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Popularity VS Talent
18 years ago
General
Guaranteed to put you to sleep faster than Ben Stein reading the periodical table of elements!
The other day there was a WTF scenario going on that had me and several other people concerned because it involved animal abuse. It turned out that the account was made as a rather sick April fools joke (that was actually made on the 3rd, and the event happened on the 6th) and I was told that I was over reacting by researching the person in-depth so I could contact the police about it. But that's not the point of this post. It's a lead up.
The account sharked in other people than myself, including someone who will go unnamed that is infamous for the fact they attracts drama, instigate it, perpetuates it, and revels in it. We'll call them X and Y.
X was the infamous one for drama, Y was the one who created the joke account. Now X starts badmouthing Y and insulting them. Y is very nice about it and even tries to diffuse the situation by complimenting X, telling X that they have GOOD art, GOOD talent, but that all of their drama holds them back from being a better artist and going somewhere.
Now, this whole thing turned into a real dramafest, in which X kept being a snot, and Y kept trying to say it's nothing personal, continuing the compliments, and still trying to make X see that they didn't have to be a drama whore. And then of course X broadcasted the whole thing and got their minions involved. I'm on the side of Y here and I respect the fact they tried to be point blank with X. X showed how petty they are by giving stupid come backs that didn't even sound like X registered what was being said to them.
This whole thing lead up to making me wonder about something. Why is it that when artists are popular, REGARDLESS of what talent they may or may not have, that so many people suck up to them? I've thought about this in a circular clause. You have an artist that gets recognized as being popular.
**NOTE** This is not ALWAYS the case, but SOMETIMES I've seen that:
Even when they're mean, people suck up to them so that they themselves might get some recognition in return. The popular artist then lets the popularity get to their head, they get meaner to people who aren't their minions so they have someone to snark on, their art LOSES quality, and they start focusing less on becoming a better artist, and more about keeping their popularity while subjugating others. Well since they've gained the title of popular, even when people start losing interest in them because they stop doing art, rather than turn their attention elsewhere, they keep giving attention to the drama artist, which makes it worse instead of giving them a wake-up call that they need to get their art together.
You following me?
What I'm trying to say is that if you lose respect for someone and lose interest, you don't HAVE to keep sheeping to them. Yes, they're popular, but guess what? That popularity might be fake because even though people don't like them anymore, they keep giving them attention anyways. If YOU'RE doing that, then who else might be doing the same thing? Maybe their whole following is of people who don't care about their art anymore but keep sheeping anyways. You don't have to do that. And it reaches a certain point where if the artist gets so drama-infested, why would you want to be associated with them anyways? Do you really want to be a groupie and get fake affection from someone just to get a shout-out, or to get free art, when you could be investing that same amount of time into getting real friends, or making your art fantastic to become popular yourself through your own means? You could be popular because you rock! Invest your time in yourself, and the results will follow naturally!
I don't know if that'll make sense to anyone else, but it's just a rant. I'm very black and white with things, if I don't like someones art, I tell them so, but it has nothing to do with me not liking the person who made it. Whereas conversely, if I don't like the person but I like their art, I'll also tell them. My point is, I'm a very ballsy person. I was raised in New York, and I speak my mind and give my opinion point blank to people. This gets me in trouble alot, because more often than not people get their feelings hurt or think it's a personal attack, when my words are JUST an opinion. It's not an emotional game, it's not an insult, it's a sterile opinion from an objective party. And on the flip side of THAT, when people tell me THEIR opinion, I take it with a grain of salt and thank them for taking the time out of their schedule to say anything at all to me, positive or negative. I LIKE both, because one reinforces me, one challenges me. Either way, HEY, I just got some notice and I got a snippets of someones day. It's beautiful to have someone take time out of their day to say something to you, regardless of what they say. Anything can be made into something positive, if in no other way then making it a learning experience of what not to do, lol.
I think more people would be happier with themselves if they spoke their mind, too, and were more true to themselves and who they are. Then maybe less people would get blind worship, and more people would get recognized for their true talent. Why would you want blind worship anyways? Wouldn't you rather go to bed at night knowing whatever praise you got, that you deserved it and worked hard for it?
Ah well, end rant.
Usually they suck up to artists in hopes of getting free art, requests met, more work by the artist... but those that 'suck up' are always kids in their teens or early 20's and have nothing truly interesting to say.
That does not suggest that some of those ages do infact, have interesting and thoughtful things to say, but those that do aren't kissing an artists ass. They actually have something to say. ^_^
The sum of my post was that if people spent as much time working on drawing as they did trying to get other drawings or just plain popularity, they'd get enough skill to rock the socks off the world.
I adore your work really and love seeing your new pics. What little time I've been online here of late I've kept up with your comic and other pictures.
I've also noticed that talent doesn't always equal popularity, and popularity doesn't always equal talent. I've seen a lot of really talented people out there who have only three or four people watching them, and then I see people who are very popular but who have no talent. Popularity seems to be a beast of its own -- and I do mean 'beast'. I have a theory that half of the people who watch popular artists actually do so because they like their art, and the other half do it because they want to be associated with them.
Or maybe that's just dA, too. I have a lot more experience with deviantART and the drama / politics going on over there (and I do mean politics, I mean, woah) than with Fur Affinity, which doesn't seem to have nearly as much of either.
Woooo, and that's my rant. XP
When participants could see how others have chosen, a new trend arose. Based on a lot of choices presented to them and limited data, people were more likely to choose a song that other people had ranked highly--even if the song wasn't of particularly good quality. It would seem that popularity breeds popularity. (It might explain the quality of some of the songs on the radio...)
You can read more about it here:
http://www.livescience.com/humanbio.....hit_songs.html
This is just my own conjecturing based on things I've seen. It would seem that even if a popular person or artist turned nasty, they'd probably still remain popular for awhile. I think the climb to popularity can be either gradual, sudden, or everything in between, but the fall in popularity will be gradual because of how people work. People see "X" is popular, so new people want to investigate why "X" is so popular, thus reinforcing their popularity. If a celebrity turns nasty, more fans might be leaving than arriving, but it takes awhile for that bright "Popularity Beacon" to die off completely where the person completely fades away from the public's view.
I think someone would have to do something really heinous to be completely unpopular. At least, that's the trend I've noticed. As we can see with Michael Jackson, you'll have have a bunch of die-hard fans for some very odd reason. You see it a lot in Hollywood. Actors and actresses do really stupid things all the time, but it doesn't seem to hurt their popularity very much.
This is my two cents. Hope it helps!
I've never cared about blending in. I've never cared about pleasing the majority. When I do nice things for people, I do it custom tailored to their real personality, I don't believe in doing stuff just because a ton of other people are.
It's like the Emporer's new clothes story. People act like it's the rage and give you enough praise and then you do something even though it goes against your fundamental knowledge. Then everyone else is so afraid of being left out, they agree "Oh, those are the finest clothes in all the land," until a passerby comes along and says you idiot, you're naked.
I suppose for the popular artist who is also honest and genuine that popularity could be used for more meaningful things, like strong sales. Suppose the artist was also very charismatic. (Heck, I've known people to be even more popular than some artists solely on their enormous charisma!) The popularity feeds itself, but it started because the person was just really nifty.
Rather than taper off, popularity keeps growing over time. An actor like Johnny Depp is amazingly cool to fans *and* I'm of the personal opinion he's pretty talented (YMMV). He's really down to earth and stuff, so his popularity probably won't die off anytime soon.
Then you have folks like Britney Spears, who are talentless hacks AND a total bitch to her fans. The only reason she's not gone from the public eye is because--like some artists--they are drama queens, always causing new train wrecks. I think that's where the idea of "notoriety" comes from. They're not well-known for favorable reasons, just unfavorable ones. And people *love* watching train wrecks.
The people who get true recognition are the ones who DO something with themselves.
The people who are sucking up have no sense of self esteem, outside of the esteem that others have for them. So they try to create this vital sense of worth second-hand, via someone they think is valuable: the artist.
The artists that succumb to this kind of treatment are mostly not good artists, because they aren't satisfied with themself, and know it. This is what helps to reflect in the art being poor, combined with other aptitudes and techniques.
Thus, a vicious cycle starts, like a self-licking ice cream cone. The artist gets a false ego boost due to un-earned popularity, and pays back the only way he knows how, by returning false esteem. This hits the admierer, and he gushes that a 'famous' person knows they exist, thus they must be worth something.
Do people try to get free art from me? Rarely, but it happens. I usually say no.