Although I’ve decided to study Anthropology in university, I’m not yet set on any career yet. I’ve debated plenty of options — web designer, music producer, journalist, novelist, comic writer, sculptor, architect, web entrepreneur, being the owner of a replica 1700s sailboat tour company, photography — but haven’t settled on anything. The two careers I’d like to explore here concern web entrepreneurship and webcomics, but I wish to point out that these aren’t the only options available to me, and the list of options I do have isn’t prioritized in any order.
Ideally, I would stick to no single career. My dream life is making money with various projects — one month doing an artist exhibit and selling art, another designing websites, another doing wedding gigs as a DJ or photographer — all while making money steadily from websites (advertising, paid services) that I don’t really have to take care of. There was a time in middle school when I was making $40 per month just from advertising on a website I ran, and it required almost no upkeep.
Anyway, if I were to choose a single life (which would inevitably bore me), I would probably first turn to web development. There is a strange “startup” culture online, where developers and designers get together for a single project, complete the website, which usually provides a service to users, and just let it run, only maintaining it every once in a while. The founders of the site share equity, and usually part ways to work on other projects, maybe seeing each other later down the road to work on something different.
One site I’ve been monitoring is Forrst (http://forrst.com/) — it’s a social code-sharing, image-sharing, question-asking forum for web designers and developers. It has a transient content structure, somewhat like Facebook, where posts by users usually disappear by the next week, because content is coming so fast. Forrst was created mostly by a developer named Kyle Bragger, with help from illustrators and designers. Kyle said it was just an idea he was playing with and once he got friends and contacts on board to help him to the project, and investors to pay for it (investors for online projects don’t really have to pay much, since websites are so cheap to produce), he got it rolling (Rocheleau).
I think this would be one way to live life that could definitely suit me. Kyle is an entrepreneur, but he’s also never left the actual coding side of things. There are so many stories of people like Mark Zukerburg, who start a website (like Facebook) and end up hiring other people to do all of the code and design. I prefer the Forrst model, because I want to be in the middle of everything, doing the actual code, or the actual design.
Another lifestyle I could live would be that of a webcomic artist. One case study in particular I’d like to highlight is the life of Ryan North, creator of Dinosaur Comics (http://qwantz.com) and Project Wonderful, an online advertising. His source of income comes from commissions on Project Wonderful, advertisements on his comics site, and merchandise that he sells regarding Dinosaur Comics. Ryan North repeatedly announces his love for his job publicly (on his Twitter account, @ryanqnorth), and is in the perfection situation if his webcomic ever fails (which it probably won’t): he has a degree in Computational Linguistics (University of Toronto), and says he “could always get a job in programming” (Whaley).
Being a webcomic artist would be great, especially because by its nature, there are different income sources associated with it. If I got bored doing one thing, I could switch to a different project, maybe another comic, and possibly, throughout all of this, becoming friends with a very close-knit community of webcomic creators.
I did a webcomic before, and it wasn’t too successful, but I began to see where that kind of project could lead me. The greatest thing for me about working with webcomics, is that it would be an almost self-sustaining community. I would just update the comic each day with a new strip, but other than that, I could go about my life. It’s the perfect career to go along with anything else, since I would have so much free time.
There are many other careers and jobs I’ll probably end up having over my lifetime, and will probably cover a wide variety of disciplines and subject areas, because that’s just how my personality works. I don’t think I would be satisfied in any “stable” job position unless it was exciting. I need adventure and risk and such in my life, and most importantly, doing something I actually like. I know for a fact that there are careers out there that, for me, have zero downsides. Money isn’t something I care about, as long as I can buy food and make rent. All I really care about is being happy, and if that means doing something fun that doesn’t pay well, I’d gladly take that.
The last position I want to be in is where most Americans are today: not looking forward to work, and while working, only looking forward to the end of the day. Then, by the time they get home, after combing through the distress of rush hour, they are exhausted and have no time to pursue other projects. I’ve told my friends numerous times before that if they ever find me in the future in such a state, I’d like it very much if they would slap me out of it.
Works Cited
Rocheleau, Jake. "Interview with Forrst Founder: Kyle Bragger." Webdesigner Depot. 10 Sept. 2010. Web. 17 Nov. 2010. <http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2010/09/interview-with-forrst-founder-kyle-bragger/>.
"Ryan North." Computer Science. University of Toronto. Web. 17 Nov. 2010. <http://www.cs.toronto.edu/~ryan/>.
Whaley, Karen. "Tall Poppy Interview: Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics." Torontoist. 17 May 2006. Web. 17 Nov. 2010. <http://torontoist.com/2006/05/tall_poppy_inte_31.php>.
No comments:
Post a Comment