What Stigmatized Creatives Know About Business That You Don't
There's a world of entrepreneurial brilliance hiding in the shadows that polite society turns a blind eye to. While the ivy league institutes churn out graduates clutching their MBAs like security blankets, the misfits from a school of lived experience are working the margins. Sex workers, wrestlers, tattoo artists, budtenders, line cooks; These aren't the perky LinkedIn thought leaders we’re used to, posting motivational quotes pasted over a stock photo sunrise. These are people who learned to thrive in environments where if you fail, you’re just not gunna eat that day. They’re enduring every excruciating shift without a safety net, there’s no HR department, no guaranteed raise for inflation come review time, and a lot of them are doing it really fucking well.
I wish there was a book out there that could teach me how to negotiate like an established escort, like someone whose livelihood depends on reading people's desires and dealbreakers in real time, someone who can profile a client in 10 seconds flat. Where's the seminar from a maniacal wrestler on building lucrative brand loyalty around your iconic luchador mask and signature sequinned singlet? These folks have figured out how to succeed when the deck (and all of society) is stacked against you.
Your average white collar corporate team has panic attacks over a vaguely negative Google review. Meanwhile, sex workers are building authentic personal brands while dodging payment processor bans, Zuckerberg bans, and navigating ever-changing legal regulations - also y’know, daily dehumanization and death threats in their DMs. They know their story, their why, their value proposition because they have to. There's no room for the wishy-washy, no room for the bland people-pleaser messaging or passive agendas that pass for “strategy” in sterile corporate boardrooms.
Wrestlers understand something most "authentic" brands miss entirely and that’s the power of a committed performance. They've mastered the delicate balance between genuine connection and theatrics. Watch a great wrestler work a crowd and you're watching someone who’s mastered behavioural psychology, through literal blood, sweat and tears.
When operating in spaces where moral panic is the major ongoing marketing challenge, these “misfits” are masterful at blocking out the noise. No reacting to the trends, no focus groups, no A/B testing, no pilot project. You consistently connect or you starve.
And they always find a way to connect, and they’re not afraid to get creative with it. Chefs who can’t secure work at established restaurants curate underground dinner parties that become the hottest tickets in town. Sex workers have figured out a number of ways to take their billion dollar business online, and now OnlyFans has become a provocative piece of the digital zeitgeist. Comedy podcast Cum Town grew to collect earnings over $100,000 thanks to Patreon when no network would have touched this offensive, absurdist, messy-ass cum rag of a podcast.
These aren't disruptions designed in Silicon Valley. This is necessity-driven innovation from people who never had access to traditional distribution channels in the first place. They understand customer lifetime value because they've had to build every relationship by themselves from scratch and sustain it to survive, often against radical resistance and resentment from gatekeepers and society at large.
Nobody understands value-based pricing like an experienced dominatrix. She’s not questioning her worth, her whole product is “assertive cunt, and you’re fucking welcome” and she's established clear boundaries around time, services, and exclusivity. Tattoo artists have solved the creative professional's eternal dilemma: how to price your work without commoditizing your craft. They've figured out what a lot of graphic designers and freelance writers struggle with - that your expertise, your vision, your unique perspective has value beyond hourly rates. These obviously aren't strategies adopted from software pricing optimization. These are street-level understandings refined through thousands of real-world transactions.
I think the most aspiring competitive advantage in these circles is the real sense of community. When you're operating outside mainstream acceptance, building your own tight-knit network is a beautiful thing, and these creators understand that in marginalized spaces lifting each other up isn't just good karma, it's good business. These protective networks also help build buzz. No PR agency, no influencer marketing budget, just word-of-mouth amplified by people who feel like they're a part of something exclusive, something real.
They’re anti-fragile by necessity. When COVID hit, strippers were among the first entertainers to successfully pivot to digital platforms. Not because they had savvy social media strategists guiding them, but because they'd already been pushed off traditional platforms and had learned to adapt again. They'd already built the muscle memory of resilience because their environment demands it.
The businesses that succeed in these spaces are built to withstand chaos because chaos is the default state.
This chunk also brings to mind my peers and pals, and of course my many many enemies in comedy, who have navigated cultural and political backlash, learning to transform stigma into a competitive advantage, a shiny new talking point, a feather in their cap. No high-end crisis management firms, just raw instinct or sometimes, pure psychopathic manipulation to reconnect with their audience. For better or worse.
The brutal and beautiful thing about operating at this level is that you can't fake authenticity when your entire business model depends on genuine human connection. The performers that last aren't just selling a service, they're selling their unique brand of humanity. And audiences, tired of corporate-speak and manufactured authenticity, respond to that realness with fierce loyalty and devotion.
These entrepreneurs are succeeding because of the skills that marginalization instills. Resourcefulness. Resilience. Direct customer relationships. Premium pricing confidence. Crisis management. Authentic brand building. The creators who thrive in the spaces polite society ignores have developed business fundamentals that would serve any business owner. They've learned to build anti-fragile businesses that get stronger under pressure because pressure is all they've ever known. While business schools teach case studies about companies that succeeded in perfect conditions, these creators have figured out how to succeed in spite of everything.
Photo by Carlos E. Ramirez on Unsplash