Why do you make anything at all?

The other day, an artist mutual of mine was upset and voiced their upsettedness by saying it was due to one of their posts flopping (as in, getting less attention on social media than they had hoped). I am not judging them at all, absolutely not. But it made me think of my own experience as someone who posts their work online on platforms that reward interaction and growth in followers.

It has never bothered me that a work I posted "flopped". Mostly because I don't really look at social media as a form of market of attention, to me it is simply a place where I post. Like a little stand in some alleyway someplace. The making was the hard part, the posting though? It costs me nothing, and provides a way for me to connect with others who have similar interests, and make new friends along the way. Not that people interacting with my posts don’t make me happy. But it is simply more of a show of appreciation rather than a currency, or a number underneath my post that gives it a value like it’s at some kind of auction.

I guess you could say that I post for the love of the game. But it’s more for feeling the sense of a community, finding my people. When I started drawing, making games, or other creative hobbies, it was not to get a lot of eyes on what I had made. One person passing by saying “That’s cool!” was enough for me.

Although I haven’t gotten too many of it (thankfully), negative criticism does still affect me too though. But I like to consider every word in their own context. People saying disheartening things on a post that is doing well, if very unspecific, tends to be rooted in jealousy, for example. If I can identify pointers that distance the criticism from my actual skill and confidence, I can often soften the blow. Someone criticising the message of something I made doesn’t bother me at all, though. I know in myself I would never post something if I did not truly believe it, and disagreements are natural.

But at the same time, my mutual’s situation and mine are not the exact same. They may be relying on their posts doing well to earn some revenue that will sustain themselves, or a relative or friend who might be depending on them. Perhaps they want to be able to sustain themselves, leave the 9-5 in the dust and live off of what they love to do. Which one of us wouldn’t like that? Perhaps they don’t get much positive reinforcement in their day-to-day life, and this is one of few avenues in which they can receive such reinforcement.

It just makes me worried when I see someone who seems like they tie a lot of their self confidence to the numbers that they get online. If the post gets not a lot of attention, it was bad. They are bad. If it gets it, then it was good, and they are good. This kind of thinking can only work to truly destroy a person, from the inside out. Art is valuable because it is yours. It is your human experience directly transcribed by you. Art is valuable because one moment of witnessing it can instantly hook someone in, their chest instantly filled with an overwhelming emotion. Something was conveyed without ever having met that individual. I might be getting a bit philosophical but don’t worry - I’m now going to get even more philosophical.

Art is a necessary part of life. It is uniquely human. Art is social in its nature. When a community is in grief, they express it through art. When two countries show their alliance, oftentimes a piece of art is presented that showcases this closeness, and it brings forth a sense of togetherness. A statue gifted to an ally country to commemorate their recent independence from a tyrant. A crayon doodle of a family a little girl drew, hung up on a fridge with a magnet. A troubled man painting night skies filled with stars and trees covered in a field of yellow for his brother. A basic black square painted by a Russian activist. An excited kid holding up a piece of paper to a screen, tracing over an episode of Dragonball Z. All of them art, all of them equal in value. All of them beautiful. If the internet died and an apocalypse started tonight, art would still exist as long as people existed.

All this to say, oftentimes, we are our own tormentors. It is important to ask ourselves why we do the things that we do. Are the reason and the action mutually exclusive? Do you paint nails because you need to earn money? There are other ways to do it. Do you dance to get attention? Are there better ways to get attention? Do you act in movies because you like it, draw because it fulfills your creative itch, sing because you enjoy the expression aspect, and sculpt because you like the learning process? Then never forget those reasons. If someone tells you that you suck at it, you weren’t doing it to instantly be good anyways. If someone tells you it’s not a real job, it’s not reliable, it’s not cool, it’s not enjoyable to them, it’s a useless skill to have, it’s this it’s that it’s whatever. Remember that those thoughts never bothered you or pestered you when you started. Those are not your reasons, they are the naysayers’. Trust in your own determination for starting. Your art does not need permission from others to be made.

Thank you if you read all of this, I hugely appreciate it, and I really mean it :) I did not mean to write on for this long but I kind of got worked up while writing it and this was the result. Feel free to answer the question posed in the title if you wish :D