would be great to connect with someone that could translate. I have like 2-3 connections with old art school friends that are Japanese and moved back to Japan after school but they don't work in this industry. Anyway, I think this is a primo community to target. I'll be looking to follow animators on twitter so I can invite them once things are ready. I really think if we can convert one community and have them do well here, and start to release content exclusively on Steem, I think it could be huge. Okay, I just needed to share that, back to the art mines.