I started YouTube, because I always thought it would be so cool to have a merch line. I don’t necessarily want my name on things, and I don’t really think I’m that egotistical (jury is still out and won’t be in for a long while on that one). I just think that having a bunch of people who would want to buy my funny quotes or cute little drawings on shirts would be a symbol of the fact that I had made it. Not made it as in trying to make money, but it means I would have found my niche, my people, and it means I would be able to make and know that people would want it.
I don’t really want money- the only reason I want money is because I do like eating, and I plan to buy basic products when I’m older. Maybe I’ll get saucy and buy some pants one day, who knows. This is why I hate YouTube. Don’t get me wrong, I am still a little sad that I’m editing videos for 4 or more hours a day, and I’m getting (on a good day) 20 views. I am sad that the stuff I’m making won’t be blowing up anytime soon, but it’s not due to money. I could do YouTube for free forever and be content with that. I would just like recognition.
Recognition may rhyme with free tuition, but they are not interchangeable. Just because people know who I am and what I do doesn’t mean it will pave my way through life. I can spend 1000 hours on YouTube and make nothing, and a million views won’t put me anywhere close to getting through school if they aren’t monetized. And that is why, instead of I love you’s of creative freedom, I have I hate you’s of capitalist warfare for YouTube. Nothing is about making something you love, it’s all about making money. There’s a formula that will automatically help certain videos to jump to the top of most people’s recommended.
What I make probably won’t do that. I’ve been recording covers over the last few days, not really for any notoriety, but just because I like to. I like trying to figure out how to improve my voice so that I get and sound better. I will post them, mainly because my biggest struggle as of right now is that fact that I’ve been losing so much confidence. By staying inside for so long, away from the harsh and loving glow of the stage lights, I fear I’ve lost my touch. If I were to be thrown onto a stage right now, it would be exactly what I want. But. And this is a very sad but to have. But I don’t think I would be the same level of performer that I used to be.
I want to build that confidence again. I already had to build it from nothing and maintain it, but it’s looking like, after an estimated extra 9 months in quarantine, I’ll be out of it. Out of practice. Out of myself, and out of my mind.
Visual art has been something that I’ve found that I love, and am pretty decent at. I’ve always toyed with the idea of being a visual artist, specifically a painter, but I never really committed to it. Anytime I would paint or draw, I would immediately compare my abstractness to someone else’s semi realism. And then I’d just stop. Because I wasn’t doing what they did, so that must mean I’m not good enough to keep going. As if it’s fair to compare Kahlo to Van Gogh to Picasso. At the beginning of quarantine, I was reminded of a moment in my creative writing class during sophomore year. This class was probably the closest I have ever been to creative fulfillment, and that was because I had, quite possibly, the most amazing teacher I’ve ever been able to work with in my life.
We had around 4 weeks about Vincent Van Gogh, not studying his art, but rather his life. Studying how pain made an artist. Studying how, sometimes, life long work is ignored until death, when suddenly decomposition forms a genius. I remembered, when I could no longer go out and live the way I used to, that Van Gogh constantly locked himself away. His best works, the ones that spoke most to what made us human (wanting to capture pretty lights) were the ones made when there was nothing to accompany him but his own mind. (And, obviously his works captured much more than pretty lights, but I like to say that the lights were a major role in all of his stuff).
Even though Vincent did what he loved, he wasn’t seen as amazing till well after he was dead. Sometimes I wonder if that will happen to me. I will work and work until I die, and then the world will stop to be frozen in mourning. Mourning the fact that my work is the embodiment of all I am leaving behind, my love and hopes and dreams. Encased in paint and embroidery floss. Closed in words and poems. I wonder if that would be a better legacy than paying my way to working within a capitalist system. I refuse to be a working cog in a system that wants the world to fail.
In case you were wondering, yes, I do still listen to Rage Against the Machine, and I’ve been listening to it since I was still a toddler. I think it may be why I have so many qualms with my YouTube career.
I think one day, I’ll find out what success means to me, especially in terms of artistry. But, with all the growing I’m doing, I might put that on the back burner for a while.
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