There are three unbreakable rules to living and working in the entertainment business. The first, obviously, is this: never work for free. Someone will always try to get you to write a draft or make an appearance or design a set for nothing – profitable studios and insanely rich producers stay profitable and insanely rich by always finding out, first, what you’ll do for free – but you just have to politely decline.
The second rule, not as obvious but equally important, is: don’t be sucked into a lot of unproductive gossip. This means, essentially, keep a firm grasp on the number of minutes spent trash-talking or engaging in idle speculation about friends, co-workers, underlings and overlords. Limit yourself, if possible, to a few juicy moments a day.
It also means this: do not read the comments on entertainment industry blogs. You’ll fool yourself into thinking it’s OK to read them – even, in some perverse way, to write them – as long as the item isn’t about you, but in general it’s bad hygiene.
This rule is impossible to follow, of course, because the comments section on an entertainment industry blog is the fat, greasy underbelly of the entire enterprise. The comments section is where readers sound off anonymously about the subject at hand, and freely share their (often libellous) perspectives. The comments are addictive, because everyone loves reading the insider dish, watching the anonymous score settling, wallowing in the sometimes nice, sometimes nasty, back-and-forth that makes the internet worth all of the trouble.
A few weeks ago, some inventive entrepreneurs launched an iPhone app called Secret. It allows the user to post, anonymously, anything he or she wants, and the resulting “secret” appears in the Secret timeline of whoever is in the user’s address book. In other words, you can tell secrets to your friends and all they know is that someone labelled “Friend” has done it. If you’re two parts removed in the social graph, it appears as a confession by a “Friend of a Friend.” You can comment on whatever appears, as long as it’s in your circle, and part of the fun is the guessing games that unfold.
The result: an addictive and surprisingly revealing snapshot of what is twitching at your friends’ – and their friends’ – consciences, what they really think of their co-workers, and any stray thoughts or business secrets they feel like confessing.
Right now, the app is heavily populated by Silicon Valley types, many of whom I know. My Secret timeline is filled with confessions and anonymous tips about possible buyouts, IPOs, psychopathic bosses, and unscrupulous venture capitalists. All of it is interesting, but in an arm’s length sort of way. I like my friends in the Silicon Valley – it’s a close-knit community, a lot like Hollywood, except the people are younger and the T-shirts are cheaper – but the ins-and-outs of the tech world aren’t all that crucial to me.
So imagine if all of us down here in Hollywood, where people still keep enormous lists of contact info, got on the app tomorrow. Our timelines would instantly go from mildly interesting but not gripping to really addictive. All of the energy and attention that goes to checking the comments sections of various blogs for nasty remarks about your work would be driven to the deliciously simple gossipy app called Secret.
Think of the possibilities. People in your social circle telling each other little secrets, acting, for the most part, like flawed humans, which isn’t something we’re terribly enthusiastic about down here. Business secrets and honest numbers finally revealed – probably illegally, but the app guarantees anonymity. And, yes, it would have some of the toxic nastiness of the comments section of your typical industry blog, but at least you’d have the consolation of knowing that it’s your friends – or their friends – doing the toxic dumping. Right now, you read the comments and think: “Who are these people?” On Secret, you can read them and think: “I gotta get new friends.”
But what’s really special about Secret is that no one – certainly no one in our address book, and even no one in the address books of people in our address book – has anything figured out. We’re all kind of groping around here – especially here, in the entertainment industry – pretending to know how it all works. And no one does.
And that’s the third bedrock rule of the entertainment industry, right after never working for free and steering clear of gossip. Well, most gossip. I’ll see you on Secret.
Rob Long is a writer and producer in Los Angeles
On Twitter: @rcbl
