You Like Art, But Hate Artists?

an observation that rubs me the wrong way

I’d like to lead off that there are some artists who are pretentious douchebags, but most just create art. Something that has bothered me over my lifetime is the notion that most are not donned their flowers until it is far too late. The first example most of you will think of is someone like Mac Miller, maybe Amy Winehouse, or actors like Heath Ledger.

This absence of appreciating art in real time is not something new or novel either. This has been a constant for the length of time. Honestly, the easiest answer here is the Bible and the Apostles. Everyone thought those guys were insane until the books were finally finished. Now we restrict human rights and create whole mantras, cults and let’s not forget slavery was predicated on some of those writings. The point of this is to say that humanity should focus on art in the time it’s being made in my opinion.

We all spend too much time judging art and creativity that was not in our lifetime and trying to weave it into our own crosshairs. I don’t necessarily consider myself an artist but a creative nonetheless, making a lot of different stuff from music, to these posts, poetry, dabbled in vlogs for a little bit (Snapchat summer 2k19 consider yourself lucky you were or weren’t there). I realized while people would view it or critique they never supported the concepts. Which maybe they’re afraid of expressing themselves but honestly fuck that just tell me straight up if you hated it or not who cares?

I think we have suffered from fear of conflict of opinions. We have this hive/mob mentality to either like or hate something all at once.

As I see others try to passively do this, the same patterns follows where people digest it, but don’t care for the artist at all. I am fortunate enough to be multifaceted and my art is not my income. Perfect example here would be Spotify, we all know the artists are getting fucked royally (pun intended) but at no point have we all supported artists the point in which these streaming giants do anything at all to compensate them fairly. I fear today’s society lives to bring them up and then tear them down. Everyone is doing it for the meme but not an ounce of care for the human that made the art. Now, the cat singing about his ex getting married and kids in the suburbs is something that somehow towed a line that feels weird beyond words. The song sucks but is catchy but also funny enough to be meme’d so maybe somehow this will change a pattern.

A common occurrence I see this in is the comedy world or people trying improv, people love to shit on someone doing open mics but once they make it act like they were there the whole time.

This is meant to tell you to support your friends in the arts, go to random concert. Walk through an art gallery and post a story so others can learn about it. Write and post your thoughts like this, don’t just repost a political fad to get your story liked. Sometimes as a society we progress technologically at the expense of critical thought and understanding of the best parts that make us human, the arts.