Thanks for the shout out! The fiat world makes everything more complicated in that someone, somewhere, has to pay, and the on-ramp is usually fiat oriented. The creatives that contribute are usually fiat-strapped because the fiat system tends to reward the sell-outs. This leaves a lot of creatives out on the edges of a system that doesn't support them.

If I am in a contest, I intentionally avoid participating in any way with the contest until said contest is over, as a general rule. It is hard to be a participant and a voter without considering your self-interest.

For instance, sometimes you see real shit entries in a contest which would, by any objective measure, be clearly rated as such and afforded the appropriate-sized manure-holding compost bag. Sometimes, though, you see people grabbing spoons and they start slurping the shit as though it were Manwich. The temptation there is to say to people "Hey, why are you eating all this shit! It's just gonna make your breath shitty, and spread a lot of shit around!" Then, of course, people accuse you of just wanting to win the contest because you are jealous or something. You can't point out shit and BE in the contest and have people think you honest, although from where an individual sits you can do all those things.

Doubly so when you have a channel where you hold creative writing, or a TV station, or whatever. That military industrial complex has a way of sneaking its motives in there so that it subtly begins to reward--can you guess? Shit. Then, you confuse it for Shinola because it pays the bills and pretty soon everyone is calling shit Shinola. Relevant cultural link.

The challenge then becomes to align your entire world, channel, and existence with the kind of art you value and hope to cultivate. That proves, very, very difficult. Unlike those cavemen who saw a cave wall and said "Ya know what? I'm gonna take my hand and trace it on there and paint some Mastodons and some Mammoths and if nobody sees it they can kiss my caveman grits," there is a whole world out there that's like "So, you think you are a caveman artist eh? Well, let's see how you do if we take away your cave and campfire, smartypants!"

Of course, the caveman is like, "I just wanted to do some art. I didn't realize that your cave platform involved what pronouns Mammoths and Mastodons might use." The translation, of course, is "I didn't realize you were into THAT stupid shit!"

Long story short, I'll be interested to see what you do next!