Growing up, I had a million different hobbies. Horse-riding, drawing, sculpting, photography, dancing, etc. and as an adult, I suppose that hasn’t changed much. I have started so many different hobbies, tried things about but I also found a renewed love for creativity that was supressed for a long time.
In fact, the only reason that I’ve started on my creative endeavours with a little more passion is because I was stuck in bed for a couple of months after breaking my foot. I started learning to sketch, and paint and I also realise how much I’d neglected making music.
As life returned to normal, my creativity started to take a back burner again and I think I realised why – social media. In a multitude of ways, it became a creativity killer for me. But I also see it in other people online.
The truth is, social media has warped the way we think. We started judging our own creations to global standards. We start looking at ways we can profit from our endeavours. We start distracting ourselves with what other people are doing rather than making time for ourselves.
Creativity is a form of self-expression. For as long as humans have been around, art has existed. It’s existed in paintings, drawings, music and stories. Art was always created and for no other purpose than expression and entertainment.
But like most good things in the world, the businessmen came in and decided to profit off of it. Authors don’t get paid well. Actors have to struggle for years until they get their big break. The theatre is always under threat. Musicians have to commercialise themselves. Artists have to focus on what brings money rather than joy.
Everyone has to make sacrifices, that’s true. But it’s sad when creative expression stops being creative.
In the past few months, we’ve seen the rise of AI art and music. We see that businesses are trying to take the creativity out of creative industries. Even publishers are looking to publish AI books as it increases their profits.
And social media, is also telling us, that we aren’t good enough. Why would you start painting if you can’t share it or sell it? After all, art is supposed to be shared.
The other challenge we face with social media is that we are so heavily influenced. It’s hard to come up with original ideas, because we are constantly being shown thousands of types of media. Is your song original, or is it copied from another artist accidentally? Did you want to paint that animal, or did you think it might sell well?
Social media has made it hard for us to think for ourselves. Not only that, but it also adds a level of negativity around some of the art. A painting group that I’m part of started to ask about how much they could charge for their paintings and then some people were furious about that questions, stating that it doesn’t belong in the group. It’s for feedback on art, not business advice. But that’s exactly my point, social media is so saturated, it ends up impacting our creativity.
But now onto the good part.
Without social media, I wouldn’t have been brave enough to start. My first painting was done in an actual group but after that, I relied on social media to be my guide. I wanted to learn techniques which is where YouTube helped. I found quick tutorials from certain pages on Instagram. On top of that, you have the opportunity to visit a gallery every day digitally.
Social media is a tool – we just have to be careful how we use it. It can be a place to learn, to grow and to connect with likeminded people. But it can also stunt our growth by distracting and discouraging us.
If I can encourage just one thing, is that at least one creative pursuit that you choose to do, do it without social media. For piano, I’m using Yousician. For cello and violin, I’m just playing around trying to replicate songs. I take part in painting classes and I have attempted sketching without a tutorial. Give yourself the freedom to explore what you’re feeling and create something that comes from you, not from what other people dictate.
