Being an Outsider Artist
Why “Content Creation” Killed Art, and How We Can Bring It Back to Life. + Lots of Links and Examples to Ride the Digital New Wave.
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This is a continuation of my essay called: Internet Anthropology. Creating Historic Landmarks Made of Code, and Monuments in the Aether. - It’s totally free and I recommend reading that one first to understand exactly what is going on here.
Here I’ll be discussing antidotes to the hamster wheel of content creation. Why it’s near impossible to be a pure artist anymore nowadays, as well as (at the end of this essay) giving lots of links and references to some interesting, obscure, digital art monuments from what I consider to be the exciting new (old) age of the internet. (I talk about what that means exactly in the first, above-mentioned essay).
So we’ve discussed the fact that we’re all sick of the current way of the internet, and the basics of what I believe is coming next. But, we haven’t yet discussed the intricacies of it, how to fulfill it, nor why it has pushed us to overhaul this downward spiral of a “way”.
This age of constant content creation has killed The Artist. It has completely taken away the allure of the mystery of life and the labyrinth art is meant to help you decipher. So that your brain can solve puzzles and participate in creation instead of having a concept served to you on a boring, rusty, fake silver platter.
Nowadays, to have any chance at success, you must give everything away.
You must pull people in with heavy, perfected promotions of your art and ideas, hoping the right person sees it and gives you a chance. You paint a portrait and you have to take photos of every little detail, and even the process of you making the details themselves, enlarging them and spoon feeding it all to an unwilling and overfed audience.
You need to spend more time on the promotional content than you ever did on the art itself in the first place. And is it even YOUR art anymore anyways? Now that you've had to cater every detail to the mass of hypothetical people who have very specific and mainstream tastes?
And if you don't promote the hell out of yourself in a perfectly manicured way, then you'll get swept under the rug in an instant, then only acts of God and fate can bring eyes to your work.
As is the case for many artists, as soon as they take a break from social media (TO MAKE ART), they get left behind, forgotten. There are rarely masterworks anymore in art because of this. People don’t have the time to hone a skill, to work on a piece long enough to make it truly incredible. You must put out one artwork a week, and make sure it’s on a schedule, so people know exactly when to expect your work! Be a perfect machine, otherwise you have no chance. But true masterpieces take years to complete if not decades, lifetimes of effort.
Imagine a world where places like the Sistene Chapel weren’t just monuments of the past, but things like this were still actively being built today. Humans born and raised in a tradition and a line of people before them, teaching them how to become a master. a lineage of craftsman.
People don’t have opportunities to become master architects anymore (or masters of anything) when they’re expected to have already designed and built their first building by the time they’re 25, or a few years out of university. Working on one building for a lifetime isn’t PROFITABLE, so therefore, it is a lost art, lost to time forever perhaps.
I saw a video recently where someone was complaining about this same topic of how content creation has made it really hard for musicians to actually make good music or a genuine name for themselves anymore.
They said “Imagine if Tom Yorke had to go on TikTok and be like ‘Did I just make the song of the summer, guys??’” And it’s literally Creep by Radiohead. That song absolutely would've been so lame if he had to do this, and you know it.
It’s unfortunately so embarrassing and degrading and takes away any allure an artist may have previously had when they have to promote themselves like this. But the thing is, it feels like there’s no other choice nowadays!
Artists are meant to have enough time to make art, and make content for the art and promote the art and distribute the art all themselves and yet somehow still keep their mysterious air around them. It's not possible anymore except for a very rare lucky few, born with perfect brain genetics which makes them able to do all these things in such a subtle way without going insane (and often a bit of nepotism and generational wealth going for them too).
But most artists are awkward outsiders! That’s the point! They are meant to convey emotions and make art, not promotional content! And so of course it becomes embarrassing and cringe worthy when these artists who could truly have something real to say, have to create ads instead of art.
Think about it, oftentimes, the best artists you've seen are the ones you've found by pure luck and chance. You specifically got drawn in because it seemed you discovered a hidden gem in the bushes. Not because the gem was thrown in your face by a strip-mall gem seller telling you how perfect and amazing the gem is and how it'll be the best thing you'll see this summer!
The things you treasure are the things it feels like you were granted, drawn to, things you uncovered, things you found, things you were meant to find by right of destiny. Something obscure and unique.
That's why people also tend to gatekeep the absolute best artists because it feels like something’s more special when it's a secret. When it's small and revealed only to you, whispered in your ear in the night when everyone else is taking their rest, but you were up late enough to hear it. You were the sole viewer of the shooting star and now you get to make a wish. It takes a real treasure hunter.
I think moving away from constant digital promotion is not only better for the average viewer to not be bombarded with constant corny advertisements, but better for the artist to have time to make ART.
So you may be wondering, “What can I do instead? How will people find out about me?”
Well I suggest a few ways,
Collaborate with people who are naturally skilled in practical world things like promotion/business. If people started doing this again, instead of making everything a one man show, it would start reinvigorating the original way of a natural art community where different people play different roles according to their expertise, all benefiting equally and having fun because they get to do only their passion instead of having to do all the jobs themselves.
Try and find someone who would be willing to do this with you on an equal basis since you likely don't have the money to pay a promoter. Find someone who understands that you're both just starting out and need to work with each other on the basis of investment rather than immediate salary. The investment of both of your time and energy, hoping to eventually make the salary. Instead of both of you doing subpar jobs on your own, and still making no money. Work together and have a bigger chance at making it. Splitting the inevitable wins on a 50/50 basis.
Another way to do this same thing but different, is to start your own artist collective! Stop waiting around for other people to invite you to collaborate on things, start something yourself and invite other artists to join!
Then you have an entire network of artists who all have their own network of friends and connections. And when you all put together a group show for example, or when the others post about the stuff you're all working on, everyone who has eyes on THEM will now also have eyes on YOU by default. It is a great mutually beneficial system for everyone involved. And of course it's just fun and inspiring to be a part of a collective like this! Something tangible and real.
If you're dead set on going at it on your own completely, try to make your promotions into its own art project as well. Try hosting a physical showing of your art instead of making a bunch of little tik toks or instagram reels about it. Make the gallery space into a performance of sorts, create a physical space people WANT to enter and be a part of, not something they have to be dragged into. Make it multidisciplinary, an entire experience.
Make a short film and have the art in the background or in the script or being interacted with. Make it subtle and not overt. Let the viewers figure it out for themselves, seeing something in the film they love and get drawn in to explore more about that aspect of it.
Make a physical book of your art. Maybe with a storyline to interact with.
There are many ways in which you can make your promotions full projects in and of themselves, which is also just making more art, you get to use your creative skills in many ways.
Become a true outsider artist, trusting in destiny or fate and just make your art without expectations, because you're an artist and that is what you do. Be completely yourself. If you feel inspired to do some unique or subversive promotion as art itself, then do it, but otherwise just make weird, obscure, personal shit. Put it out in whatever way feels right to you, on whatever platform you wish to share it through, or don't, and just place a finished canvas in the center of a busy park with your name signed big on the back and see what happens.
I know we all want to make money through our art and quit our side jobs, but is it worth losing your dignity, allure or personality for? And adding to the cacophony of the digital landfill, taking away the special spark that makes you unique? Slow and steady wins the race.
Reject content production, embrace making weird shit and just seeing what happens.
And now, for some examples, links and references of this new wave content I've been talking about (talked about especially in my last essay). What the internet is moving towards. Less buzz and more shimmers and hidden treasures in the sand..
Starting off strong with less of the ‘personal’ type work that I spoke most about last time, but what I believe need to be at the top of the list. My absolute favorite FREE passion project, digital work I’ve ever come across, but somehow very underground still compared to other art of this level and quality.
This is the first part of the series “INTERFACE” by the creator, Umami.
This series they’ve made available for free on Youtube, is far superior quality to almost any show or movie I have seen in my life. What’s incredible is seeing, slowly, how his animation quality grows in strength over the years. I started watching this series right at the beginning, and while they only came out with an episode once every few months, I was absolutely hooked, waiting for the drop with every passing day. The first few episodes are amazing quality, but once you get to the last episodes, your jaw will be dropped with the skill level and beauty of the animation quality.
They have now completed the Interface series and are working on a new series called Safe Mode on the same channel, which they are steadily putting out work for. They also occasionally post random animations and little stories on the side of their bigger projects, which are just as incredible.
On that same vibe, another incredible MASTERWORK, Puparia. Taking 3 years, to make a 3 minute animation. This is exactly what I am talking about when I say putting passion and art, over content creation.
I’d like to also add in a little bit of
. Sotce is a girl in the world making strange shit. Mostly incomprehensible, with her comment sections filled with an intriguing split down the middle of “I get it” or, “I don't get it”. It's fun to learn enough of her lore and become one of the people who says the former. Here is a link to her latest youtube video:
and her instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sotce/?hl=en
Now this is where we especially get into that more personal content I was talking about last essay. Youtube recommended is lately starting to push more and more random feeling, mysterious content which I find really great of their algorithm, whether it is intentional or not, I love it and so do most people, it seems. Here's a few true hidden gems I've been recently suggested which are really obscure videos yet have so many views because of being randomly targeted by the algorithm:
“This is how I see the world”
“Dead Poets in NYC”
“Dirty girls”
“My therapist k****d himself and now I don't know what to do.”
“GRRL STYLE NOW short film”
“Reading The Wall by Satre while oil painting a wall one pixel at a time”
“Looking at the hydrangeas”
“Les medusees”
I know Ethel Cain isn’t exactly underground anymore, but her style of youtube videos recently is exactly what I am talking about. Here’s: “the ring, the great dark, and proximity to god”. This video begins by talking a bit about music theory and evolves into something a lot more esoteric. Look at more of her recent videos as well if you’d like.
(Ps. A good way to find random gems is to search a word or phrase on youtube followed by .mov and filter by upload date)
Not to do the whole self promotion thing that I just put down, but here is an old youtube video I made a while back where I am doing the exact style I have been discussing. My aim is to make more of these because I absolutely love going back to watch them. I used to make these all the time for youtube:
Here is also one my ex boyfriend made while we were in the honeymoon phase of dating, that is me in the background and I think this video is also a perfect representation of the same genre:
Here are some of my favorite mysterious personalized websites. These are all meant for desktop/laptop viewing, if you are viewing from mobile, I doubt they will be so nice but you can try!:
-First one I found: https://melonking.net/melon
-This one is so insane and intriguing, very inspiring, *flash warning*: https://suyu.neocities.org/
-May be also called substack but is very different lol, make sure to actually click on the artworks!: https://substack.net/
-I just think this one is designed so nicely and the blurb at the beginning on the home page gives the same vibes as this essay lol: https://feelingmachine.moe/
I’m sure if you're on Substack, you know a bunch of cool pages here already, but here's a few more of my faves:
And lastly, I used to have all these awesome saved PDFs that were so mystifying, but they were on my old computer and they were lost :( but I do have one to share with you: https://analepsis.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/14539013-jack-kerouac-essentials-of-spontaneous-prose.pdf Not that Kerouac is alive anymore, but I think random PDFs like this found on the archives of the internet is what makes surfing the web so rewarding and fun.
Now, these are just links I have found more recently. I wish I had more of my old files. But, I plan to continue to share more examples of these in monthly Substack posts for rare, hidden-gem, internet finds, probably for my paid subscribers, with previews for my free subscribers. And feel free to see if I post any treasure on my website: https://treasurefinder.neocities.org/ Hope you enjoyed, and happy browsing :)
Neo, you are so right about all the work artists have to do now to get noticed but I think it used to be that you had to impress gallery owners to get your work shown, so that had to be hard too. and a lot of artists never even got the chance to shine. I can't wait to explore all the links you included, but the two I did watch are the one's where you are in the video. You're so beautiful!
Hi! This is so very cool