Zed A. Shaw, Painter

The marketing for Bootcamps is also similar but in a very different way. Bootcampls for programming will tout how their 3 month class will prepare an art major for a 250k salary job at Facebook with their MAGIC curriculum. Of course, that never actually works.

I think the primary difference with the art instruction marketing is the expectations of the people who do this kind of art, and the demographic of the buyers. As I've said before, when I go to art conferences it is 90% women over 50, 80% over 65. I'm not joking at all.

Demographic for some protein powder is men and women ages 18-35 most likely. Demographic for bootcamps is men and women ages 18-35 most likely. This impacts the expectations of the buyer:

65 yo artist probably doesn't need to have a job in art, so just enjoying it as a post-retirement hobby is enough, so the marketing focuses more on better art, and a little on sales. 65 yo artist is also most likely behind the curve and running out of time, so secret tricks work

In the supplement market they're usually using models who just do steroids, and then claim the powder is what makes them that huge. The target market is basically people who don't know these dudes are juicing like mad to look like that, and also, people who are professionals.

The coding bootcamps are aimed squarely at people who did what they were told and got a 120k degree is psychology or abstract expressionist painting and now realize they can't do a damn thing to pay that back, so they're desperate to buy their way into a profession that pays.

So when they market the videos, they're shooting for people who mostly *want* to be hobbyists, would love to sell but don't expect it, are retired, and just feel they missed out on secret tricks of the masters. The marketing pitches them all the secrets in 2 hours, and it works.

I'm not in that demographic, and I'm a nerd hacker type, so I look at this and go "pfft. nothing's magic." Then I go look up the artist and if I like the art, I get the video just because I like watching people paint. I think maybe 2-3 videos were packed with useful things, but