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Heather Niemi Savage's avatar

You literally wrote “it’s unlikely you’ll outshine your previous peaks.” If that is not a discouragement of continuing to create in old age, I don’t know what is. Yes, you were talking about people who have a large corpus of work, but there is always a risk in creating that you won’t top a previous accomplishment. And that is not the point of creativity, either. And being creative in making your own projects does not preclude mentoring. I think Quincy Jones was a perfect example of that. Sure, criticize people for not mentoring and not letting younger people take the lead, but calling things “tired” as a consequence of their age is pretty ageist.

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Adam Singer's avatar

In the cases mentioned above their work clearly suffered. It's not ageism, it's reality. Particularly true when it's the case of large industry investment and using mass distribution channels. These guys have all had their shot and then some, and at this point we're held back culturally and spiritually to see some guys who should be mentoring others gripping the spotlight with their last breath. It's no different in business or politics IMO. We all have to suffer through the results. If one is painting or composing on their own & distributing through their own social channels etc *please* continue to do that! Not what we're talking about, I'm sorry if the distinction wasn't clear enough, I felt it implied by the examples. And honestly, the best art is probably done by people quietly, for their whole lives, and we never even see it. Maybe we would if the culture didn't simply recycle the same stars and ideas until death.

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Heather Niemi Savage's avatar

You do understand that Clint Eastwood is making some of his best work at age 95, right? You do understand that Larry David is still funny even though he is significantly older than Seinfeld, right? You understand that Grandma Moses was old when she started painting, right? And she got famous as an old person. I do not understand your argument. Old people do not have to go "create quietly' within their own "social channels" and essentially be ignored because they are old. The issue is quality, not age. And if someone can create something of quality in their old age, let them, even if it is through "mass distribution channels." Why should someone of a great age be denied that if their work is good? I don't think Seinfeld is funny, never have. Never watched an entire episode of his show. But that never had anything to do with age. I went to go see BEAT last month, and it was an amazing show. I was inspired by these guys in their late 70s and early 80s who could play just as well as ever, if not better, and are still coming up with new ideas. As a writer, I would think you might want to reconsider how you would like to be treated when you are old. Because what you are asking of them is what you are asking for yourself. Do you want to disappear into obscurity someday just because you are old?

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Adam Singer's avatar

I hope to reach a point basically all I'm doing is platforming others with whatever attention I've compounded, I already do this now by casting unknown talent in ads in my day job vs people who are already known. In my experience, they not only perform just as well, they're always less pretentious than famous people and are easier to work with. My personality may be biased to finding new talent and giving people a shot. I think this is lost in big media who even when they do sign on new creatives have a bias in certain 'proven' formulas. I think a lot of this involves just a very different way we view the world.

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