Collabs, Where They Went, And What We Can Do About It.

I’ve noticed a multitude of professionals and amateurs alike bemoan and question the absence of collabs, these people should shut up cause collabs are still here they’re just in  a different spot than a lot of these bemoaners are.

Collabs are still here of course. And I think they’ll be here until the end of time. Most of the people I’ve met that bemoan their absence are professionals and, while they’re frothing at the bit for free work, they're in spheres or communities where that isn't viable.  

If we take it as true that there is a decline in the amount of collabs I think I have some ideas as to where they went.

Define Collab

But first. Definitions.

Webster’s first definition of collaborate is:

“1. to work jointly with others or together especially in an intellectual endeavor”

For our purposes I’ll be using the following definition.

To work jointly with others without charge.

I’m sure the astute among you already see a problem proposed with my definition. We need money to live, and since that’s true, working for free can be detrimental to our survival in the worst case. Which is an easy explanation for them falling out of favor since our particular flavor of capitalism is especially ruthless here in America.

That said, there are yet more reasons I’ve found for why collabs seem to have vanished.

God Awful Climate

Anecdotally speaking, the internet is more hostile than it’s ever been. Companies are more draconian with their policies and surveillance, people are worse, bots are getting better at rage baiting people, and that’s making more people worse. It’s bad dude.

It used to be that you'd say and do terrible things for the love of the game. Now there are monetary incentives for doing that.

Online visibility can legitimately be an occupational hazard, and plenty of people are abstaining from participation for that reason. 

Said abstinence has and will decrease the labor pool for collabs.

Chambers and Boxes

One of the bigger hits/boons to collaborations is the great online segmentation.(ryhme good) 

More specifically, I’m referring to the further segmentation of online spaces.

To be fair, internet pockets, sub pockets, and dom pockets have been a thing since the internet has existed, and when the air turns to poison and the water turns to piss some cockroach will activate an ancient tumblr server and find a way to accuse a dung beetle of being microaggressive.

I only have my eyes and vibes to track this change, but I can’t think of a reason to go on twitter while the CEO is openly hostile, while said CEO’s sycophants can pay to make your experience worse, when you can go to blue sky or tumblr or instagram.

And if those are too algorithm heavy for you you can just join a discord.

People are finding their own funnels and finding sub niches within those and that's before lack of access/ education.

That said, I think you’ll find the most active and cool collabs out there in these pockets. Fandom based zines and fanworks live in the pockets made by special interests and the active repelling of people from other sites.

Artists being Insufferable/Capitalism Rearing It’s Ugly Head

I’m a writer, there are those that think my contribution to comics/ visual mediums is the most important. There are just as many that disagree (anecdotally).

I don’t have a means I’d be happy with to measure who does the most work between writing and illustration, 

(Not because I want my work to be valued more, but because people often try to use effort as the measurement between difficult and I think thats dumb since the effort required to do certain tasks varies from person to person. Anyway)

I think it’s less important to find out who does the most work,and  more important that everyone involved is made as comfortable as possible while working together, money or no.

And I think the underlying disrespect for different disciplines can easily lead to a climate where interdisciplinary collaboration is more rare.

And to be entirely clear, no one is owed free work. End of sentence.

The idea that we are owed the labor of someone else for nothing can and has been used to cause harm. Which is yet another reason collabs are fading.

So what do we do?

If you want collabs back, it’s farily easy, offer your time and abilities to people/ projects your like.

Be nice. Have friends. Cultivate mutually beneficial relationships

That’s kinda it man.

Okay, post over. Good bye.

Note

This was a bad essay. This was more about finishing a non comic piece of writing than it was about being coherent.

If I was not coherent, I apologize.

If I was coherent, I apologize.

I stand by most of the points here and lament that I didn’t get more graphs and tables and interviews to illustrate my points.

That said if anyone wants to talk to me about their appreciation or violent hatred of collabs, hit me up, I’ll listen.

Alright, bye for real.