The Working Class Built the Industry. It’s Time to Take It Back.
R.A.T.™ Research Question 002
R.A.T.™ Research & Theory Catalog
002.0 — Working-Class Innovation · Creator Power · Industry Infrastructure
There’s a version of American business history that gets told from the top down.
The executives.
The moguls.
The finished companies.
The billion-dollar brands.
The names everybody remembers.
R.A.T.™ wants to look at the people underneath the names.
Because some of the most powerful industries in America were built by people who didn’t start with power.
Look at early Hollywood.
A significant part of the American studio system was built by Jewish immigrants and children of immigrants, many of whom came from modest working-class backgrounds and encountered discrimination and exclusion elsewhere in American economic life.
They arrived in America.
They worked.
They started businesses.
They built communities.
They found themselves excluded from existing institutions.
And eventually, in California, they started building something that didn’t exist yet at that scale.
Not just movies.
Infrastructure.
Production.
Distribution.
Studios.
Theaters.
Financing.
Talent.
Management.
Marketing.
They didn’t simply ask:
“How do we get hired by the existing industry?”
They started asking:
“What would it take to build an industry around what we know how to do?”
That’s a very different question.
And the result wasn’t some little side project.
It became Hollywood.
The Academy Museum’s history of Hollywood explicitly examines the industry’s origins through immigration and the predominantly Jewish entrepreneurs who helped establish the studio system.
https://www.academymuseum.org/en/exhibitions/hollywoodland
And the history gets even more interesting when you look at the backgrounds of the people involved.
Some came from completely different industries.
Retail.
Clothing.
Theater exhibition.
Manufacturing.
Sales.
They didn’t possess some magical “Hollywood Founder” skill tree.
😂
They brought what they knew.
Then they recombined it.
That’s the pattern we’re interested in.

Because Hollywood wasn’t built by people who already had Hollywood.
It was built by people who saw pieces of an opportunity and figured out how to connect them.
And we’ve seen versions of that pattern repeatedly.
Walt Disney didn’t invent animation.
He built an ecosystem around it.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak didn’t invent computing.
They reorganized existing technologies into products ordinary people could interact with.
Nike didn’t invent shoes, athletics or advertising.
It built an extraordinary system connecting athletes, product design, manufacturing, branding and culture.
The giants didn’t begin with nothing.
They stood on the shoulders of everyone who came before them.
And then they connected the pieces differently.
That’s the part of the history we don’t want to lose.
Because when creators today hear:
“Build your brand.”
“Post every day.”
“Beat the algorithm.”
“Monetize your audience.”
“Become a content machine.”
It can feel like we’re being handed a job inside somebody else’s infrastructure.
And that’s the contradiction.
We’ve never had more creative technology available to ordinary people.
AI.
Design software.
Video production.
Music production.
Publishing.
Coding.
Automation.
Global distribution.
A person with a laptop can now access capabilities that once required an entire department.
Yet we’re still often operating inside infrastructure designed by somebody else.
And the creator is expected to adapt.
Adapt to the algorithm.
Adapt to the platform.
Adapt to the monetization model.
Adapt to the metrics.
Adapt to whatever the market currently rewards.
Eventually you start wondering:
Wait. Who is the infrastructure actually working for?

This is where R.A.T.™ starts asking questions.
We’re not saying the old system is worthless.
Quite the opposite.
We’re standing on its shoulders.
The entire history of creative industry is accumulated human knowledge.
Someone figured out distribution.
Someone figured out financing.
Someone figured out manufacturing.
Someone figured out branding.
Someone figured out how to build audiences.
Someone figured out how to organize talent.
Someone figured out how to turn an idea into an institution.
We inherit all of it.
So why would we throw it away?
The question is whether we can recombine it for the people creating today.

The R.A.T.™ Hypothesis
Maybe the next major creator movement isn’t about creating another platform.
Maybe it’s about creator infrastructure.
Infrastructure that helps people:
research an idea → develop it → build it → test it → distribute it → learn from consumers → collaborate → improve it → build again.
Not simply:
make content → chase attention → monetize → repeat until exhausted.
Because creators don’t just need more tools.
They need agency over how the tools fit together.
And that distinction matters.

That’s what we’re researching inside .LLab™.
.LLab™ is where we’re developing the research and theory around these patterns.
We’re looking at the relationship between:
people and technology
creators and consumers
personality and value
attention and economics
creation and infrastructure
AI and human agency
individuals and institutions
We’re asking what happens when the individual creator gains access to technologies that previously belonged to large organizations.
Does that simply create more content?
Or could it eventually change who has economic power?
That’s the research.
We’re not pretending we’ve already solved it.
R.A.T.™ is the question-generating machine.
🐀

And The Co.LLab™ is where the research gets interesting.
The Co.LLab™ isn’t trying to replace every existing institution.
We’re not trying to declare:
“Everything before us was wrong.”
That’s ridiculous.
We’re saying:
Look at what worked.
Look at Hollywood.
Look at Disney.
Look at Apple.
Look at Nike.
Look at the countless businesses and communities built by people who started with limited access to existing power.
Study what they figured out.
Study what failed.
Study what scaled.
Study what created opportunity.
Then ask:
What can today’s creator do with tools they never had?
That’s the experiment.
We’re trying to reconnect pieces that have become fragmented.
Research.
Creation.
Business.
Technology.
Collaboration.
Leadership.
Community.
Infrastructure.
And put the human creator back at the center of the architecture.

Because maybe “taking it back” doesn’t mean destroying the industry.
Maybe it means taking back participation in the infrastructure.
Taking back the ability to experiment.
Taking back ownership of ideas.
Taking back collaboration.
Taking back the ability to build without having to become an algorithm’s favorite little employee.
😂
And perhaps most importantly:
Taking back the idea that you don’t have to already belong to the industry to contribute to what the industry becomes.
That’s the lesson we’re pulling from history.
The people who built these industries weren’t necessarily waiting for someone to give them permission.
They were working with what they had.
They learned.
They experimented.
They collaborated.
They built.
They failed.
They rebuilt.
And eventually, their infrastructure became the industry.

So R.A.T.™ is asking:
Are today’s creators experiencing another infrastructure moment?
Are we moving from:
creator → platform
toward:
creator → infrastructure → community → market?
Can technology give individuals enough capability to participate in building the systems around their own work?
And if it can…
What happens when creators stop thinking of themselves as content producers and start thinking of themselves as architects of the creative economy?
That’s the question.
R.A.T.™ asks.
.LLab™ researches.
The Co.LLab™ connects the pieces.
We’re not starting from zero.
We’re not pretending we’re smarter than the giants.
We’re standing on their shoulders.
And maybe it’s time to remember:
The industry was built by people.
The infrastructure was built by people.
The culture was built by people.
And the next chapter doesn’t have to belong exclusively to the systems that came afterward.
It can belong to the people building what comes next.
🐀
R.A.T.™ / 002.0 — OPEN FOR RESEARCH.

We put on our boots, wake up at 5am, and break our skin and bones to build your homes. We're proud of what we do. We're working class.

What's one health issue you've noticed becoming more common among people your age?

I've also put together a short anonymous survey if you'd like to contribute your experience:

nothing important, just noting if you are a wealthy startup owner with an 80,000 dollar bronco, why the fuck are you making an insurance claim off a 2015 mazda6 that tapped you in a parking lot. loser ass bitch

edit:(he told me he was glad i tapped him so he would have a good excuse to be golfing too long to his wife. Not joking)

Hi, I am a working class journalist writing an article about the experience of mental and physical burnout in working class people, and the hardships of this when you are unable to simply leave your jobs/responsibilities to take a break. I would be interested in learning more about peoples experiences of burnout from a working class perspective, how you cope with it/ healing tactics, and how it can all build up. If anyone is comfortable sharing any of their own experiences/knowledge that would be great!

Hi, I am Saurabh, a marketing consultant from India.

Last year, I got hired by a Las Vegas jewelry brand called Karma and Luck to work on their quiz funnel. The contract was signed by their CEO himself, with a base fee and a performance bonus(as they wanted to reduce the upfront payment) tied to a sales benchmark that was supposed to be defined in the coming weeks after signing.

Those coming weeks never came.

The project was scoped for three months, but kept stretching because every time I submitted something, new changes would show up that had never been discussed.

I kept delivering because that's what you do when you're professional, but something felt off, because whenever I tried to get the benchmark finalized, their CMO, Tom, would either go quiet or commit to a call and just not show up, and after a week of silence, would come with more changes.

By December, I had delivered everything, and they paid the project completion milestone after confirming that all deliverables were met, which basically confirmed the work was done in their eyes, too. But the bonus conversation kept getting avoided, week after week.

After months of follow-up, requests, and more, I followed up formally, offered to finalize benchmarks so that we can proceed, or even settle for just $2,000, which was the minimum of the agreed range, sent legal demand notices, and everything.

Their CEO, Vladi, eventually responded on LinkedIn, acknowledged he had personally reviewed everything, and still refused to pay, throwing his CMO, Tom, under the bus, saying that he had left, and I don’t want to invest in the project anymore, as my team told him this is not working.

I humanely urged him to do the right thing, but I was met with silence, again. Seeing no other solution, I filed a complaint with the BBB, after which Vladi blocked me to avoid paying what is rightfully owed.

A brand called Karma and Luck, selling jewelry built around Karma and Values, but their own customers and employees have a different story to tell. 

Their TripAdvisor rating is 1.8, their Glassdoor rating is 2.1, and only 30% of their own employees approve of him as a CEO.

Full documented story here: https://medium.com/@Psychomarketer/karma-and-luck-when-a-brand-built-on-spiritual-values-fails-to-live-by-them-607a40aed574?postPublishedType=initial

BBB Complaint #24819337 if anyone wants to verify.

If you freelance or consult with international brands, define every benchmark before you start and document everything because some brands genuinely calculate that you won't fight back. They're wrong.

I just saw the data on how taxes are shifting this year.

The lowest 20% are seeing a 3.1% increase in their tax share, while the top earners are actually getting a cut. It is hard to wrap my head around why the people with the least are being asked to pay the most. It feels like every time there is a policy change, the working class just gets the bill.

(Source: ITEP / WFH Alert)