By Halfboi.
At the moment with social media and all that, there’s not a lot of visibility into the lives of young artists. Or well… There is a lot of visibility, it just doesn’t seem to be that honest. Being a young creative myself, I’m definitely guilty of this same posturing. It’s not completely on purpose though, the “fake it till you make it” attitude runs rampant in almost every creative industry, it just sucks that I’m a terrible liar, so this approach doesn’t really work for me. At least not in real life.
Yet still when I talk to friends who aren’t creatives themselves, they are really excited for me. “You are doing so well!”, “You are really getting somewhere!” etc. Meanwhile I’m having a constant slowburn panic attack, with a hint of existential dread, because nothing is really going anywhere and I’m so deep in student debt that I could never pay it off even if I was planning on doing that at some point.
There have been many studies into the effects of social media on mental health and it doesn’t paint a pretty picture, there’s a reason all of the silicon valley CEOs don’t let their own kids use the software their companies develop. For me personally as soon as I open instagram it takes about three posts before I feel shitty about myself in one way or another. Now you might think: “Well, then don’t use Instagram, you idiot.” Which is a fair point. Too bad it’s just really not realistic. I’m a musician and sadly in the world we have today, it is absolutely essential to have a social media presence. Even though I really fucking hate instagram, I have to post regularly and sacrifice my mental health up to the algorithm in the hopes that the our lord and saviour Mark puts my posts in the feeds of people that follow me and if he’s really generous in the feeds of people that don’t.
Meanwhile Instagram has all these functions that, if you use them, you can forget reaching any people at all, like 90 second reels and adding events to posts. I mean if these functions don’t help reach an audience, why put them in your fucking app.
I’ve also been told many times to make a TikTok account and start posting there, but I’m gonna be honest. TikTok frightens me. Just another place to start chasing imaginary internet points, obsessively checking stats and seeing how successful other people are, only this one is just controlled by some different asshole.
I’ve been ranting about social media for a while now. But don’t worry there are more reasons why it sucks being a young creative.
“With the coming of the internet it has never been easier to spread your art to the world!”
Yep, entirely true, it’s also never been easier to get buried in the insane amount of supply in whatever field you create art in. And while there are many ways to poke your head up through the filth of creation, it still basically comes down to this, luck. Making the right thing at the right time, having it go viral on accident and hoping this moment of internet attention is enough that you can build a career from whatever residue sticks.
Of course there is also the grind. “Hard work and dedication!” But secretly the way of the grind is still mostly luck based. You still need to be in the right place, at the right time to get noticed by the right people that see money in you.
Cause let’s say you do get this moment of ultimate internet attention. That’s when the vultures swoop in. These vultures have a very keen sense of smell and as we all know, money stinks. There are an infinite amount of companies posing as management, or promotion, or whatever that want to take advantage of any kind of success you manage to achieve. You don’t even have to be successful, just this week some business person from San Francisco started talking to me, he hasn’t gotten there yet, but I’m just waiting for the DM with a business proposal to get all the fame you need.
But, still you can be successful, it can happen. It could just be that you finally make that break and start getting gigs or people start buying your art. You make the right decisions and evade all the vultures. It’s still not enough money to pay for more than a broom closet somewhere in the IJ. I hope you like fish.
Okay, okay, okay. I’m being a terribly negative Nancy. I just needed to rant for a while. Cause after all, I could just start studying economics or law or being a gravedigger or whatever. But I’m not about to do that, cause I would still rather be 68 sharing a 1 bedroom apartment with a trout, doing what I love, than drive a tesla to the office I sold my soul to 35 years ago, after I slept my way to being junior assistant to the receptionist at a law firm.