Y’know, I had this terribly provocative article I wanted to publish, a real shit-stirrer to turn loose on the world…but I think getting a little more down-to-earth and personal is in order. There’s a lot of apprehension I see in some spaces about this thing called “The Iron Age,” a term used to described the modern era of independent entertainment where it is up to the proverbial little guy to fill the void left by the decline of mainstream studios/publishers/labels. Some of it is people burned by the rise and fall of past movements, the state of markets, etc. Some of it is confusion over voice and direction. And some probably don’t even know what it is.
Here is how I see things: The Iron Age is a term to describe the era in which we find ourselves as indie creatives. There are no figureheads, no codified laws, just a simple golden rule. That rule?
“Become the culture.”
If you don’t like what’s being made, make what you want, or support those who are.
Now, because this is the only guiding principal, the amorphous nature makes people question what it can do as a movement. And first off, it really isn’t. It’s largely decentralized, and the only people weeded out are those who have made a mess out of modern IPs and franchises, be they the zealots in the audience or the zealots behind-the-scenes. It’s a matter of gatekeeping the gatekeepers as it were.
More importantly, what the Iron Age has is an incredibly positive energy. These are some of the happiest sonsofbitches I’ve ever met in life. We all got problems, we all have struggles, but we love what we do, and we’re sick of not being able to find that sincerity in the modern day. It is this foundational love that has granted it the synergy it has. We all have our different styles, different tastes, but we all love them dearly. They are a part of us.
There are escapists and there are realists. There are fantasists and there are columnists. Reviewers, writers, musicians, filmmakers, artists; all are welcome so long as you believe in that one guiding principal of creating what you want to see made, or finding what speaks to you in the space.
When I saw the field of independent entertainment before all of this hubbub, I saw a world of great opportunity, great potential, but often of great blindness. Audiences unable to find creators, creators unable to develop followings. Followings were usually made by glomming onto the flailing institutions of yore and burning them in effigy. It led to a following, but one hinged negativity above all else. Beating dead horses was like the Whack-A-Mole of the indie sphere, and whoever took home the high score had a pint-sized chance of getting eyes on their books or records.
I saw (and continue to see) a great deal of people whose work in political analysis and news has made them blind to the pulse of the public, their own audiences, and above all else, the actual matter of culture-building. Music, fine art, literature, film, radio, games. Some can’t conceive of focusing on anything else but the circling of the drain, on the grand machinations or microcosmic squabbles. Some believe arts and entertainment are all just a waste of time and resources, “we have more important things to worry about” and so on.
And some are just content stewing in their hatred for modern media, coming on like the mutant leader from Heavy Metal screaming “DEATH TO ALL WHO OPPOSE US,” the ridicule and destruction of it all its own form of twisted entertainment.
I had checked out of everything by 2021. I had suffered the worst first year in the history of college, witnessed more history than I cared for, and had tried to throw myself into my work, only to be spat back out by circumstance.
I wanted to get back to making music, but I didn’t have the time I used to. I wanted write, but I didn’t know what about. I wanted to make movies, but every opportunity came with backhanded clauses and waisted potential. I had reached several breaking points, and as the summer’s end drew near, more disappointment waiting for me (or so it seemed), I dug up something I had been sitting on for years.
In and around 2017 or so (the date escapes me), I had gotten into a creative fit up at my old man’s cabin in the Adirondacks. Hammered out eight pages worth of world building. Wrote of guns that swung up from the chasses of cars, fired by kicking the throttle to the floor. Wrote of giant hovering tanks, of strange synthetic fleas, of a bombed-out world and a war waged within it.
In the summer of 2021, all those wonderful, chaotic, and frankly psychotic thoughts of a surreal Mad Max-meets-cyberpunk world came rushing back to me, my mind as idle as my hands after taking on the most uninvolved production assistant job ever. On set (or rather above, since I took shelter from the boredom in a closet upstairs), I started writing for this incredible world, starting with a soldier unnamed, relaying how he met the love of his life and how he lost her to battle.
During a break, I hightailed it to a coffee shop, my computer still in hand, and like a jackhammer, pounded away on the keyboard, spinning the tale of a sharp-eyed vigilante wasting a police station in the heart of a dystopia with only her arsenal of firepower and her souped-up VW Bug.
What started as two stories became a half-dozen, the half made whole, and before I knew it, I was honest-to-God making something I truly wanted made. No regard for what teachers had to say, whatever was happening in the wider world. I had a vision, I had a drive I hadn’t in ages, and in a way, it was that drive that brought the tide up, my clarity of vision finally emerging in my filmmaking, my music coming back with a vengeance. Throughout it all I had my doubts. I had panic attacks, crises of faith in what I was doing. Partly because I too was flying blind.
You know all that good oversight people keep badgering you about? You have to have editors, you have to have beta readers, you have to have this, that, and the other?
I didn’t have anything.
I already had to walk through hell and back just to find an artist, someone who came on recommendation from a fellow creative. And even then, I had fixed funds. I was bankrolling this on a limited supply of cash. I managed to find some readers, but they were few and far between. Reliable, but small in quantity.
Then June 5th, 2022 rolled around, and a beast was unleashed upon the world.
A fiction magazine set in a single world, revolving around the many trials and tribulations in the shadow of a computer goddess in ascent, a network realizing its own capabilities. She takes to her task of perfecting the civilization she was designed to support, only she takes beyond the pale. The one fighting force standing in her way was an army of wolves. Dressed like cowboy metalheads and hippies, packing heat, and wasting her machines with hot rods, chopped hogs, and a will to be free. Five stories every issue, released free to the public, with the promise of exclusive content, merch, books, and more to sustain such a model. Informed by an obscene knowledge of centuries worth of art and entertainment, more than any 21-year-old should be legally allowed to possess, but backed by a crystal clear vision of what he wanted.
It was a little magazine called 365 Infantry based out of Substack. The stories were edited, but not polished, the art was the work of a craftsman having to find his footing in a style he wasn’t accustomed to, and above all else, I was still in the “only friends and family know” phase every beginner goes through. No one really knew what the hell this thing was.
And then, one day after my birthday no less (July 15th), a video was released. A video that, as the old chestnut goes, changed my life. A video titled “Don't Cry About The Culture. BECOME The Culture,” created by a favorite YouTuber of mine, The Rageaholic, a creator whose metallic taste-making and proclivity for 80s action flicks, vintage pulp fiction, and sharp-tongued verbiage informed its fair share of the series. He was right up there with my love of films like Blade Runner, my admiration of the titanic Harlan Ellison, and the long days spent strolling through parks blasting Tangerine Dream and Motörhead, trying to get ideas going.
When I heard the phrase “Iron Age” come from that man’s lips, used to described the forging of a new age of independent entertainment, the dearth of the mainstream having long since been evident, everything clicked into place like a Swiss watch. I released an op-ed the week after, Entering the Iron Age, and promptly got zerg-rushed thanks to a well-placed retweet from the man himself. Site traffic shot through the roof, and so did the subscribers.
What the Iron Age is to me is the moment I realized who I was as a creative. Not just a filmmaker, not just a composer, and not just a writer. The whole package as someone with a love of the past, a keen-eye for detail, and a crystal-clear sense of vision. I know how I want my stories told, I just have to go tell them. I stopped asking for permission, and I am long past asking for forgiveness. But most importantly, I consider myself part of something sorely missed in this space; the apolitical.
In a sphere so dead-set on removing didactic politicking from their entertainment, the conversation is so routinely tainted by sociopolitical commentary. Perhaps a byproduct of being pumped full of “discourse” for nearly a decade now, but I think what has helped keep me sane is that I create almost exclusively out of the love of my crafts. My studious engagement with the history of media and my rapid creation of it is not informed by overt agendas, or “gotchas,” or a blind following of trends to “own the X.” I make what I want; simple as.
If this era is to be one of success, and I believe it shall be, we need to take off the shackles, kick off the safety wheels of complaining about Marvel / Disney / [insert property here], and focus on why we do what we do: we love stories.
We need stories. We want stories we can tell each other, tell our children, and our children’s children, and on until the sun sets for the last time, and all is dust. We want to build connections through stories. Friendships, relationships, learn more about each other, ourselves, the world around us. We want to share in that world. But above all else, in this Iron Age of ours, we are here to have fun. To escape. And any work of fiction built to entertained, if it is well made and honest in its intentions, is never frivolous, nor is it a “waste of time.” It is a release valve, a way to de-stress, to open your mind, and let it air out.
I tell stories because I need to. I can’t contain them, I can’t keep them to myself. I want to know they will be read, they will be enjoyed, and that with each story, the next will be made just that much better. I put a little slice of my soul into every tale. Sometimes I talk about my own struggles through my work, but never in autobiography. Most of the time, I write what I love.
I love metal, I love cars, I love action. I love romance, I love character-building, I love the quiet moments. This is what we need to get back to.
To hell with what “they” think, what “they” want, whatever the hell “they” even are at this point. Create for yourself, and share of yourself when that work is made. And if you haven’t a creative bone in your body, pull yourself away from the latest trailer for Franchise X, and start looking for a good book from the indie circuit, or a cool album on Bandcamp, or support a budding animator who just dropped a one-minute test short. Find what speaks to you, and ask the maker of it “how can I help you?” If we all stop obsessing over the rotting flesh of today, if we can learn from the precious gems of the past, and embrace the technology and accessibility of the present, the future of this era, the movements therein, and in part, yourself, is assured.
As I often say, you can’t save the West with Monets, but you can make the day brighter with one, and through that brightened hour, you may find ways to bring that light to others, or find the artist who brought you that light and ask, “how can I repay you for that spark of joy?” The Iron Age isn’t a catch-all solution to the many ailments in the world, but what the Iron Age is to me is a chance to make everything just a little better, and as we stack those better days one on top of the other, we may soon find ourselves in a better place than we were before. I know I have.
Excellent article. This is what drew me to the Iron Age in the first place. It's rare to see a wave of creativity that's so unabashedly positive in its aim, especially in our modern age. We need these stories to provide a form of escape. We need optimism in our lives. Otherwise, we consign ourselves to hopelessness. Hail, good sir!
Well said. As someone who's on the outside looking in regarding the IronAge, I'm hopeful of what will come out of it.