hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2862.txt

Episode: 2862
Title: HPR2862: Art vs. Commerce In Storytelling
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2862/hpr2862.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-24 12:24:33

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This is HPR episode 2008-162 entitled RTS, commerce storytelling and in part of the series,
random elements on storytelling, it is hosted by Lost in Rocks and in about 14 minutes long
and carrying a clean flag.
The summer is Lost in Rocks and Mammoth story must both art and products.
This episode of HBR is brought to you by AnanasThost.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15, that's HPR15.
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Hello, this is Lost in Rocks and today I'm going to talk to you a little bit about
storytelling but this is likely to be the last in this series of random elements of storytelling,
at least for a while and it's a subject that I've touched on in many points along the way.
But I'm going to focus solely on it right now and I think it's important because I think it's
something that at least to a degree often gets lost in the shuffle when we're talking about
stories and how to create them and why we're creating them.
Now I'm in the car but at the moment I'm parked, I'm not driving just yet, I will be in just a
little bit. Now at that point I'll be talking more off the cuff but right now I have something I
want to read to you and of course I can't drive all I'm doing that so I'm going to read this to you
and then we'll get into more of a general discussion. Now this is something I wrote myself.
This is not some kind of profound piece of insight. This is solely my opinion but it's kind of
put together in a way that it'll make it a little bit easier to express what I'm thinking about
right at the beginning and then we'll get into maybe some examples or maybe just some back and forth.
Between me and me as to whether or not any of it really has any merit. Okay all storytelling
is creative but not all storytelling is art. Creativity and art are not synonymous while you
can't have the latter without the former the reverse is not true. Storytelling designed to
please an audience is a product. It doesn't matter if there's any money involved. This kind of
storytelling is meant to produce a packaged item that will please a crowd, often a targeted crowd.
Storytelling that is the expression of the teller regardless of the audience that is to say
their pleasure and appreciation are not the goal. This sort of storytelling is art.
Art may become a product if it can find an audience regardless of the creator's intent. Packaged
and sold. Again this doesn't necessarily mean money but packaged and sold to a consumer base
even if the creator was entirely disinterested in whether or not anyone else likes the work.
This describes art as a product, artistic storytelling as a product. Do you see the distinction
there? One is designed as a product from the start. The other is sold as a product after the fact.
From an applied standpoint there's not always much difference between the two. However with well
designed commercial projects there's considerable crossover between art and commerce.
The merging isn't always easy or comfortable but it's absolutely possible for products
designed for an audience to also have artistic merit. Are these then art? Well when you're dealing
with this level of accomplishment the distinction gets a bit fuzzy. In other words it's subjective.
To some it's art, to others it's product and to still others it's both. There's no dissonance
there for these people. When such storytelling is done badly it's obvious to pretty much one and
all that it was created and presented solely to be part of a positive consumer experience. However
that looks for that particular tale. Like potato chips in a bag or toilet cleanser that does the
job and even has a nice scent. Stories such as these are meant to fill a particular need and meet
particular market demands. They are designed to bring the consumer back for more. They are goods
on a shelf. They are widgets sold by the gross because everyone needs a new widget.
Okay so that's my little soapbox moment. What do I really mean by all that and why does it matter
when it comes to storytelling? Largely I've been focused on telling the kind of story you want to
tell. Talking about different aspects of storytelling so that we can understand them a little bit
better. Maybe understanding the stories we encounter but also to create are wrong. When we're
talking about that where does the distinction between art and commerce come in? Well again first off
I can't emphasize this highly enough that commerce or selling a story doesn't in this case
necessarily mean money. People who create fan fiction for instance. Now many of them have fans
that number in the thousands or even millions worldwide. Perhaps they're doing Twilight fan fiction
or Avengers Endgame. You know the Marvel movies fan fiction for that. Fan fiction for different
anime. They can gain a very loyal following. People that absolutely love and inhale their work
left and right. They're not making a dime off of this. No one is. No one's getting rich doing it.
Perhaps in this day and age they throw up a Patreon somewhere and make some money that way.
Maybe a lot of money that way but that's not direct compensation for the product that's
compensation for the work. A very fine distinction but we live in an era of fine distinctions.
So what does that mean really? We're talking about a product. We're talking about something that's
meant to please an audience. Whether or not that audience supports you. Whether or not they pay
money to you. If your goal is to put a smile on their faces. If your goal is to entertain them
to enlighten them. To do whatever. No matter what the monetary amount involved is. That's a product.
This isn't something that solely came from inside regardless of what anyone else wants.
Why is that important? Well again from a practical standpoint it probably isn't.
The difference of course is that if you tailor your work to what is popular. What people are
actually after. What they really want to consume. Odds are you're going to find an audience for it.
Does that matter? Well it matters if it matters. It matters if it's important to you. Whether or not
many people recognize your work and enjoy it or only a few. Or maybe only yourself.
These things matter when it comes to storytelling. Almost more than any other type of
creative endeavor because stories by their very nature are meant to be shared.
So objectively speaking. Is it better to create a story with an audience in mind? In other words
to create a product versus creating art? Well obviously that's going to be up to the storyteller.
That's going to be up to the creator of the tale. The writer of the tale. The person telling the
joke, the person writing the song. Whatever the exact kind of storytelling you're doing.
It ultimately it's up to that person. What's important or not. But stories that aren't shared.
Well you could argue they're not stories at all. I mean by its very nature isn't a story meant to be
something that other people consume. Other people understand. They listen to the experience they've
watched. Isn't this what a story is supposed to be about? In the modern day where we have interactive
gaming. The listener is also a creator of the story. Someone who is helping to tell this tale.
The distinction between the creator of a tale and the consumer of a tale is becoming blurred.
More and more so as time goes on. I don't know if that's good or bad. It's just the way it is. So I
guess it's neither or both. It's how you tell the story. It's how people consume it.
And if that's ultimately what we're talking about. A blurring between story and consumption of
story. Then aren't we in fact possibly at least possibly talking about a blurring between art
and commerce. That is to say a product designed to be consumed by an audience that is also a piece
of art. Now remember the distinction that I talked about. You know you can have art that is sold
as a product after the fact or you can have a product designed from the very beginning to be sold
to a consumer. And perhaps that has some artistic merit to it. But what I'm talking about now is
a very fine distinction. Again, the era we live in. A very fine distinction where true art
designed solely for the sake of artistic expression is also partially told that again art
storytelling in this case. Stories partially told by the consumer themselves. They are in fact
partially the artist of this tale. Now this distinction becomes extremely blurry. Why does it matter?
Well because going forward stories may not look much like they used to. At least not all stories.
Interactive storytelling. They're not quite games. They're not quite stories in the traditional
sense. They're a little bit of both. Maybe they're entirely their own thing. The fewer options
you give your audience, the less they have a stake in the story. The less they are the storyteller
and more the audience. Truly the audience. The more options you give them, the more they are
like the storyteller. And you were perhaps not the teller of the story but in fact just the
coordinator. The one who put all the pieces there for the audience to pick up and tell their own
tale. This could very very well be and I would go ahead and say this is the future of storytelling
or much of it. Not not all of it. There will always be a place for theater. There will always be
a place for telling ghost stories around a campfire. There'll always be a place for jokes
for music but we're adding something. It's coming if it's not already here. A new type of storytelling
where the blurring between art and commerce between storyteller and audience. There's almost no
distinction at all. Yes, there might be money involved. Yes, there might be someone who wrote the
thing. Yes, there might be someone who bought the thing and plays the thing. And yet somehow when
you look at the details, when you look at the distinctions, it becomes harder and harder to tell
where these distinctions went. This is pretty rambling and very esoteric but I think it matters and
I think perhaps 10 years ago, 20 years ago this sort of thing was purely speculative. I don't think
it is anymore and I think we're getting to a point where random elements of storytelling
they may not be so easy to describe for future media, future stories. The difference between
good character, good plots, subplots and all the other things I've talked about. These might begin
to blur to the point where we can't tell where one begins and the other ends.
At any rate, as I said, this is probably the last in this series for a while and it's an open
series. If someone has an opinion, please, please record an episode of HPR and submit it for
everyone to hear. And not just about this topic, but about any topic that you're passionate about,
any topic that you think that people can listen to and adapt for their own lives because in the end
isn't that what hacking is all about. Some might have wondered what random elements of storytelling
had to do with hacking, but I always felt and still do that if we understand the pieces that go
into our stories, these stories that make up our culture, that make up our lives, if we understand
the pieces of them a little bit better, then we can change those to make them fit our lives a little
bit better, to help shape our societies and our cultures a little bit better. To me, that's what
hacking is all about. So yeah, if you've got something to say, please say it, please share it with
other people because you have opinions and you have interests, you have passions, you have things
that matter and they could matter to other people. This has been Lost in Bronx. Thank you for listening,
take care.
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