Old Fav Resources SellSouls
A couple of age old resources were my original inspirations for GigsList. I used to post some of their gigs on the original GigsList yahoo group. Since then my web tech geekdom has continued and I never stop learning.
As the way of some older successful ideas go, a certain famous casting resource got sold a few times. The last time in 2013 to a company called RZ Capital, with offices in Brooklyn, New York and Mexico. Yes that’s right… Mexico!
For readers not in the USA. I asked a roadie friend from Los Angeles if a/any company with offices in Mexico is safe to do business with. I didn’t mention any company or business or person’s name. I can’t repeat my roadie friend’s response, due to dramatic language. Suffice to say it wasn’t rave reviews. More on Mexico later in this piece.
The other shock I got was when I applied for a job in Australia with a certain famous casting resource New business development. I still have a lot of high level contacts in Australia. It wasn’t that I didn’t get the job with a certain famous casting resource, that’s their loss. The shock was I got a bat response from a third party non-show-biz job site. OMFG! Sorry to God! Isn’t a certain famous casting resource supposed to be a recruiting site?
If you’ve been an avid reader of my scribbles for the past couple of years, you know I have a beef with bats. I also have a beef with arts and showbiz jobs outsourced to non arts and show biz. It seems that even major PR companies don’t know about bats. From what I’ve seen of recent publicity stunts, such as fake paparazzi car chases. How memorably embarrassing was that for the PR firm that recently signed them/her up?
Bats work with algorithms to keep human posts and websites down in search rankings. Your posts and websites. Backstage.com using third party non showbiz recruiters and bats help keeps your search rankings down. It also separates and dilutes creative industries and economies. It might not look that way on your screen. But that’s only on your screen to keep you sedated. So you don’t know about or look for the bats. My fav allegory for it is squirrels. Searching for squirrel vids for your cat, then play one or two squirrel vids. Next day every second and third vid in your streams is squirrels. Sometimes also on platforms you didn’t play the squirrel vids on.
The bat problem’s been around for quite a few years. But the more recent years it’s getting ultra nasty. Eating away at your’s and my incomes and human creative and production industries’ survival. a certain famous casting resource was bastion of old school arts and showbiz tradition to rely on. Now??? It’s gone the way of Nat Sherman cigarettes trying to look like American Spirits. It still sells, but… it doesn’t taste of the same old school traditional quality …
Back to Mexico. I tracked down the address of RZ Capital in Mexico on Googgle street view. It was an old broken door in a back alley. That so doesn’t make sense if a certain famous casting resource has swanky offices in Brooklyn and RZ on Madison Avenue New York. The staff in their swanky Brooklyn office look like nice people in their office photos. The old door in a back alley really doesn’t make sense. Especially in Mexico, where it’s a lot cheaper than New York or Brooklyn to live and do business. The Mexico office should be very swanky, yes? Or at least a swanky house or luxury apartment building. Nope, the broken old door in a back alley doesn’t make sense one iota.
I tried looking up a certain famous casting resource partner site. But it’s ownership also seems to be different businesses owned by other businesses.
So what gives? Now it gets even more creepy and controversial. In my web searches another RZ Capital kept popping up. Fosun RZ Capital, a Chinese investment group in China. Chinese gov kind of owns all Chinese companies in China. Basically they set up shell companies in other countries to buy companies in other countries. And thus hide the identity of the true owners who other countries might not get along with.
Seriously, sites like that have some explaining to do!
