june 8, 2025

capitalism, indivudalism, and dearth of creativity

recently, i’ve found myself stumbling over what seems to be an infinite path of tree stumps. creatives and the like understand what i mean when i address my struggle of not knowing the right words to say, lacking ideas, hating my art, and feeling as if my dreams as an artist has reached their end. i draw with disdain. every attempt at a sketch fills me with dread of my own incompetence. any time i set aside to draw i procrastinate and typically discard any efforts in vain. sometimes ill try to write instead. i’ll work on my little visual novel projects that i feel lack meaning, and when i can’t come up with ideas ill repurpose old immature ones only to be disappointed by their inadequacy. art has always been very precious to me. it holds a lot of weight in my life more than those around me may realize. i downplay its importance in fear of being hurt by the disregard of others to the thing ive sunk my whole life into, both practicing and studying. when i feel insecure about my art, i spiral into the bottomless pit of feeling as though i’m not great at anything at all. art isn’t just personal to me. it is me. Art makes up my being it’s an expression of myself and the things that appeal to me. Brought upon by my upbringing, i developed the rigid notion that unless my work was substantial it wasn’t praiseworthy at all. thus necessitating perfection. i’m ashamed of everything I’ve ever made. art isn’t fun to create anymore. all the satisfaction i’ve netted from my own creations are extirpated by my reluctant obligation to compare myself to those who've surpassed me. a disgusting habit of thought that i’m imprisoned by.

we’re all victims to our environment. our experiences are what shaped the convictions that dictate our identity. our individual truth. what seems to be an obvious sentiment, is actually a privilege for us to realize. an even greater privilege to realize, understand, then utilize. which ironically, is what being an artist is all about. when you look up the definition of philosophy, you get two answers. the study of the nature of knowledge, reality, and existence. and, a theory or attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behavior. both of these definitions go hand in hand with creation. art is the expression of philosophy, whether the artist is conscious of it or not. be it through visuals, sounds, words, art is an expression of the self and the perception of the world around them. to be an artist is to be a philosopher. many people criticize modern art: they judge it due to it’s simplicity, or absurdity, or simply because they cannot understand it. however a blank canvas speaks volumes. a shard of glass. a banana taped to a wall. on the surface, anything is meaningless until a human interprets it as otherwise. art is human. art is personal. everyone interprets things differently. we all have different tastes. we can all look at the same thing but have varying ideas and opinions of what it is or what it means. whether we think something is “good” or if we think it’s “bad”, it’s philosophy. No matter the arbitrariness, everything holds meaning. even something as asinine as erotic vampire yaoi, there’s a lot more to pick at than the average person may initially deem.

the year is 2025, capitalist america is at its hapless climax. job stability is in crisis, prices are inflated with no suggestion of receding, and our president posts AI generated depictions of him as the pope onto the app formerly known as twitter but is now being ran by (our president’s ex-boyfriend) a far-right eugenicist billionaire. things aren’t looking too hot despite us being closer to hell than we ever have been in modern times. the wage gap between the poor and the wealthy continues to expand. just about all american citizens can agree that our future looks grim, and many have given up all hope to begin with. under capitalism if you cant exploit your talents for profit they are pointless. i’ll repeat it again, we are all victims to our environment. america wants us to fail. capitalism as a system rides on the lower class and demands suffering. for capitalism to function, someone has to lack, someone has to slave their life away to make ends meet, someone has to remain in poverty. and to be blunt, that someone makes up 38 million americans, if not, more. america has some of the highest incarceration rates, and according to the bureau of justice statistics, 78 percent of incarcerated peoples are forced to labor. the pay they receive for their work is typically less than 3 dollars an hour, although it varies from state to state. the minimum wage for penal labor averages 5 to 10 cents, with some states being 0. not only that, but prisoners generate about 2 billion dollars worth of goods through their labor. capitalist america isn’t just benefiting off of what essentially is, slave labor, but it depends on it. prisoners in america are the most explicit examples to the inhumanity of capitalism and how it literally forces citizens to work for the rest of their lives. capitalism expects us to sacrifice our hobbies, our dreams, and our art so we can work. under capitalism our being is reduced to an employee, a slave. capitalism spreads like spores from mold into art, tainting its authenticity the longer it persists. under capotalism, it isn’t about what you want to produce or what you want to learn, but instead it turns into a quest as to what reaps the most profit, or what other people will pay for. capitalism steals personality from art, which is why AI art is such a demeaning act of violence. AI generated art isn’t art but instead a product. there is no process, thoughts or revision. AI is a disgrace to humanity and steals from the pre-existing creations of artists who did the hard work, who had an idea. AI disregards what makes art, art. not only that but according to MIT, generating a single AI image uses up the same amount of energy as charging a phone. and when you take into consideration how many of these images are being produced, it adds up. it gets even more concerning when you take into account how many applications have integrated ai into their software. instagram, for instamce has a feature where you can generate ai backgrounds for chatrooms, generating at the least 6 images to choose from based on your prompt at a time.

to be an artist under capitalism is to be radical. it’s what keeps me motivated despite my own personal anxieties toward creating. when you take time for yourself to make something, whatever it may be, it’s a counter-attack against capitalism. making art and expressing yourself, the things you like, or your feelings is an act of resistance. it’s important that we persevere and hold onto our dreams because they’re what saves our humanity.

i say this mainly in regards to myself, but you have to let yoursel fail. to make something ugly is letting oneself be human. with our work we've all probably looked for a video for improvement tips or the secret code that it seems like everyone else, or at least everybody better than us already knows. i find myself conflicted with all of the varying tips. "make something everyday even if it sucks" or "practice is pointless if it isn't good practice". i get so frustrated feeling as though i understand but none of this advice is really guiding me to where i wanna be. then inevitably i let myself get distracted by more gratifying fruits, and i make nothing. an easy cycle to get lost in, which is why in 2024 i did the equivalent to nothing. i was so deep in the belief that i'll never get to where i wanna be and my creations are stupid. even now, as i sink myself into a project, a visual novel concept, it's still just a concept. pages of plans and drafts, nothing tangible. it's hard to just have fun when the weight of your own standards and criticisms are pulverizing you into mush like soda to a can-crusher. i give a lot of shit to persona for having the most anti-climatic character arcs and the blandest social links but man when i start writing i start to understand. but persona's writing still makes me feel better about my writing abilities. and when i think about other media i love like tsukihime, the writing and art is very amatuerish, but it's still one of my favorites. i think back to my childhood and the games and anime i fell in love with, a lot of them were not that good but they had a sort of charm and spirit to them that could only come from people with passion and love for the thing they were making. regardless of the quality, it's fun to play games by indie developers and read webcomics by randoms on the web. passionate creations will be appreciated regardless no matter of their overarching quality. and theres a certain level of caring that comes with criticizing objectively bad art. unlearning fear of failure is a hard task, but not an impossible one. bad art is just as important as good art. it's all a part of the creative experience.

a mockup sprite for the protagonist of my visual novel i worked on today that i think is horrible but i'll keep drawing