It's hard to make art when you're guarded and the internet is a terrible place to be vulnerable.
The older and crankier (or maybe the older and wiser) I get, the more I think social media and being Extremely Online can be really bad for innovation and creativity. Not because of the timesink and addictive properties (or not just because of the timesink and addictive properties) but because it’s hard to dance like nobody’s looking when you’re always aware of the spyglasses trained on you.
And those spyglasses so often belong to bullies, mean girls, dunk artists, the hot take brigade, and so many others who are not dealing in good faith. It’s like high school all over again, except you’re trying to pick out pieces of your soul and your most heartfelt experiences and arrange them in a beautifully aesthetic pattern that you know is going to be used against you any way they can.
There are so many people with opinions out there, many of those opinions definitive and aggressive, some of the people demanding your immediate action or else, and it’s terrifying and exhausting. We all know the advice—don’t read your reviews, stay off Goodreads and Amazon, for fuck’s sake don’t get into arguments about your work or defend yourself on social media. Just keep your head down and keep typing.
But there’s a psychic toll to be stared at, talked about, talked over.
I have certainly fallen into the trap of worrying way too much about what people will think or what they will assume about me from my work. And I see friends and colleagues having the same struggle—self-conscious about their art, second-guessing everything they do, unable to sink into the fictional dream or the flow state and create.
I’ve been spending a lot less time on social media lately, and I think it’s good for me and good for my work. It’s more important for me to concentrate on what I think of my creative output than what anybody else does, because in the end I am the one spending the most time and energy on it. I am the one who is embroiled in this process and needs to enjoy the time I’m spending on it, or I might as well go get a job at Wendy’s.
Anyway, here’s hoping you too can find the peace and quiet inside your own head to create honestly, and say beautiful and true things without worrying that they expose too much of your soul to a vast, uncaring, and frankly pretty obnoxious internet.
Best,
Bear