The protest is coming from inside the house
As striking members of the Writers Guild walked picket lines outside, and as a plane pulled a protest banner up above, Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav gave the commencement speech at Boston University's Nickerson Field today.
He faced protests inside the stadium as well from supporters of the writers: Boos echoed across the field as he took the podium. A number of students stood and turned their backs as he spoke, and both students and people in the stands chanted "Pay Your Writers!" - at one point loudly enough to force him to stop.
Once Zaslav got rolling, he gave some inspirational advice to the soon-to-be graduates that if you work hard and focus on your dreams and have parents who can afford to send you to play tennis at a facility where you can get life-altering advice from one of the world's greatest tennis players, you, too, can succeed.
there is a big picket line outside the commencement entrance too!! pic.twitter.com/9u3SuU6Cey
— mandy (@realmofmandy) May 21, 2023
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Comments
What an
excellent sign.
What did these "writers"
What did these "writers" write?
You know ...
Writey things.
More specifically, they're the people who write the scripts for TV shows, monologues for late-night talk-show hosts and the like.
Lots
The striking writers have specifically written much of the content we consume today, but more importantly they and their prior generations have written the texts that content generation tech like ChatGPT use from which to spit out derivative content. The ultimate argument is that the job of writing creative work (even if it’s just Real Housewives of Garbagetown) should be in the hands of people, not machines that don’t need a paycheck.
What did "you" write?
Tell us, bot. Tell us what you wrote.
Are you
an "idiot" or just an "asshole"?
These are not....
...mutually exclusive categories, you know.
What a perfect avatar
For the overmonied dystopia that Boston has become.
This schmuck made $39 million last year. His company could pay the writers $5 million, then they'd live comfortably, and he'd make $34 million, and they'd all have houses and food.
People used to argue against me on that on the Internet 15 years ago. Anyone still out there want to hump that level of greed, or are we getting the clue?
Not exactly
$5M equates to ~$434 per writer. That’s not going to change anything.
Fine, make it $10 million
I make less than $100,000. Funny how little one needs money when they don't overbid for shelter and impregnate women.
I'm getting real tired of rich people problems not being the fault of rich people.