fae's the name | she/her | obsessed | reblogs books, manga and sometimes kpop | might occasionally post writing/headcanons | askbox/submission always open | I love talking to people, feel free to say hi! Have a nice trip around my blog! (picrew link: https://picrew.me/image_maker/114808 )
I want to push back on the narrative that’s already going around that the “Reality TV” boom was because of the writer’s strike. It’s straight-up anti-labor propaganda attempting to claim the strike didn’t do anything.
And it’s blatantly false.
1) Survivor premiered in 1997, Big Brother in 2000, Amazing Race in 2001, American Idol in 2002, and that’s just the big-name network ones I can think of off the top of my head.
The last WGA strike was in 2007.
The reality TV boom was already in full gear long before the strike.
2) The 2007 WGA strike lasted from November 5, 2007, to February 12, 2008 - Three months and one week.
It takes a hell of a lot longer than that to develop, pre-produce, shoot, and edit a television show than that. No studios turned around a reality TV series in those 14 weeks.
This keeps being brought up because they want to dismiss efforts of the workers by claiming the studios can quickly pivot to something that doesn’t need writers (bullshit) and blame what’s seen by many as a blight on American entertainment, reality TV, on the WGA strike.
I Am Not Your Asian American Doll: a comic for AAPI Heritage Month 2023
I usually spend a lot of time editing and fine-tuning my comics so that they come across as polite and inoffensive. But honestly, I’m really tired of the way Asian cultures and countries are treated / talked about while Asian people themselves are excluded, and thought it was about time I really let my rage out lol.
One difference between this strike and the last one is that there are a lot more fellowships targeted at early career tv writers than there used to be (there have always been some, but the fellowship model is way more commonplace these days)
Studios are about to make a ton more of these opportunities and advertise them widely as a way to break into the industry, and they will be very specific about the fellowship not technically counting as a writers room or a tv job
THIS IS A TRICK TO GET YOU TO SCAB
Sharing any written content with a studio (even if they route it through a 3rd party “foundation” or development org or something) IS SCABBING
What you do in regards to the strike is your business, but the WGA has been very clear that anyone who scabs will be BANNED FROM JOINING THE UNION FOR LIFE. That means even if you get hired, that’s no health & pension and no union protections for your entire career. This shit is serious
So please please double check and dig into any new submission opportunities you see in the next weeks. Playwrights especially be careful - many studios are finding their writers through play scripts these days so be very careful about how and where your work is being shared
No writing going to the studios means NO WRITING of any kind
(if you see suspicious fellowship stuff being passed around let me know, I’d love to keep an eye on that for my peeps)
Hi Mr. Gaiman, I've seen a few tweets and posts about not crossing the picket line for the WGA strike but nothing actually explaining what that entails for this strike? Is it not watching streaming services since that's one of the main issues? All tv? TV and movies? only new stuff or reruns too?
No, it’s to not cross the picket lines literally. If there’s a writers guild picket in place, you don’t cross it. (But you can always join it – especially if you are in LA or NYC.)
The WGA hasn’t called for a boycott of streaming services or TV or anything like that, and until and unless they do I wouldn’t push for that.
What the WGA would like is for people to make their support for the writers clear and loud – write to the networks you watch on and tell them to treat their writers fairly, post your support on every social media outlet you can. Let the producers know that public opinion is against them.
It’s easy to support strikes at first - to swap memes and say “Go Union!” and tell writers we support them.
It’s harder two months in. Four months. Eight.
If this goes like the last few writers’ strikes - it means a terrible tv season, a delay in movies, big changes in late-night talk shows (the talk isn’t scripted; the monologues and jokes are–and they don’t have half a dozen scripts in the can; they have to be written based on recent news), and other areas we won’t notice until it’s underway.
Strikes are a game of chicken. AMPTP is counting on public backlash to convince the WGA to back down, and that won’t happen right away.
The writers are risking a lot for this. They’re not getting paid while they wait. (There may be strike funds, but there are no new project deals, no bonuses, no overtime pay, and so on. And the strike fund isn’t unlimited.) They’re pinning a lot of hope on the skills of their negotiators.
So when they tell you what would help - believe them. That’s always “don’t cross the picket lines” and “express support publicly” and “if you can get there in person, the picket lines appreciate coffee and snacks.” It is always “don’t take a scab job doing the work that someone on strike is refusing to do.” (Note that in this case, the WGA has the right to block future membership from scabs. You can’t get an edge in the industry by taking the jobs that are going to open up.)
Anything other than that, the negotiators try to figure out.
Maybe that’s “It’d help if people suspend or cancel their streaming services.” Maybe it’s “please DON’T suspend or cancel them - that’s how they feel the pressure to produce new content. If people cancel, they’ll claim there’s less demand, less money for the writers.”
We’re on the outside, and there’s a lot of moving parts. Listen to the union when they tell you how you can help.
And be ready to stand by them, even months later when (1) your new shows on TV suck, because the only scripts available are the ones that were initially rejected, and (2) the AMPTP starts announcing how unreasonable the WGA is being, how it’s misrepresenting their claims, how they don’t understand how the business works, how there’s this one case where the WGA demands would make everything worse for the writers involved.
It’s all lies. Stand with the union. Trust them to know what’s best for their workers.
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