FINDING YOUR VOICE 20-21 MMMC

Chancellor Rishi Sunak created outrage in the creative industries with his suggestion that artists, musicians and other 'creatives' should retrain and get new jobs in the current times of Covid. With the creative industries contributing massively to the UK's economy and international reputation should artists feel aggrieved about Sunak's comments? And is it the job of government to sustain the creative industries?  CRUCIALLY - as creative people yourself, how do you think your particular area of interest in media or arts will survive the current crisis? Do YOU feel that in tough times you should be supported by government if there's not much creative work about? Do you agree with the angry reactions many artists and creatives had towards Sunak's statements? Or do you feel artists/creatives aren't a special case, and should think about getting 'proper jobs' to support their creative activity? Is there a danger that the arts will just become a hobby of...

Summary Fyre festival was a binfyre of a festival in which incompetence, management-ineptness, fraudulent advertising and social media combined to create a disastrous, yet compelling example of how FOMO and lies can combine to create chaos. But did the people who shelled out so much money to go to Fyre in a sense DESERVE to be conned?   Although Fyre is the hook for this debate and your opening statements should firmly say whether you feel sympathy for the 'victims' of Fyre - feel free to think more generally about whether social media - particularly insta and the power of influencers - is a dangerous new aspect of our online lives. I suspect that will form the basis for much of the discussion.  Questions to be thinking about . . .   what kind of people are we becoming that we are so influenced by influencers, so envious of the perceived 'glamourous life', that we're willing to spend so much money on temporarily 'partying like a rockstar'?  With some attend...