Spontaneous fame through pure originality, prestige recognition on the bases of only talent and skill, and praise for materializing uniqueness into a storytelling medium of the imagination – the artists of our history were born, crafted, discovered and immortalized for their one of kind place in life, to take the uncommon path driven by their passion to simply curate the abstract worlds of surrealism, escapism and enchantment. 

Painters, singers, filmmakers, writers, dancers, designers and everyone in the in-between mixtures, were not taken as serious career paths nor sought after by the masses. Typically, the outcasts or oddballs would be the ones to pursue a job in some entertainment industry, and those who didn’t run away with the circus were deemed to have some sort of mental issue or a non-conformist. Although an artists personal life was always in question of stability, even so, if the art was breathtaking and the show was one of a kind, people would still become fans of their work.  An artist was seen as an entirely different type of person, perhaps chosen from another world to grow our culture intelligence, or just someone with a lot of luck to get through life without taking their place in The Machine. Some things were for certain, the grand artist was not the majority of the population and the odds of them being successful, let alone reach worldwide relevancy and influence, was even more minimal. 

Today however, almost everyone can call themselves an influencer. But what exactly is that? In just about every art industry, category and genre, the occurrence of “contributors” seems to be so  saturated it’s become rather easy and even more common than not to receive viral attention and ironically more difficult for artists to be seen individually unique. We can definitely thank social media for that service, but where do artists actually fit within that realm? A person is more likely to be seen now than ever before, but only if they’re doing something that’s trending at the moment or something completely outrageous and almost asinine. The length of their “art” has also been immensely chopped by more than half because the viewers attention span is now so minimum, they only want to see a few seconds of something entertaining and then they’re ready to move on. Which means, artists today, if you want to be watched by everyone, you can only do what the population is interested in watching right now and you have to do it all in 15 seconds or less. 

So, how can the Auteur survive in this new standard without feeling like a sell out? Maybe that’s our problem in the first place, we’re being too pretentious to ride the trending wave, so we tell ourselves it dilutes our creativity and originality. In reality, social media influencers, creators and artists are getting seen, booked, promoted and paid. 

I consider myself a visual artist that strives for the more “organic” fan base. A few years ago though, as a performer, I would play the social media game and gained a good amount of following. I had to constantly engage with people both online and in person, network relentlessly everyday, make every audition, post dance and performance content frequently all in hopes and attempts to further my career, meanwhile still training everyday, building my skills and refining my talent, and needlessly to say, I would get booked. We take a look at the stars of the internet today and we mainly just see posts, no context, no networking, no real engagement, and not even good quality, just…stuff, with great responses – in the millions. How did that happen and why are we feeding into this constantly?

So, how do I feel about it…well, these influencers are paying their bills and being sponsored by multi-million dollar corporations so my opinion means less than the content itself, but in case its worth just for me to vent, I think there’s definitely something to notice about what we are seeing as art and entertainment within the last decade or so, who we are calling our artists and storytellers of this generation, and how are these things really driving us forward as a species, if it is at all. It appears that you don’t have to make great content anymore to be considered great and even more a pity that the attention span of the audience has gone down tremendously leaving no room for long form storytellers in the social media algorithm. Even so, I think there’s a few lessons artists can learn from this new way of creating; how to promote your work effectively online because social media is the fastest way to do it, market your content to the audience who actually will be interested and indulge in your type of artistry, and make everything your own but do it in a smart way by being able to be versatile with your work.

  We have always struggled as artists to be not only seen but respected among our peers. Although the majority has gone from the strict 9-5 and no leisure time at all to now starting whole businesses from posting how to organize your closets, the artist truly continues to have to keep beating to our own drum and finding way to get our hand seen above the sea of other hands, but that doesn’t mean you have to keep yourself locked in a time capsule and will only accept success if somehow the largest producer in the world just so happens to see you writing your masterpiece in 1 of 50,000 coffee shops in LA and wants to buy your script immediately. We’re going to have to stay with the current way of things if we want to stay relevant, but we can still do it how we believe fits with our craft, as long as you’re okay with not being liked or even watched by everyone. 

To add and finish, I believe our own downfall as creators is that we romanticized the idea of being spotted and shared with the world on a random whim. I also think, we have been lead to believe in the struggle to success mentality of an outcast being set aside from the rest to one day finally receiving the appreciation they deserve for bringing (and being) something different to the people, someone who’s one of a kind and not like the rest,  when the truth is we really all are talented, special, unique and have a lot to offer each other. I think the really positive thing social media has encouraged is more people brave enough to show what they’re good at, demonstrate their talent or keep people up to date with bettering their lives. We have been able to break stereotypes and create new roles for people who would have originally been looked over. We have been able to relate to each other more so now than ever before. If you think back to how few of artists you know about throughout time, there’s also a thought of how many amazing artists we don’t know about. Yes there’s an obvious difference between someone who’s posting something their passionate about and someone just posting random content with no actual purpose, but why should that stop any of us from pushing our own stuff to be seen? I’m very interested to see where the art and entertainment industry continues to expand to, but I also want to keep motivating my fellow curators to keep bringing life into the worlds they are deeply in love with and to not doubt yourself if your numbers aren’t as grand as others. Post, promote, share, shove it down peoples throats if you have to, but through it all, just make the things you can believe in for yourself, and the right people who need to see you and want to support you will.