Well said. I’m glad you brought up money and business because I think it would be so easy to say, “Make meaningful things! Don’t feed the algorithm!” and walk away. But the reality is that people rely on these things for their livelihood so it creates this really weird tension.
Exactly. I think it’s missing half the picture if we don’t acknowledge the environment we’re currently in. If you’re just making for yourself and you don’t care if other people see what you do, then sure, you can afford to only make what brings you joy. But if you’re trying to share your work online and find people who enjoy it, there’s automatically another layer of work that goes on top of it.
This is such a perfect articulation of the tension I feel about writing. I have a deep, genuine love of telling stories. I could do it all day if capitalism would let me. But I want my stories to connect with people. That’s where the loop of publishing, posting, promoting comes. That’s also where I start to whine like an overtired toddler, “but I just want to write!” In the same tantrum I’ll stomp my foot and say “I want more people to read my stories!” And so the cycle continues.
Feel you so much in this my friend ♥️ It's a weird thing, because the beauty of the internet is that we *can* post and share our art/stories and have the opportunity to connect with other people around them. It used to be that we'd have to go through a gatekeeper, like a publisher or an art gallery in order to share our work. It's both a beautiful thing that we can take that ability onto ourselves, because it allows so many more people a voice, but with that opportunity comes a whole hell of a lot of work. It's a difficult thing to find the balance.
I'm not sure! Because I'd say that poetry writing is an art, but that's not really a 'thing' that's created, at least not in a physical sense. It does seem like there's this need for a word to describe everything we make *around* our art - but that just makes me question more if the issue is how narrowly we're defining "art" in the first place?
Well said. I’m glad you brought up money and business because I think it would be so easy to say, “Make meaningful things! Don’t feed the algorithm!” and walk away. But the reality is that people rely on these things for their livelihood so it creates this really weird tension.
Exactly. I think it’s missing half the picture if we don’t acknowledge the environment we’re currently in. If you’re just making for yourself and you don’t care if other people see what you do, then sure, you can afford to only make what brings you joy. But if you’re trying to share your work online and find people who enjoy it, there’s automatically another layer of work that goes on top of it.
You couldn't articulate it better 😉
Food for thought!
This is such a perfect articulation of the tension I feel about writing. I have a deep, genuine love of telling stories. I could do it all day if capitalism would let me. But I want my stories to connect with people. That’s where the loop of publishing, posting, promoting comes. That’s also where I start to whine like an overtired toddler, “but I just want to write!” In the same tantrum I’ll stomp my foot and say “I want more people to read my stories!” And so the cycle continues.
Feel you so much in this my friend ♥️ It's a weird thing, because the beauty of the internet is that we *can* post and share our art/stories and have the opportunity to connect with other people around them. It used to be that we'd have to go through a gatekeeper, like a publisher or an art gallery in order to share our work. It's both a beautiful thing that we can take that ability onto ourselves, because it allows so many more people a voice, but with that opportunity comes a whole hell of a lot of work. It's a difficult thing to find the balance.
Is the distinction that content is something that isn’t a ‘thing’ created by its author ... perhaps that’s too simplistic?
I'm not sure! Because I'd say that poetry writing is an art, but that's not really a 'thing' that's created, at least not in a physical sense. It does seem like there's this need for a word to describe everything we make *around* our art - but that just makes me question more if the issue is how narrowly we're defining "art" in the first place?