As consumers we all have favorite kinds of entertainment, and thus, we usually have favorite creators of these works. As time goes on, we see these companies grow bigger and bigger, but because they gain money from those works, it often becomes about a paycheck rather than passion. We see our favorite movies, shows, brands, and other things being milked for money, but it’s ruined because the thing that made the work great was the passion of the creator. Now that the passion is gone, it’s no longer great. This is the dilemma that has cursed the entertainment industry, and it’s what indie creators seek to avoid.
I think one of the main studios that has succumbed to this downfall of greed is Disney. It starts with the creator of Disney, Walt Disney. One of the reasons his work was so successful was because of hard work and dreams. He started from the gutter to practically entertainment royalty.
After Walt Disney’s death, other people naturally took over, but these people were not Walt Disney, nor did they carry his dream or will, at least in the same manner. These new owners saw Disney’s dream and saw money, and that’s what they made the company about. And in turn, the quality of their product decreased because they didn’t have that same passion that made the studio great in the first place. We see this passion turned to greed in many other places, not just animation or movies, but music, stores, games and many others.
Among these big companies, are smaller ones that are still being built from the ground up. These companies and artists are labeled as independent (Indie) because of their lack of support and size. These Indie creators can’t put out as much stuff as their more commercial counterparts, but I believe that this is what makes them great and less prone to greed.
Indie work is a steep slope of success, with a high chance of failure, so people don’t usually go into this for the money, they do it because they want to follow their dreams without the hand of a corporation around their necks. Needless to say, it was never a very large or super popular genre. But with the examples of others thanks to the internet, these people know that they are not alone and are inspired to follow their dreams of making something their own. These creators are also much more supported than the past thanks to online fundraising through people who genuinely like seeing the quality of these works. But I believe that the key to Indie’s recent success is the outward projection of hope and passion they put into their work. And just like Walt Disney, they are successful because they aren’t led by money. I also believe that these people won’t fall to the lengths of greed that Disney did, because as humans, we learn from both our own mistakes and others. These people have seen the rise and fall of others before them, and so they learn from them.
These Indie creators also don’t charge or require nearly as much as commercial companies. This is just me personally, you can do either, but I actually prefer being able to sit back at home and watch Indie productions over going to movies to pay to watch movies. The Indie side has less quantity in terms of time and amount of work, but they make up for it with quality, with many Indie productions having similar, if not greater quality than large companies.
The same thing can be said for music, with genuinely talented artists like Laufey or JVKE, who are family-friendly musicians that make amazing music. The same can also be said for artists, with many posting their own online exhibitions for completely free. And if I talked about games, this article would easily exceed one thousand words, but I’ll stick to the most popular and well-known examples for now.
Overall, I believe that recent years have equally favored Independent works greatly, but have not gotten to Commercial companies’ levels. But I believe that in a couple of years, with the genre getting bigger, Indie will get just as popular as Commercial because of its quality over quantity mindset, but that’s just me.
