XaitheFluffy

I know it’s probably a bad idea to answer this, adding fuel to the fire and all that, but there’s a good chance you’re an artist yourself, maybe even one struggling to pull in notes… And even if you’re not, you sound like the artist I was when I was at my lowest. So, I’ll take this as a chance to talk about my experience with notes, if only to serve as a cautionary tale.

First of all, and with all due respect, I didn’t start that way. In 2016, I could barely reach over 100 notes with my fanart. I can still remember crying tears of joy when I woke up to 300 notes one morning, like I’d somehow “made it”. I’ll also spare you the five years of DeviantArt and 2 favourites per drawing prior to that. My first “popular” post happened around May 2016, and everything after that was a slippery slope.

The more notes I got, the more notes I wanted. Validation, at long last! I didn’t even know I needed it, but now I wanted nothing more. It got to a point where I was no longer drawing for me, but for notes. “What do people want to see?”, I asked myself. “What are other people doing that’s popular?” “How can I ever do better than my biggest drawing to date?”

It got so bad that I began denying ideas I really wanted to explore, because I knew they wouldn’t do well. Art became a competition I could never win. Against other artists, against myself… And it was such a dark, unhealthy place to be.

Something inside me broke in July 2017. There were no more ideas. There was no more drawing. Nothing. Through my obsession with popularity, I had killed my creativity and had become afraid of drawing. I mean, sitting down in front of the tablet, tears welling in my eyes, mind blank and belittling, afraid.

It all happened at a time when my blog was doing better than it ever had. I was miserable, and oh so willing to give it all up. Because when you’re that disappointed in your art, that unsatisfied, followers and reblogs and notes just don’t matter.

I got back into art a few weeks later, not because of social media, but because something inside of me yearned to create. But those wounds were still there, that niggling voice in the back of my head, the insecurities, the doubt, the self-loathing. It’s been half a year since then, and I’m still paying for it.

If the experience taught me anything it’s that if the only reason an artist draws is for popularity, they won’t be drawing for very long. “Easy to say when you-“ yeah, yeah, I know.

Popularity isn’t why you start. It can’t be. There’s something else, something beautiful and magical that makes you want to create. If you smother that, you’ll stop, plain and simple. I did, I didn’t know that I was, but I did. It’s been a long process of self-healing since then (with some really dark days in between), but I’m finally getting somewhere happy… And I really hope you can get somewhere happy too, anon.  

I love art more than ever have. I’ve been posting original content recently. I’ve simplified my style. I’ve been honest about my struggles in art… and as a result my notes have been really suffering and my blog has stopped growing. As grateful as I am for the followers I have, I’ve never been happier in art than I am right now, being daring and self-indulgent and honest and unpopular.