... I got to wondering just what got me so completely riled about those dang awards on Thursday. Besides the unfairness and the wankery and the really bad food.
And it's this, it's always this: The quest for awards sucks.
A nice award can get you a better position, a better job, a bigger pay, perks galore. If someone offered me one on a platter, I'd say thank you very much. I'd be over the moon.
But everyone seems to have it backwards. We're not supposed to create to get accolades--we're supposed to create to sell. To entice. To seduce the man on the street to think a little differently, to feel a little thirsty, to want a little change. If that works, then our job is done.
Looking through the eyes of an award night is like looking in a funhouse mirror. The proportions are off. The priorities are backwards. The work is judged differently, by what it creates rather than who it moves. And try as I might, I don't get it. I can't work that way. I can't think over the heads of the people I'm trying to talk to. I'm not advertising to the jury.
So I jiggle out a coupon. Scribble out a DM. And once in a while, I get to let loose on something big and juicy and it leaves me beyond satisfied. I lick my lips at the end of the day.
I've got Tom Waits on. A inspiring writer if there ever was one. And if there's anyone who could care less about accolades or more about music, it is he. So back to the grindstone my nose goes, hopefully a little humbler and a lot more happy. I'm a copywriter. I write for a living. Pinch me, please.
And hats off to Geo. STFUADYJ, indeed.
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I have read the trades and recommended books, dabbled in the production and coveted all the work I see agencies, creatives and artists create most every day. For the last 15 years I have wished I stayed and progressed in the industry instead of the direction I took, paining over the frustration of not working in creative.
ReplyDeleteHowever, that type of institutional scandal would have made me grow a beard, buy a goat and wander off to some hill top.
And I caught the word wanker..nice one.
J
I live with a fish from over the pond. He's added a few of those doosies to my vocabulary.
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