During the Pandemic, someone on reddit asked people what they would have been doing in the summer of 2020, if the virus hadn’t shut the world down. A chorus of cancelled weddings and vacations followed, but what really struck me was the people in the performing arts who missed events, career launches, and more. Many of them, seeing no end to the pandemic in sight, simply moved on to other jobs. I realized that this would be a great loss of new talent. This trend rippled across the arts. Many events were delayed through 2022 and only in 2023 did things really begin to return to normal after the early shoots of progress in 2022. What does this mean for us? It means that it is yet another death blow for the creative arts.
The creative arts have taken a beating lately. The pandemic just didn’t help the situation. The book publishing industry is about moribund, (except for romance) Hollywood is dying out, and TV is trying to find a model that pays. Right now, Hollywood has drastically reduced production and many of the line workers (grips, lighting, electricians and so on) have been laid off and can’t find new work. People are losing houses, marriages, and are moving. These are all personal tragedies, but the real loss is in expertise. That is difficult to replace. When it gets brought up, people will quip, “Watching Tik Tok is more fun!” And others will say, “I just want to watch my…
