I’m An Artist, Not a Content Creator

Okay, y’all, confession time. Yep. Once again time for some real talk. Straight truth. Embarrassing as it may be.

And it is. Quite.

If you’ve read my words here before, then you know sometimes I treat this blog as a sounding board to get real issues I’m facing in my life out into the zeitgeist. I use it to think things through, to force myself to take my own advice when necessary.

Today is no different.

Recently, I was in a real creative mode and wanted to just use the muse in a fun way, to let my natural curiosity and playfullness take over. I wanted to have fun.

Instead of my next thought being okay, let’s do it, it was nah… too much work. I don’t wanna.

What? Why? How? Who ARE you?

In that moment, I decided to not make art, to not have fun and play and explore… because… I DIDN’T WANT TO GO THROUGH THE HASSLE OF GETTING OUT THE TRIPOD, THE CAMERA, THE LIGHTS. I DIDN’T WANT TO GO THROUGH ALL THE WORK OF RECORDING THE PROCESS.

Let that sink in. My instinctual reaction to wanting to be what I am — an artist — was denied by facing an unwanted amount of monotonous labor required to document the process.

What. The. F—

Bro. That’s the least artistic thing I’ve ever heard of. Since when do you have to record the process of making art!? Why have you allowed it to come this far? You make art to make art, to express yourself, to indulge in the nostalgic trippiness of your own mind’s eye. Not to post some Instagram Reel that 15 people might see. Bro, you got it all wrong.

Indeed. I had it all wrong.

Luckily, it hasn’t always been like that. And thank God I immediately recognized the idiocy of my thinking right there in the moment. But if I’m being honest, this behavior has been going on for a while now. More than that, if I have been captured by the (false) idea (obviously) that to be successful I have to post on Instagram-Facebook-YouTube every single day and I have to record every single artistic process to make sure I have enough content and yadda yadda yadda, then surely other folks have gone through this same stupid cycle too.

Well, let this blog be a renunciation of such capturedness! I make art because I want to and I don’t have to show the algorithm a video of every single thing to be successful! I mean, I’ve been doing that for a long time now and I’m no more popular for it. Trust!

So let it be known that I’m an artist, not a content creator. Yes, I make content. But that’s not on my business card. And whether making content develops my art career or not? Well, I don’t know. Jury is still out. Can be stressful at times, that much I know.

No matter what, TODAY I am reminded that indeed, it’s okay to just make art.

So let’s do it!

Have you ever been captured by the feeding frenzy of social media? How have you dealt with such stress? Tell me in the comments!

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