> MasterClass might claim to be selling education, but don’t be fooled: they are selling credibility and inspiration.

I strongly disagree. If you buy a MasterClass, you don't get any more credibility, so they haven't sold any to you. You might be more inspired, but I think that's debatable too.

I'm into game dev, writing, and music, and I hang out in various communities for all of them. Despite being very different domains, they are very similar in many ways:

* People who are successful at them have high prestige in our culture and often wealth. A hit can be experienced by millions, so there's very high visibility to success. Because of this, there are a large number of people clamoring to get in and do it too. There's a huge shiny pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and everyone wants it.

* The process of consuming the created work is very different from creating it. In fact, the process is really fucking hard. A game you spent three hours playing took a year to make. That little sparkle animation you saw once when you got that bonus item took an artist a week to draw. That page you read in five minutes while waiting in line took the author seven drafts and two editors to get in print. And for every one of those pages, another one got cut entirely. That catchy little guitar riff took the artist ten years of practice to find the rare melodic nugget that sounds familiar enough hook you but isn't actually ripped off from another song.

Because the products are so visible and widely consumed, the fact that the process is so different is not well understood. In plain words, people don't realize what they're getting into when they want to be a game developer, writer, or musician. And when they encounter the reality that it's way harder than it seems and that they are signing up for years of making shitty art before they get good enough to produce something of merit, a whole lot of psychological stuff kicks in.

There is a strong cognitive dissonance between the skilled creator they imagine themselves to be and the unskilled one they actually are today. They've hung some of their self esteem on the idea that they are a gamedev or a musician, but when they sit down to actually do that, they are forcibly confronted with the reality of their skill level.

One of the most common reactions to that is avoidance. People will do anything but make progress on their skill if it lets them avoid experiencing their current lack of it. So game developers go off and spend five years "making an engine" instead of making an actual game and shipping it. Writers obsess over the perfect writing routines and rituals. "Oh, I need to use a Montegrappa pen like Hemingway." Musicians buy and sell gear thinking this next guitar or synth will be the one that the music flows out of like water. (I am highly guilty of all of these.)

None of this ever helps them improve their skills and become a creator, but it feels good. It keeps the cognitive dissonance and fear of failure at bay.

Dropping $180 on a MasterClass from your favorite creative person seems like it will improve your skills, but it requires no actual effort on your part. You don't have to do anything. And, because of that, there is no risk of failure, no risk of seeing that you aren't who you imagine yourself to be.

That's what MasterClass sells: avoidance of fear of failure. Balm for the anxiety that we aren't who we aspire to be. They're in the same product category as "signature edition" guitars and distraction-free writing apps.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this. The reality is that most of us won't ever be successful Hollywood directors or celebrity chefs. The economics just don't work out that way. I'd rather someone entertain an idle fantasy of being creative even if it rarely bears fruit than give up hope on the idea of being creative at all. Surely the only thing sadder than a wannabe musician is a mindless consumer who doesn't want to be anything at all.

And, who knows, it probably does inspire a few. Personally, I'd rather watch a few hours of video from a creative person who has actually made things that impacted the world, then, you know, unboxing videos or Instragram influencers or something.

Maybe the success of MasterClass is a good sign. It says that many of us cherish the idea of mastering a creative art and making things for others.