Those who CAN do, teach.
Is it a school to help you succeed in a tough business?
A secret society of writers & artists saving media?
Or just a bunch of stock photos of people laughing?
Enroll and find out.
A secret society of writers & artists saving media?
Or just a bunch of stock photos of people laughing?
Enroll and find out.
We’re the world’s greatest
print humor magazine.What do you want to learn?
How to write or draw? Sure, we can teach you that. Or how to edit. How to make a magazine about anything (and make money doing it!). How to lead a creative team. How to wrangle geniuses and iconoclasts. How to build a fanbase online. However you spend your time, Bystander Academy courses can help you make more money and have more fun.
Practical approach
Each course is designed to take your natural talent and existing skillset to a new level. We’re focused on helping you see your projects to completion.
Expert Instructors
Classes taught by career artists who have honed their craft over the course of years—the masters of today training the masters of tomorrow.
Career Focused
Making money as a professional writer, editor, or cartoonist is a longer longshot than ever. Our courses will sharpen your focus and improve your odds.
“What the hell is Bystander Academy?”
This past Spring was I invited to Yale University, to give a weekend’s worth of talks. After running The Yale Record humor magazine as a student, I’ve spent the last thirty-four years teaching undergrads how to write, edit, draw cartoons, do design, run teams and how to grow a publishing business in the digital age. Many I’ve worked with have become leaders in comedy, publishing, and game design. Others have been equally successful in more stable professions—but their interest in “creative” pursuits remains.
Since 2015, The American Bystander has been a one-of-a-kind collection of writers, artists, designers, cartoonists, marketers and other geniuses. Our staff are people who have lived the creative life for decades, and excelled at it. These people’s core skills were developed in the era of traditional media. In 1995, you didn’t have four social media channels and a blog to maintain; you didn’t have to worry about AI; you didn’t have to “think of yourself as a brand” or hustle for gigs on UpWork. You spent all day, every day, working at your core competency. Your craft.
Just show up, show your love, and we’ll do the rest.
—Michael Gerber
Editor & Publisher, The American Bystander
May 2023
When I started teaching in 1989, there were perhaps 20 people at Yale really interested in all this stuff. This April, there were hundreds. Wherever I went, I was peppered with questions, asked my opinion, asked for advice.
The next week, I was talking with Bystander’s General Manager Laura Fox. “I have a question,” she said. “Where could you learn all this, if you weren’t lucky enough to go to Yale?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “The publications and book imprints where people learned how to do it—places that passed on knowledge built up for generations—are gone. Or shells of themselves.”
“So why don’t we do it?” she said, munching a Whoopie Pie. “Teach the same stuff you’ve taught the Yalies, except to the general public. And get all the best Bystanders to join you.”
That wasn’t just a Whoopie Pie; it was a Whoopie Pie of Genius.
Since 2015, The American Bystander has been a one-of-a-kind collection of writers, artists, designers, cartoonists, marketers and other geniuses. Our staff are people who have lived the creative life for decades, and excelled at it. These people’s core skills were developed in the era of traditional media. In 1995, you didn’t have four social media channels and a blog to maintain; you didn’t have to worry about AI; you didn’t have to “think of yourself as a brand” or hustle for gigs on UpWork. You spent all day, every day, working at your core competency. Your craft.
All that crucial knowledge is in danger of being lost.
But Bystander Academy goes in the other direction, too. We’re going to actively seek out younger people who’ve been successful in this Brave New World to teach what they’ve learned.
The clock isn’t going backwards, and we want culture to be better than a 100th-generation Xerox done by AI. Bystander Academy is a unique online school where people can, for a reasonable fee, receive useful instruction on every aspect of the creative life. It will make them money and save them years of trial-and-error. It can be accessed from anywhere in the world. To go to Bystander Academy, you don’t have to have perfect test scores, or be from the right family.
Just show up, show your love, and we’ll do the rest.
—Michael Gerber
Editor & Publisher, The American Bystander
May 2023
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