It’s nearly impossible to buy an original Bob Ross painting (2021)
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A simpler reasoning is that there wasn't any demand for his paintings while he was alive. His show ran from 1983-1994 and he died in 1995. He was reasonably popular at that time, sure, but Bob Ross as we know him only blew up in the 2010s in the internet/YouTube/streaming age.
Now there is a trove of 1,165 paintings which are no doubt valuable, but cannot all be sold because they would flood the market and decrease their own value. So Bob Ross, Inc. is cleverly keeping them under lock and key and letting the scarcity drive prices up.
He remained popular after his death. I can remember seeing memes of Bob Ross as early as 2008.
So while maybe he couldn't be selling his paintings for 1000s to the decently-off, there clearly was ample demand. If he truly wanted to make a boatload, he easily could have.
Related: the treasure trove could easily be sold 1 painting at a time. Just don't make it regular - not once a year, but sometimes 2 in 2 months, and then 5 years nothing. That really wouldn't spurs the value that much, if at all.
No, he was well-known already in early 90s (at least on my college campus), and his sayings were pre-internet memes. He was perfect match for slacker stoner culture
Personal pet-peeve.
And yes, I know it doesn't really matter to most people.
Still urks me.
"CANT OR WONT!?"
People that say that sometimes irk me with their pedantry. You don't hear it so much anymore, though, as all the people who once cared are elderly or gone.
Language is mutable. I think the best thing you could do is let it go. Perhaps even ascribe a stronger meaning to this "incorrect" usage: it theoretically could be, but it won't be, because it can't be given the circumstances.
Literally.
“We cannot pay you more, or we won’t be able to hit the margins the market expects from us this year.”
“We can’t license this sports event for wider audiences”
“We can’t sell all of Bob Ross’s paintings or their value would go down”
Milking every dollar out of anything valuable is burned into people's souls, and willfully decreasing the value is not a possibility.
I promise you, there are countries out there where that type of person is widely looked down on (usually the countries that had to fight off colonizers).
Like I said, just look at countries which resisted colonization.
For example - one of the fundamental mechanics of colonization is to find people willing to sell out their countrymen for personal profit. While there are always a few people like this, it's far from the norm; and those people are remembered with searing hostility.
A specific example that comes to mind: British land-owners exacting high rents on Irish farmers would often seize their property and hold a local auction. The entire town would turn out, the original farmer would make a small token bid to buy back their farm, and no one would bid against them.
Ireland also invented boycotts, where the entire village would shun scummy landlords.
Egalitarianism isn't just a reaction to colonizers though - it's the default state of humanity [0].
And research shoes that placing material possessions at the centre of your life is inversely correlated to your emotional well-being [1]. Pretty hard to believe that this would be the default.
So, American culture is clearly twisted. It might not be the most perverse in the world... But it's up there. This is a fact well recognized in the world, and almost entirely ignored in America itself.
Yes, on an individual basis, Americans can be quite lovely. Friendly and well meaning, might go out of their way to help you, and so on. Sure. But the fact that Americans can really believe that humanity, at its core, is willing to sell out their neighbors for profit says everything about Americans and nothing about humanity.
0 - https://medium.com/inside-of-elle-beau/yes-our-ancient-ances...
1 - https://time.com/22257/heres-proof-buying-more-stuff-actuall...
Good Lord!
France and Blighty (to pick two examples) did their fair share of empire building, however I can assure you, they do not worship at the alter of capitalism in quite the way which is endemic to the USA.
What were they like at the height of their empires? During their respective long slow declines? Did their people worship the worst of their colonists as national heroes? ...
And while they are not quite as Molochian as Americans today (no one said they are, in fact the argument was that America is rather exceptional) they certainly aren't as anti-capitalist as many others. Particularly when you look at the manner in which they pursue global economic interests.
Americans are no less or more human than anyone else, and this idiotic posturing about some inherent difference that makes one group of people or country somehow stupider, more wicked or more avaricious than others is a bad habit no matter what direction it flows in or who its pointed at..
That wasn't the argument. You've moved the goalposts to a different stadium.
What was claimed was that "milking every dollar out of anything valuable is burned into people's souls", and somehow, from that, you heard "people do what they can to make money for personal economic benefit". Curious.
> Americans are no less or more human than anyone else
No one said Americans aren't human, or less human.
> this idiotic posturing about some inherent difference
No one said it was inherent. In fact I said the opposite; that people are generally egalitarian unless warped.
> that makes one group of people or country somehow stupider, more wicked or more avaricious than others is a bad habit
Nope. Countries have different characters, and it's okay to talk about it. Also, some countries - cough - have extremely powerful and capable groups that have been working for decades to warp the national character; say, by instilling rampant Islamophobia, or working to undermine critical thinking and general education.
I hope you ask yourself how you got this much wrong on a reading of a rather simple comment. Something clearly hit a nerve.
Both things are in most cases essentially the same, and a person trying to get every possible dollar out of anything valuable for their personal gain indeed doing what they can to make money for themselves. This is in my experience a habit not at all unique to Americans..
That aside, you generalized about America, to a degree that's absurd for a nation of roughly 320 million people, which also happens to be one of the top countries in the world for charitable giving on a per capita basis and in absolute terms.
So yes, countries can have different tendencies in certain ways, and it's possible for the narrative that people in a country buy to be warped by political interests, but even in these cases, generalization is stupid, and so too is giving a particular, fashionable focus to making americans seem to be particularly warped people about this.
Do you perhaps speak as a European? There's a continent riddled with simmering racism and many of its own social problems. If you're from any number of other parts of the world, feel free to make some concrete argument for why their people are in any way less subject to personal greed, or propaganda or failures of critical thinking.
I see no evidence of it. Nationalist idiocies, racist tendencies, propagandistic narratives and bad economic habits abount just about everywhere in the world, and in some countries much worse than in the United States, which itself has no shortage of differing opinions and critical thinkers.
It also (at least until the current orangutan came to power, again,) has historically been one of the most welcoming countries on earth for immigrants from nearly anywhere, including Islamic countries.
Again, generalizing about this country is plainly mistaken and easily at risk of being downright stupid if done out of ideological spite.
Lol, no. Not at all.
A person doing what they can to make money for themselves might take a rough and underpaid job to support their future.
A person "milking every dollar out of anything valuable" might frack the land and ignore the costs, start illegal wars for profit, sell arms to genocidal dictators, turn healthcare into a for-profit industry, etc. You getting it?
> you generalized about America, to a degree that's absurd for a nation of roughly 320 million people
I don't love to generalize - but it isn't untrue, and I didn't pretend not to be generalizing. I could point at any number of statistics to back that up, but here's the main one: 98% of American voters decided arming genocide wasn't a red line.
> So yes, countries can have different tendencies in certain ways, and it's possible for the narrative that people in a country buy to be warped by political interests, but even in these cases, generalization is stupid,
Because Americans give to charity?? That argument doesn't track. And it's weird you think it does. Bill Gates was one of the most greedy, predatory and damaging individuals the world has ever seen; but he gives to charity to whitewash his image. You know who else gave a lot to charitable causes? Maxwell and Epstein. Citizens might give some of their disposable income, but what's that worth when they're fine with their taxes dropping bombs all over the world, funding dictators and genocidaires?
> Do you perhaps speak as a European? There's a continent riddled with simmering racism and many of its own social problems.
I speak as someone who has traveled and lived in both. And America's racism and social problems are on a different level. I never claimed Europe or anywhere else was perfect; just that America is exceptional. And it is.
> feel free to make some concrete argument for why their people are in any way less subject to personal greed, or propaganda or failures of critical thinking.
Name one other country in the world where 98% of voters would ever decide that arming genocide wasn't a red line. "Israel!" ... Ok, that one was too easy. Name one other.
> it also ... at least until the current orangutan came to power ... has historically been one of the most welcoming countries on earth for immigrants from nearly anywhere, including Islamic countries.
Lol. I don't know where you've been the past 24 years, but that's an extremely ahistorical statement. The kids in cages, which you saw, during the Trump admin, were built by Obama and persisted under Biden. Obama laid the foundation for Trump's "Muslim ban". It's weird how people forget these facts, and get real stroppy about it when they're brought up.
> Again, generalizing about this country is plainly mistaken and easily at risk of being downright stupid if done out of ideological spite.
You keep saying that, but it isn't actually true. The world has considered America the number one threat to global peace, stability and democracy for the past 22 years, and they are 100% correct to do so. There are countless reasons why - bombs dropped, dictators funded, climate damage, global propaganda, surveillance, wilful torture and other abuses of international humanitarian law, and so on.
To ignore all this because "generalizing bad" is what's actually absurd; and it's absurd that Americans can't grasp that. It's ridiculous to see them work themselves into a whataboutist lather when called out on any of it. Take a shred of responsibility for the national character which the whole world can see and which is threatening life on this planet in seven+ ways.
Just a few of points though:
>A person doing what they can to make money for themselves might take a rough and underpaid job to support their future. A person "milking every dollar out of anything valuable" might frack the land and ignore the costs, start illegal wars for profit, sell arms to genocidal dictators, turn healthcare into a for-profit industry, etc. You getting it?
Say what? You're comparing an average person trying to make ends meet (presumably in some other country) with very specific, powerful, corporate or government special interests in unique positions of power to do these things in the US? You do understand that other countries also have select powerful interests doing all those things and similar for the sake of financial extraction yes?
>And America's racism and social problems are on a different level.
On which continent have their been several major wars in just the last 125 years, with ethnic cleansing and genocide as an explicit part of their tragic landscape, often supported by all kinds of regional populations? This aside from many European states also having their own enormous migrant ghettos with persistent racial tension between said immigrants and their white European neighbors.
>Name one other country in the world where 98% of voters would ever decide that arming genocide wasn't a red line.
First, did you pull the 98% out of your ass or have you a source for whatever the hell you're even talking about in this context? Secondly, many other countries sell arms to governments that have practiced genocide. I don't consider Israel a genocidal state (though its current lunatic in power is pushing the boundary) but taking that aside, it receives arms deliveries from, among others, Germany, the UK, Italy and Canada. So?
>Because Americans give to charity?? That argument doesn't track. And it's weird you think it does. Bill Gates was one of the most greedy, predatory and damaging individuals the world has ever seen; but he gives to charity to whitewash his image. You know who else gave a lot to charitable causes? Maxwell and Epstein. Citizens might give some of their disposable income, but what's that worth when they're fine with their taxes dropping bombs all over the world, funding dictators and genocidaires?
This is such a mishmash of cherry-picked stupidity that I feel silly replying, but since i'm here: What the hell do Epstein, his girlfriend or Bill Gates have to do with the general statistical tendencies of charitable giving among Americans? They neither take away from these charitable giving and tax-funded foreign aid tendencies or stain them in any way. They are separate contexts with no basis for comparison.
Also, as mentioned above, many, many countries fund dictators, or sell them weapons or contribute to dropping bombs somewhere for assorted reasons.
Generalizing isn't entirely a bad thing, but the kind you're vomiting out here is plain idiotic, ideologically fixated and loaded with ridiculously selected arguments.
Uh, what?
Bob Ross was very popular in the early 90s while he was still alive.
So much so that he even did a promo for MTV.
No, he was just as well-known when his show was on the air. He was a household name, his paintings and style was known, and people talked about him enough to have opinions on whether he was an "artist" or just a TV show host.
However, it looks like PBS never signed up for Nielson until 2009, so we have limited/no public data on viewership of The Joy of Painting (or Sesame Street, etc for that matter).
http://www.thetvratingsguide.com/2020/02/tvrg-ratings-histor...
Growing up in the late 80s/90s, and mostly outside of the US, I can't remember a time when I didn't know who Bob Ross was.
Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Reading Rainbow, Joy of Painting, Arthur, Bill Nye, Barney, Teletubbies, etc.
It's not like there were a lot of TV choices for kids if their parents couldn't afford cable (and some stations like Cartoon Network didn't even exist until 1992+, I think even Disney Channel was a premium channel like HBO).
Bob Ross was popular. Thomas Kinkade was popular. IMO it's doubtful Ross would've been as popular at retail in the 90s as Kinkade. One was a nice cute little educational show. One was "the painter of light" with a marketing engine around him. Both also had plenty of detractors from the "serious" art scene.
Why did Ross get positive associations through 2000s internet culture that Kinkade never did?
Which would you rather go buy now?
Was it just nostalgia, since he was relevant much more to the lives of the kids that grew up to create a lot of the internet culture of the time? Probably a big chunk of it.
But there's also just a certain right-place-right-time. Like, nobody seems to be going nuts about re-buying their childhood Pogs or even Beanie Babies. Ok, those were readily available at retail; Bob Ross wasn't. But Pokemon cards were too...
https://negosh.com/brand/54d96e91-3646-49bd-9226-53265743157...
He was also famous and popular before the internet discovered him. The internet certainly boosted his visibility, though.
> Ultimately, the real reason there aren’t more Bob Ross paintings up for sale is that the artist never wanted them to be a commodity.
If you can convince giant bags of money pretending to be people that one of your paintings is worth several years worth of the median wage, it's no more a less a commodity than if you're selling hundreds of thousands of prints of the same image for $5 apiece.
Until it becomes apparent the people he loathes the most are the ones willing to pay him ungodly amounts of money for his "art"; so he relents and sells it to them anyways.
I don’t think it really matters either way though.
Slimy people.
I think if the artist doesn't want the work to be highly commercialized, then maybe the better way would be to have no copyright on their works?
> “He was always happy to donate his paintings to fundraisers, or sell his work at a reasonable price,” she says. “Many people who own one acquired it decades ago.”
But Bob Ross the personality trying to teach people The Joy of Painting? I think he would rather people paint their own than buy the ones he painted
This seems like a bit of a waste given that there's demand for them.
Yes, just think of the commercial opportunity!
The Kowalskis sued to exclude Bob Ross from the company bearing his name in the final days of his life, when he was struggling with cancer.
So let me carefully suggest that Bob Ross Inc. is not as benevolently looking out to preserve the heritage and legacy of Bob Ross as you might think.
Many people assume it's his family that are the cut throats and don't know the fully story of how the company went to another family.
Maybe they should do some Bob Ross events and give the paintings away either as a prize or do a charity raffle. Shit make a foundation to get art supplies to underprivileged kids and use the sales to establish a trust for the foundation.
Most fans of Bob Ross would probably have painted something similar. What he teached was that the enjoyment came from the process and that anyone could paint similar low/average uninspired stuff.
I paint myself occasionally some similarly uninspired stuff, and bar 2 painting I hung in the living room and corridor, I throw them away (or rather reuse the canvas) because I don't even consider them art but rather artisanal decorative items.
2 thousand can get you much more interesting paintings. There are many talented but barely known artists anywhere in the world waiting for you. You just have to visit galleries whenever you are visiting a town.
I mean, you're basically arguing about taste... Bob Ross was a lot more famous than most other artists, not in the least because many people liked what he produced.
A lot of people are trying to make a living painting landscapes with the same painting for dummies style that Ross used (not invented). It seems counterproductive to give money to speculators for an unremarkable painting of a dead man when you can spend a fraction of that to buy a similar decorative painting and contribute to the income of someone who actually worked and spent time on it.
Related: if you feel this style of painting is so unremarkable, why are you advocating for others to support knock-offs? To use an analogy: I have zero interest in buying a Louis Vuitton handbag - but my interest in buying one of the far cheaper knockoffs you can get at touristy places from shady peddlers is a lot lower than that.
I have the painting to another friend as inspiration about the value of art - they love it.
Too many people suggest to artists that they should monetise their work, which is kinda sad I think.
It is good to make art because you want to (assuming one can afford to), not because you want money or $status. If you want to chase money then that's fine too, but understand the negatives that come with that choice.
Canvas or paper will be a few dollars to maybe 10
Paints maybe another 10 per painting by the end.
Then maybe a professionals time for like 100/hr. Idk if you can even hire a plumber that cheap.
A 2 hour painting should cost maybe 400 by an unknown but professional.
I can't imagine them selling for much less than $20k a painting with a name that everyone knows.
I hated this sentence. What is wrong with art that is actually, you know, pretty to look at. Obviously Bob Ross paintings aren't very complicated, as they're designed for amateurs to be able to follow along in the instructions. But I find many of his paintings quite beautiful, and if anything the joy in seeing how simple brush strokes can create such beautiful paintings.
Tracey Emin's "My Bed" "sculpture" sold for two and a half million pounds. So people pretending there is some high objective or moral difference between "high art" and "low/average uninspired stuff" are, frankly, full of themselves IMO.
Rolex makes 1,000,000 new watches per year, and the wait lists are years-long.
There is definitely enough demand for all of those paintings to be sold for more than you'd think
"Oh heres several millons worth of paintings sitting in cardboard boxes in our Bob Ross Inc. nondescript office building in Herndon, Virignia -- please dont break in and steal anything!"
And what if an AI watches it?
Previous discussion when submitted by rmason:
It’s nearly impossible to buy an original Bob Ross painting - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27014367 - May 2021 (85 comments)
That could be true. Though, someone is sitting atop a treasure trove, the value of which is pinned to the legend being promoted by this article.
For Bob Ross, I wonder whether he might've been too humble to consider that his shows touched many people, such that -- besides whatever personal creative journey he encouraged them on -- some might appreciate having a tangible, more direct link to him, of one of his own paintings.
Painting your own painting while watching his show and letting him guide you through, would be a pretty tangible, personal, and direct link to him.
Like an expensive canvas is what, $20? And paint can be had for like $5-10 a tube, and unless you just slather the shit on your paintings, you can go quite a long ways on a tube.
Like I play Call of Duty because I don't actually want to experience a warzone. Who wouldn't want to actually paint?
Yeah, you can get by with very simple tools and materials, but a digital version doesn't limit you to only the simple things.
No cleanup.
No need for figuring out what to do with the canvases.
Any color of paint you want, possibly including ones like "polka dots" or "tiled faces of Nic Cage" or "color-cycling rainbow".
And your brush strokes can be 3d contours of virtual paint hanging in the air instead of marks on a flat canvas.
I think you're oversimplifying how much of a hassle painting can be. Sure, one canvas and one tube of paint cost you $25, but you also need to include brushes (duh), an empty jar for water, a palette or an old plate, an easel or a table where paint spills are not a problem, plus the time to set it all up, clean your brushes afterwards, and tear it down (unless you have an empty garage, which people in apartments typically don't). And then there are the lessons which, if you're a beginner, mean several one-hour chunks (and several canvases) until you feel even mildly comfortable on your own.
I think VR painting is to painting what Guitar Hero is to playing a guitar - you may not be a "real" painter afterwards, but as long as it's fun...
I did that once on a boring Saturday. Used Procreate and a Pencil to follow along with a couple of shows. Had to pause it more than once to find & download a matching brush in Procreate. Was quite fun. I think a dedicated app would sell extremely well.
Fond memories of zoning out on the couch watching Bob beat the devil out of a 3" brush.
His only nearest competitor was Mother Angelica's Religious Catalog on EWTN.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_de_Sensibilit%C3%A9_Pictu...
The idea of “owning” a purely digital asset that anyone else can just make copies of (but not “own” according to some blockchain) just seems silly.
A genuine, authentic Bob Ross painting is not original.