Artist envy

[Thomas]

i can't watch her because i get jealous

yes i know this is stupid

So says our wonderful GoblinAhFuckScary in the Contrapoints thread. I was immediately reminded of my feelings about Bo Burnham and his globally lauded Inside special, apparently the definitive funny/serious lockdown artwork. I wouldn't know, I haven't seen it in full, but whenever it comes up I am warped by a dispiriting mental nausea.

I can enjoy my heroes, my beloved Chris Morrises and my wonderous Johnny Marrs, without a single negative flinch, but something about this contemporary, largely unfamiliar young act makes my own attempts in various small arenas seem disastrously inadequate. From what little I have seen, I don't actually find him that funny. Maybe it's simply because we are close in age.

It's a stupid, vain cul-de-sac of a sensation, and art - whether literary, musical, or making sweet little mice people out of fondant icing - should be done for its own sake, on the safe assumption that it will never be exposed to an audience (which is something I am perfectly capable of - I've loads written that will ultimately end up for Nobody's Eyes Only), but we must also allow ourselves to feel our feelings - and artist envy, it appears, is one of them. For me, at least, there seems to be a thin line between feeling inspired and feeling dispirited. After all, a vast starry sky means both beauty and heat death.

I should add that I don't think dispiritment and envy are bad for art. Like every feeling on Earth, they can be used productively.

I promise I'll get over it in a minute.

EDIT:
Sorry for the late edits, hope I haven't glitched this up.

[Magnum Valentino]

Before someone more eloquent chimes in can I try and put your mind at ease by saying I feel exactly the same thing, and often.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Before someone more eloquent chimes in can I try and put your mind at ease by saying I feel exactly the same thing, and often.

Same. Not for everything, just every now and then someone comes along I find it painful to consume due to feeling inadequate to. Ivan Dorin being my latest

[GoblinAhFuckScary]

a sad irl feeling i've been having is that i have a few very close friends that became reasonably quite successful in arts in the last few years, and that because my experiences are not exactly comparable to theirs i've actually let these friendships drift apart through fear of being pitied for my perceived inadequacy

i can't bear the thought of people thinking to themselves "it's a real shame she never made anything of herself"

paranoid? you bet yer ass

[Thomas]

Phew, shared experiences.

I sometimes read artists denying that they ever feel envious, or that they choose not to because it's a 'useless' feeling. But natural feelings will occur, even if they're ultimately filtered away by the practisingly mindful - there's no point pretending you don't have a Stone Age human brain. I also disagree that any feeling is useless. Bad, disastrous, poisonous for your mental health, yes, but never useless.

[PlanktonSideburns]

a sad irl feeling i've been having is that i have a few very close friends that have become reasonably quite successful in arts in the last few years, and that because my experiences are not exactly comparable to theirs i've actually let these friendships drift apart through fear of being pitied for my perceived inadequacy

i can't bear the thought of people thinking to themselves "it's a real shame she never made anything of herself"

paranoid? you bet yer ass

Very strong resonance with this

Starting to get more comfortable with my plodding weekend warrior status these days, but it sure is tough when artist friends do well sometimes. I'm getting better at championing friends successes these days, it's definatley a better way to be

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I find it quite inspiring.

Instead of art envy, I suppose I am envious of acts of bravery. Freeclimbing and hurling yourself off stuff, and confronting psychos on the street in a good cause. I really wish I have the courage to risk things like that. Self-sacrifice, that's the sort of thing to marvel at and be envious of.

But envious of creativity? Nah. And Thomas shouldn't be either. It's to enjoy and be inspired by.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Don't tell me what I can't be a crouching little goblin about. Maybe I'll get jealous of your thoughtful and creative posting style

And there won't be a DANM thing you can do about it

[buttgammon]

I know a few writers and there is some envy there, yes. One in particular I always quite disliked, but I sometimes wonder if I find him more irritating because of his art - it's not my cup of tea, but he is good at what he does. Saying that, a friend of mine is having some success at the moment and I'm just happy, not least because I genuinely enjoy his stuff, and he's also very generous at championing other people and has indirectly introduced me to some great stuff that way.

Even older writers give me a sense of 'shit, I thought of that too'. My writers ambitions are really modest, in that I'd be happy getting a short story published here and there and leaving it at that, but I recently read an Imre Kertesz book immediately after submitting something and midway through the book, I realised he was doing something very similar to my story and got into a panic about it. In some way, I think seeing my peers getting published has spurred me on to get back into writing fiction, so it can be a positive thing too.

[bgmnts]

I am a pure human manifestation of envy.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Actually tell a lie, there's a bloke who shags his house. Envious of that guy.

[weaseldust]

the other day i looked up how old aphex twin was when he made selected ambient works and became depressed

[PlanktonSideburns]

Championing people is contagious too, if people see you doing it they will want to get in on the love in

Vile stuff, rather be toiling in my basement with my dartboard with a picture of dovetastic microwave theatre on it

[Tikwid]

There's a particular Twitch streaming group (won't name them) who got real big last year with some really creative streams and videos, and while I enjoyed their rise to fame and seeing them get well-deserved accolades, it was hard not to get envious because it turns out they're about one step removed from one of my current friend groups. So for a lot of 2020 and a bit of 2021 I had to deal with this kind of parasocial complex where I was jealous of their rapport and their content, a lot of it utilising styles of humour and in-jokes I've long been familiar with from those older social circles, while also longing for the opportunity to weasel my way into their own social space through some mythic back door or group chat invite, like their DMs were one of Jay Gatsby's parties or something. I guess it's a bit less about artistic envy at that point, though I found that trying to reframe my thoughts for the envy proper - turning it into admiration and inspiration of their creative processes, rather than negatively comparing them to myself - has helped me eradicate the overall complex as a whole. so I GOT BETTER

tl;dr: if a content creator isn't literally your friend, don't treat them as one - even if they're literally one Kevin Bacon degree away from being so

[peanutbutter]

Usually not, I can generally see the kinds of ways they're unhappy and see that I couldn't be bothered dealing with that.


One thing that'll be a sure fire guarantee I get a bit envious with this kind of stuff is reading about how much of an impact their parents/environment had on their development. If it's purely that they're rich I'll not be bothered because it tends to make me instantly think fuck all of their personal achievements but if it's like... their dad was an enthusiast of some kind who taught them a bunch of shit when they were super young that they just ran with... anything like that will bring out a firm "well I never had a chance growing up in a shithole with parents who didn't even know who the Beatles were and a school that had 0 extracurricular activites or anything resembling an art class"

[Thomas]

We hate it when our friends become successful
And if they're northern, that makes it even worse

The best thing about counting Morrissey among your heroes is that, at this stage, it's physically impossible to feel envious of him or anything about him - except his marvellous capacity for sweat.

[PlanktonSideburns]

YES I DID SEE ICELANDS EUROVISION ENTRY THANKS MUM

[Blue Jam]

Re: Bo Burnham- I feel the same way, and I think it's partly his age but also the fact that he's so damn musical. That's the one thing that really does make me envious, people who make the writing and playing of music look so effortless. And when they're also funny with it? Bastards.

If Bill Bailey was half my age would I envy him too? Possibly.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

the other day i looked up how old aphex twin was when he made selected ambient works and became depressed

Imagine how he feels, burdened by the majesty of his youthful creations that (and it's not even being slightly unkind) he has never come close to equalling for decades. On the one hand pride, on the other: oh no what happened I'm creatively moribund let's just shit out some acid half my fanbase will say is ok even when it isn't.

[Blue Jam]

the other day i looked up how old aphex twin was when he made selected ambient works and became depressed

I experienced something similar when I first heard Edan's Mic Manipulator.

Imagine how he feels, burdened by the majesty of his youthful creations that

Perhaps he's the Acid Peter Cook.

[zomgmouse]

100% get this and the more I go on the worse it gets because it seems like everyone else is skyrocketing around me while I'm stuck twiddling at the launch pad pushing my rocket into a wall

[Retinend]

Funny this thread was made, because I'm also jealous of Contrapoints. Specifically, jealous of the work circa 2017, where she still had a more lo fi approach. I was jealous because I felt like I knew enough about the subject matter (online white boy extremism) to be accurately criticising it, as she was doing, and I was jealous for that fact that she did this on YouTube, all independently.

At that time YouTube was full of "free speech warriors" that were very friendly to the white nationalist extremists, and who made all their podcasts and Google hangouts available totally publicly, and with total impunity. It's since been dubbed the "Alternative Influencer Network." It was a culture where anyone opinionated enough could pick up a microphone and webcam (or, if you were shy, you could pick up some random JPEG as your avatar) and suddenly be "part of the culture war". So, I was jealous because it had once or twice crossed my mind to do what she did: to call a spade a spade, or a nazi a nazi, and put a cat amongst the pigeons.

What was great about those early videos was that she exposed how, not only were the alt right vile, but they had poor arguments, and the only reason people didn't "debate them" (as they claimed no one dared to) was that they were not serious thinkers, and believed heinous shit that they had become inured to. That sounds obvious to say - that they weren't serious thinkers - but they certainly did think of themselves as serious thinkers, and Contrapoints's videos gave them all the lie.

So I was quite jealous of her generally, and continued to watch them uneasily, at least until the Jordan Peterson video, which I honestly still haven't watched, because at the time it came out I had been a disgruntled fan for a while. I was, generally, jealous that people were making big waves on YouTube criticising him without knowing the ins and outs of the whole Petersonian ideology, and when I saw Contrapoint's video I knew without watching it that it would be comprehensive, irrefutable, fair - even charitable, and render anything I had to say on him completely unoriginal.

[mrpupkin]

Don't worry jealous lads, eventually all your festering resentments will grind you down to the point of feeling nothing at all :)

[M-CORP]

I've been getting this a lot lately - I'm 19 and looking to get into music production, but while I'm finding it hard to make and finish music I'm happy with, people younger than me are having huge success (Rodrigo, Eilish), and being prolific to the point it makes me wonder if I'm really as cut out for the creative industries as I thought I was. That Bo Burnham thing was also a bit overwhelming in terms of how well it was put together by just one person. The jealousy doesn't even spur me on to create, it just reminds me how pointless my endeavours are because there's already so much music out there without me making the effort. I don't want to moan, just making the point that other people feel this kind of envy.

Don't worry jealous lads, eventually all your festering resentments will grind you down to the point of feeling nothing at all :)

A working class hero is something to be....

Actually, that could make a good song. Oh shit, it's been done already. Like everything else.

[zomgmouse]

the worst is when you're envious of other older artists for getting success early on comparatively in their lives/careers

[ProvanFan]

I got a bit envious of Peter Baynham while reading about his career yesterday. More happy for him though. Look at that face, he's spanking gorgeous.

Got a wee pang about Liam Williams recently too. Probably thanks to some bits in Ladhood and Homes and Experiences hitting very close to home.

It's not really something that plagues me though. Protected by the blanket of having kept my creative endeavours at hobby status and never actually put myself out there. So I never failed, did I? Nope!

[imitationleather]

You guys are jealous of actually famous people. I'm jealous of highly-regarded posters on here!

[thenoise]

Maybe because I have never tried to write comedy apart from my terrific contributions to the jokes thread, I can enjoy it without any stupid jealousy getting in the way. I've no idea how most of this stuff gets to my screen so I can happily assume they are a different species from the likes of me. If it's shit, I'll search for the CAB thread about it and get my laughs that way :)

Maybe for the same reasons that although I am a musician, most of the music I listen to isn't all that similar to the kind I like to make.

[Icehaven]

I've played in various bands for years, and while I've never had any aspirations of making it a career myself I've played with people who have, and for a few of them the jealousy they had of anyone else's successes, even minor ones, was almost debilitating. It often wasn't even directed at famous people, more at others on the local scene who were given an opportunity or some exposure that they felt they should have had themselves, and the worst thing was not only that it made them angry that they hadn't been given this chance, but also angry at, and deeply resentful of, the other acts, as if they'd cheated somehow and didn't deserve it. Problem with that is if you almost automatically turn against anyone who gets anything you don't get yourself, on a relatively small scene, you end up with very few friendly faces or useful contacts, and everyone just thinks you're a bitter twat.

[The Culture Bunker]

I've dabbled in songwriting and playing in bands - just the fact I was able to get myself on stage despite my anxiety issues was enough of an achievement for me. I've never really been jealous of anyone who "made it" because I know I'm too lazy to ever put the graft in to become really good at something. A friend of mine in Moscow has never had a square job, having worked as an artist since she was young - fair fucks to them. I wish I had both the talent and drive to be able to commit to that.

I wrote some songs with a singer in Italy who arranged/recorded them himself and it doesn't matter if nobody ever buys the album, I'm just happy that I played a part in putting together some tunes that I really like.