American musician, songwriter, DJ and photographer, Moby has created a dissertation against Modern Day New York City in Creative Time Reports. Moby begins with painting a picture of New York City circa 1980s where “AIDS, crack and a high murder rate kept most people away from New York back then.” Growing up on 14th Street, Moby paid $140 a month to live in what he describes as a war zone. Despite that, New York was the “cultural capital of the world.”
Fast-forward to present day. Economic standards in New York City have created money hungry Wolves of Wall Street (for lack of better words) and destroyed the artists, musicians and those trying to use their talents to keep the New York culture alive. It has become the city of money, business and survival of the fittest. “It seemed New York had entered the pantheon of big cities that people visit and observe and patronize and document, but don’t actually add to.”
A vivid but effective analogy. “The gradual shift in New York’s economic fortunes and mores reminds me of the boiling frog theory. If you take a frog and throw it in a pot of boiling water, the frog will do everything in its power to escape. But if you place a frog in room-temperature water and slowly raise the heat, it will boil to death without realizing it’s dying. (I truly hope this theory will never actually be tested.) That’s what happened to me in New York.”
Moby creates polarity between New York City and Los Angeles. “Experimentation and a grudging familiarity with occasional failure are part of L.A.’s ethos.” In New York, everyone has become “exclusively about success” and has adapted this cutthroat mentality. They believe that they must always deviate from failure, which is the most absurd notion. In New York, people who do fail are almost exiled. In other words, make one mistake, everyone forgets about you. There will always be the next person in line ready to take your spot.
While I’m sure Moby is not denying that New York cannot create any kind of success, it’s the weight that comes along with it that makes it well, not worth it. The idea that at the drop of a hat, everything can be taken away or, that you are disposable seems too intense. I am siding with Moby and David Byrne’s words. Maybe this is passé but I still believe that anything, any place, or any atmosphere that deters you from celebrating your artistry, presenting your talents only so you, like the frog, can boil to death without realize your dying, makes it not worth your time.
“Maybe I’m romanticizing failure, but when it’s shared, it can be emancipating and even create solidarity. Young artists in L.A. can really experiment, and if their efforts fall short, it’s not that bad because their rent is relatively cheap and almost everyone else they know is trying new things and failing, too. There’s also the exciting, and not unprecedented, prospect of succeeding at a global level. You can make something out of nothing here.”
–Lindsey Winepol
[Via Gothamist and Creative Time Reports]