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wow, i really love this topic and it's one close to my heart.
i also super agree with you, melon, and it also sounds like you have experience with this type of thing :omg:3 i haven't even gotten to the point of being a creative where i am supporting myself and my livelihood depends on that--but i'm also not struggling with a creativity-draining type job while working to that point. i think a lot of people get frustrated with the struggle that comes either way, which is where the 'all creators are owed attention' feeling comes in. it is hard to support yourself with no attention at all (although attention doesnt guarantee money) but it's equally hard, maybe even more so, to create anything at all while surviving some of the jobs available to people, especially right now.
all around me, friends and people i follow, are trying to strike it out so that they can live on doing something they love! i think that's a really admirable thing and a lot of them are doing pretty good at it barring unseen struggles, you know?
a lot of people though, these people i see included, are constantly straining under the pressure of having stuff that is so numbers-driven attached at both ends to your livelihood and also your passion. it's so stressful when those things are entwined! especially with the state of most websites where creatives build audiences (the big few.. we know them all) in this new web2.5 environment that is trying to stir, and each website that was on the larger web that initially came out seemingly in support of creatives are also showing their ugly behinds. and i see a lot of people rightfully telling artists to make their own websites, and move to this independent site that actually cares, or this, or that, but a lot of hesitance lays in the fact that at least *right now* being exclusively off the larger web is not sustainable for people to pay rent and feed themselves off of, especially because even when you're on those platforms, only a quarter of your audience is paying for your merchandise or your patreon or your commissions or whatever you offer that is purchasable.
i have a lot of complex feelings about it too. i think that as an artist, if you make things that mean a lot to you and really strike a chord with the people you're subconsciously creating for, you'll eventually form a community of people who resonate with your work even if you don't super interact or put yourself out there. it obviously becomes harder if you're struggling to make a living for yourself at the same time as developing your skills, working on your passions, etc. and i do think that artists that can interact more and be more personal do have it easier because the community part will come faster naturally, simply because it'll be easier to find you i think?! but for instance, i follow a lot of artists who are very mysterious and don't do much socially at all but are visible because of the message or emotion in their work. that part is hard to pin down, because it doesn't seem like 'putting yourself out there' matters so much as what you're doing strikes a particular chord. but maybe that, if you *aren't* going to be striking that chord, you need to compensate with being personal/interaction? Σ(●ꉺ▱ꉺ●)
it's true that to thrive as an artist on these platforms, you have to work 'what is popular' or 'what will get attention on x platform' to formulate some pieces. you have to work with an AI algorithm and tags, posting times, many levels of mental and algorithmic manipulation. if you've ever done any research on what to do on various platforms to gain traction, it's a combination of both at such a gross level that i think there may also be a level of unawareness re: what to do to gain an audience at play... though, none of this matters if you lose the ability to create over worrying you're making something popular. seven years ago i was still getting into art as a potential job sort of thing and starting with boothing at cons, and even then the pressure to make certain things because it was popular or risk not even making your table back in sales was a big thing. getting older and also not going to cons for a long time, i've seen this worry shift from selling at cons and being popular on tumblr (honestly, way more innocent than twitter or instagram fame) to now being popular on twitter/instagram/tiktok (so now there's an algorithm at play) and selling online--on a consistent basis and with a regularly revolving menu of items.
back then, the pressure of having to draw free! (or whatever the cute boy anime flavor of the month was back then), was enough for me to get frustrated and do what i do with anything that starts to feel forced instead of enjoyable: i drop it like a hot sack of potatoes. this is before people were even slaves to the instagram algorithm, or at least perceivably so. i cannot even imagine the stress of people who have to produce at regular intervals and certain things and paying attention to all of these different factors to Pop Off on Social Media so they can Eat. yet this is the reality a lot of the people i know personally and even myself choose when i get back to it... like melon also said, it's a calling LOL
i think that getting in tune with your local community and doing artsy things around is also AN AMAZING point and i heard something like this recently... it might have actually been a tyler the creator interview, he was talking about how you build yourself at home/locally first and expand out. whether that means posting up at your cafe that does art stuff, or going to your closest art district in your state and seeing whats up there, finding local artists similar to you that you can concoct stuff with ^q^ it can be hard in some places but... there's usually people or an art community somewhere nearby even if they are small n hard to find. i even have resources for a place seen as sparse/in the middle of nowhere like new mexico bc i visit my BFF, it's surprisingly loaded with indie art culture. (people who do meowwolf stuff are out there) : D
> ":grin:omg:n't just make one thing and expect it to support you. Make a free thing, and a paid thing and a web thing and a physical thing. Show it on your site and on the web, but also talk to real people about it even if that audience seems a lot smaller its a different kind of audience."
this resonates so much ( •̀ᄇ• ́)ﻭ✧ agreed completely!
while not really answering any questions, i've thought that now that i can draw somewhat again, i want to do all of the things i thought were cool without the thought that i have to live off of it pressuring me off of it even if that is the eventual goal. especially if you just, baseline, are the type of person to view things as a chore once they are put into the mental category of 'work'... people can turn passions into jobs and feel like it's not a job, but it has to be a passion first and not *monetized* first... right? LOL
social media just encourages the idea of monetized passions, and even when you want to do that, it can't be what you Go Into It For. you have to be doing this for you, and for your message, ideas, and creations to get out there. and it has to be okay even if it fails or doesn't get the attention you wanted, because you love it so much. this is how i'm going to create everything going forward, and i hope it releases me from the drainage that i see a lot of my peers go through. i think the ones that have employed this sort of 'i don't care, i'm making this for me' ideology are sometimes the ones struggling less... >> !
of course, this also means you'll be willing to do whatever to keep this dream alive. for some people that means stuff like temp jobs etc while juggling that stress of being between "a hobbyist" and "making it your life." for others this means being on some sort of aid program while doing what you can to support yourself.
it is honestly really hard to be a creative of any type and make *enough* money off of it, while having all of these moral quandarys on top. oh my god, there's so much i could say about it. ε=o(´ﾛ｀||)
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