Who is Art for?
I recently became part of an art community on discord in an attempt to get myself back into creating art regularly. It's been going well, and seeing the other folks in the community create and start new and ambitious projects very much creates motivation in me.
Today, a member shared more progress on an animation they were commissioned to create, and with that I remembered about an indie animation pilot I had saved on YouTube that I'd been meaning to watch, so I went to watch it. When I looked up the title of said pilot (which is Wastelandia by Izzzyzzz), I couldn't help but notice that a lot of videos and shorts that weren't the pilot itself happened to be critique videos. After I watched the pilot and felt pretty alright about it, my curiosity got the better of me and I decided to check one of those critique videos out.
What I witnessed was a very grim reminder of why I've been receding from the internet. The mentality of the chronically online individual is like poison. It slowly makes you unable to think of a reality outside of your algorithm, all nuance is lost and all that is left is bitterness, anger and the inability to just enjoy things. To sum up what was said in that video, I'll provide a bullet point list:
• I didn't like the humour, I found the internet references cringe (spoken about a creator who is very much an advocate of the "to be cringe is to be free rawr X3" internet)
• This 6 minute pilot of a slice of life show didn't give me enough about the characters or plot
• I'm very annoyed that people on twitter are attacking people who criticize the show (separate discussion)
and lastly, • People need to stop being so lenient on "indieslop"
I'm not even going to get into most of the points in this because I'm a firm believer in the subjectivity of art, but I do want to get into that last point and this phrase this creator kept using: indieslop.
Specifically they expressed that it annoyed them to no end that people online were being overly excited about indie animation/shows, offered endless praise and defended them from criticism. Supposedly, that people are "allowing indie content to get away with mediocrity" and by doing so, making it "slop". The appropriation of the term slop by joyless redditors and twitter users baffles me to no end, truly. In an age of actual AI slop and corporations spending millions to butcher people's creative visions and regurgitate IP, individuals and small teams creating art that they enjoy is now "slop" because some people are content with it regardless of its' amateur quality. A lot of people especially outside of the art space have failed to realize that genuine art and creative endeavors have gained even more value and appreciation in many corners of the internet thanks to AI fatigue and the flood of soulless content slop on every platform. Do some people get chronically online about twitter discourse? Sure, but that shouldn't affect the way we approach creation and art.
NOT ALL ART IS FOR YOU. NOT ALL ART WILL APPEAL TO YOU. MOST ART ISN'T SUPPOSED TO APPEAL TO YOU.
You cannot hold individual artists to the same standard as you should be holding corporations. Corporations create products. Artists are expressing themselves. You are technically free to critique whatever you want and in whatever manner you like, but just know that you might be a dick about it. Imagine going on deviantart, finding some random artist's concept comic strip and commenting "why are people being so nice to this? Don't you see these glaring issues that offend my personal tastes? Why are we okay with mediocrity?".
So to all the people who decide to spend their time disliking other people's art rather than finding artists and media they do enjoy, perhaps you'd have a few more hairs on your head if you stopped choosing to be miserable to others and yourselves like your social media algorithms have groomed you into doing. Watch Boulet Brothers' Dragula to learn how to properly offer critique (when asked, or ask for permission first) without stepping on other people's artistic vision or confusing quality for difference in taste.
To those who have been beaten down by the negativity of the internet (or real life soul-suckers), please never stop creating! Try finding other artists who match your freak, and continue creating cringe together <3