Finding The Right Emotional Tone For What You Choose To Watch – A Ramble

Well, I thought that I’d ramble about sensibilities and emotional tone today. This was something I ended up thinking about on a sleep-deprived day in mid-January when I was aimlessly watching Youtube. It was the cheerful, eccentric type of tiredness and I found myself watching all of these wonderful videos about igloos, optical illusions, hand-made holograms, stereoscopic 3D and a compendium of other fascinating, wondrous and/or eccentric things.

I was just getting into the swing of this, the sort of joyously whimsical mood where I casually used words like “compendium” without a second thought… when instinct suddenly took over and I found myself switching to watching more depressing videos. Short documentaries about the First World War (reminiscent of Pat Barker’s 1991 novel “Regeneration”), art commentary videos (do happy art commentary videos even exist?) and stuff like that.

Naturally, I spent a while trying to work out why this had happened. Why I instinctively switched to watching depressing videos. Was it just British culture? Was it some old thing from my teenage years where I associated “depressing” with qualities like “serious”, “mature”, “intelligent” etc…? Was it because depressing content is more popular on the platform, leading the algorithm to recommend more of it? Was it because I was too overwhelmed by the joyous mood and needed to tone it down a bit?

Was it a form of emotional catharsis? Was it because I saw the depressing videos as “more real” or something? Was it simple negativity bias? Was it because virtually every novel I read when I was younger had to be at least slightly “dark and edgy” for me to even be interested in reading it? Was it because I felt happy enough that I actually had the spare emotional “energy” to handle more emphatically depressing media and was naturally curious about it?

I asked a lot of these questions and didn’t really find any immediate answers, but it made me think about my own sensibilities. Then, a bit later, I stumbled across a video with an emotional tone which seemed to have the perfect balance between “light” and “darkness”. It was an “OutsideXtra” videogame stream on Youtube  (Which, due to technical problems/malfunctions with the original stream, now seems to be set to “private”) where two joyous presenters played one of the new game modes added to the dystopian sci-fi horror game “The Last Of Us – Part II” (2020). A contrast between amusing commentary/reactions and grimly brutal post-apocalyptic battles to the death.

And, more generally, I remembered that all of my favourite media has this sort of balance to it. Whether it is films – like the original “Suspiria” (1977) and “Blade Runner” (1982) – which contrast beautiful visuals with grim stories. Whether it is melodic heavy metal music and pop-punk music, contrasting beautiful melodies or cheerful upbeat guitars with cynical lyrics. Whether it is action-packed shooter videogames with cartoonish “retro-style” graphics or “medium-strength” horror videogames. Whether it is comedy-horror movies. I could go on, but most of my favourite media sort of has to contain both “light” and “darkness”.

Even most of the art that I make often does this on a visual level too, with lots of “dark psychedelia“, chiaroscuro lighting and stuff like that. If a character in one of my paintings is cheerful, then there is usually heavy rain, dark skies, dystopian cyberpunk mega-cities, creepy old mansions etc… in the background. This is the sort of art that just feels… satisfying… to make, it’s the sort of art that I like looking at after I’ve made it. The sort of art that I think is cool or interesting.

Still, this made me think about emotional tone and balance. It’s possible that everyone has their own preferred emotional tone for the things that they watch, read, play, listen to etc…. and part of finding meaning in life is learning what this is. Because it is probably subtly different for everyone. One person’s “This is annoyingly cheerful and saccharine!” is another person’s “normal”, and vice versa. One person’s “Too depressing!” is another person’s “Balanced emotional tone”.

Taking the time to study your emotional reactions to the things you look at and to work out what the right emotional tone for you is can drastically improve the media you look at. It pushes you to actively look for things that you enjoy, rather than just passively consuming whatever the mainstream hurls in your direction – which, in my experience, usually goes too far in one direction or the other, whether this is obnoxiously cheerful advertising (or “influencing”) or ultra-depressing news broadcasts, popular “drama” programs etc…

So, yes, pay attention to your emotional reactions and they will help you to learn what sorts of media that you actually enjoy the most. What your favourite type of emotional tone is.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

The Value Of “Broadcasting To No-One” – A Ramble

Well, since I was tired and couldn’t think of a better idea for an article, I thought that I’d talk about an experience I had a couple of days before preparing this article. One night in early-mid August last year, I was aimlessly watching an old “let’s play” video on Youtube and I suddenly had this mental image – almost more of a feeling or a general sense – of someone putting on a charismatic radio show… but without an audience. Someone broadcasting to no-one.

Yes, it was probably what would happen if I ever got into “streaming” or recording “let’s play” videos (It isn’t something I’m planning to do though – I’m way too camera-shy, plus I’d want to concentrate on the game...) but, when I wrote this experience down in a notebook, I got exactly the same feeling from doing this. A feeling that I was writing something meaningful that no-one else would read. Broadcasting to no-one.

This then made me think about journals in general (whether diaries or gratitude journals), about practice art (earlier, I made a fan art painting based on the 1990 remake of “Night Of The Living Dead” that wasn’t good enough to post online), about some photos I took during an autumnal car journey in early-mid August but didn’t turn into paintings etc… All of those times when you create or record something but don’t show it off to an audience.

In this online age, where everything is valued in “views” or “likes”, broadcasting to no-one can seem pointless or meaningless. Yet, if you are even vaguely imaginative, introspective and/or creative, it’s still something you’ll probably have the impulse to do occasionally. Even if logic tells you “I should spend my time making something I can show off online“, you’ll probably still be compelled to make fun personal art, to write down your thoughts/experiences in a notebook and stuff like that.

And all of this stuff does have value. It isn’t in impressing or entertaining other people, it’s more to do with the actual process of creating stuff itself. Whether it is the act of drawing or painting – which is itself a relaxing thing (like a good videogame, it makes you focus on the present moment) – or whether it is “saving your progress” through life by writing it down, shaping your thoughts and experiences into a coherent story which you can study and think about.

There’s less pressure as well. You don’t have to worry as much about imperfections, mistakes or failures. You feel a bit more confident and a bit more able to experiment and/or express yourself a bit more. You can be a bit more open with yourself, you can make the sorts of things that YOU want to make. Most of all, it just feels inherently good to “broadcast to no-one” occasionally. To create purely for the sake of creating.

More than that, as this article shows, the things you learn or experiencing when creating things that aren’t meant for an audience can actually improve or inspire things that you can show off to an audience. It’s a way of recharging your inspiration, of building up a stock of ideas that can later be re-purposed in interesting ways.

Of course, it’s also important to realise that – historically- this was the norm. It’s only maybe within the past two decades or so, perhaps less, that the idea of “If it isn’t online, then it doesn’t exist” has really taken hold. Before that, the idea of showing off everything that you create would have seemed weird or vain. Go back three decades or more and, even if you wanted to do this, you probably couldn’t – at least not on the sort of scale that the modern internet allows.

And, in the modern “attention economy”, there’s also something liberating about “broadcasting to no-one”. You don’t have to worry about comments. You aren’t at the mercy of algorithms. All of those loud shouting voices, the bullies of conformity, telling you to “Be more popular!“, “Don’t be ‘weird’!” etc… all just fade away to nothing when you create something that isn’t made for any audience other than yourself. What you make may not be perfect, it may be a total failure, but it feels more honest and inherently meaningful.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Do Audiences Actually Want Original Stuff?

Well, I thought that I’d talk briefly about the complicated question of whether audiences actually want people to create original things. This was something I was reminded of after I saw the music video for the song “Mrs. Hollywood” (2023) by Go-Jo, an “early 2000s” style rock/pop song which is ridiculously catchy.

Anyway, as well as the random free broccoli (a vegetable which The Simpsons warned us all about), one of the other brilliantly quirky details in the video is that Go-Jo asks random audience members to hold a protest sign that reads “Play an original song!“. And I couldn’t stop laughing at this.

If you create anything, whether it is art or fiction or music or whatever, you’ll probably get the joke here. Unless you’re ultra-famous or an absolute expert in your field, then it often seems like audiences often tend to care a lot more about cover songs, fan art, fan fiction etc… than they do about original stuff. The idea of people loudly demanding original material is genuinely laugh out loud funny if you create stuff.

This is further compounded by the fact that original stuff is more difficult to make to the same quality level. If you’re doing your own version of someone else’s stuff, then all of the really hard work has already been done for you. Whether this is character design, song writing or visual design, making fan works is such brilliantly relaxing fun because its more like re-interpreting or refining something that already exists.

Sticking to my chosen field of art, this is one of the reasons why – for example – the extra fan art I occasionally post on DeviantART will often look better than most of my original stuff. Because I can look closely at things like film stills or videogame screenshots, I can do stuff that is a lot more difficult to do from imagination alone (eg: realistic shading, dynamic poses etc…). I can also add interesting artistic licence, sort of an “If I made this, this is what I’d do instead” type of thing too.

Of course it’s also a good learning experience too, and all of my more recent fan art practice has actually improved at least some of the original art that I’ll be posting here next year. And I still make more originals than fan art pieces because, as challenging as it is, original art is really fun and satisfying to make in its own way. Still, even when it is at its best, making good original art is more difficult than making even barely passable fan art. Here’s a comparison to show you what I mean:

Here’s a preview of one of my best original pieces (which should appear here properly in July 2024) and some “technically imperfect but fun” fan art based on “The Terminator” (1984). Even though the fan art isn’t as good on a technical level, it still just looks cooler than the original piece, mostly because better artists than me did all of the really challenging character design, composition etc… stuff.

Anyway, leaving aside how creative people have an advantage when they “cover” other stuff, another reasons why covers and fan media sometimes seem to be more popular than original stuff is just familiarity and recognisability. Seeing a new version of something that you’ve already enjoyed before is a “safe” choice, an easy decision to make if you are part of the audience.

Fan works also allow creative people to show off their own “style” too. If you’re re-creating something else, then – whether intentionally or unintentionally – it is going to be at least subtly different to the original. Even a more “faithful” rendition of something else will still have small differences for the simple reason that it was made by different people in a different context and, possibly, also with different tools as well. Despite its total lack of originality, these things can be a good way for people to show off their own unique “style”, in a form that audiences instantly recognise too.

Still, saying all of this, originality still matters a lot. Just look at most of your favourite songs, films, videogames, novels etc….I’d bet that most of them are originals. When you reach the sort of skill level where other creative people want to give you “the sincerest form of flattery”, then your originals will – paradoxically – be more popular than your versions of other stuff.

A great example of this is the heavy metal band Iron Maiden. Whilst they have certainly recorded cover songs before – most recently in 2006, with their cover of “Hocus Pocus” by Focus – these were almost always just occasional “B-sides” on their singles. The band is more well-known and well-renowned for the much larger repertoire of original songs that they have written. In fact, if you hear the words “Iron Maiden” and “cover song” in the same sentence, then someone is probably talking about another band covering an Iron Maiden song.

So, yes, audiences – as a whole – do care about original stuff. It’s just that this tends to happen when creative people reach a high enough skill level to make original stuff that is actually better than a “cover” of anything else would be. Even so, be sure to make some original stuff as well as “cover versions”. It’s more difficult, but it allows you to express yourself more, it teaches you interesting stuff and you’ll also have the satisfaction of making something that you can genuinely call your own too.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

How To Handle Mediocre New Releases

Well, I thought that I’d talk very briefly about how to handle mediocre new releases from bands, series etc… that you enjoy. I should probably clarify that I’m not talking about “bad” things here, but things which just elicit a reaction of “Meh” or “It’s ok, I guess” from you.

This was something I ended up thinking about in mid-October last year after experiencing some mild disappointment about two things I’d really been looking forward to. Although I’d originally planned to describe/review both things, I eventually decided against this (especially since one started to grow on me a lot more after a while, and the later parts of the other were a lot better than the earlier parts).

Still, how do you handle this?

Firstly, seeing a mediocre new release on its own terms can be a good way to handle any emotions you might have. There’s a good chance that you’re only seeing the new thing as “mediocre” because you are comparing it to earlier material from whoever created it. If you’re actually able to see it on its own terms, then it might turn out to be better than you first thought. It might even – like I mentioned earlier – actually start growing on you after a while or improve during the later parts too.

Secondly, unless you’re a “Star Wars” fan , you’ve still got the older stuff to enjoy. In fact, one of the best ways to handle a mediocre new release is just to revisit the older stuff. You’ll probably find that you appreciate and enjoy it even more by comparison. It’ll feel more substantial or more atmospheric compared to the new stuff. As strange as it might sound, the best thing a mediocre new release can sometimes do is to deepen your appreciation of the older stuff.

Thirdly, be glad that it exists. Even if you might be mildly disappointed, remember that a mediocre release means that your favourite creators are still making stuff. Even if you might feel mildly disappointed that the new stuff doesn’t meet your sky-high expectations, the fact that it is even there is still better than if it wasn’t. Seriously, as cynical as I initially was about the two things I decided against describing earlier, I’m still glad that they exist – that the people behind them are still putting out new stuff in genres that I like 🙂

Fourthly, remember that it can happen to anyone. Even the very best series can have one or two lacklustre instalments. It’s all a part of being creative – whether it is having to work within limitations, experimenting with different stuff etc… – all creativity carries the risk of disappointment. It’s the other side of the coin, the shadow cast by the light. The same creativity which fuelled your favourite things can, just as easily, result in the occasional moment of mediocrity.

Finally, it’s also worth remembering that one mediocre release doesn’t mean that everything after it will be mediocre. Creative people can learn from mistakes, refine things they’ve been experimenting with, improve over time or get inspired again. In other words, whilst you might be mildly disappointed now, it’s certainly possible that you might be delighted again at some point in the future.

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Anyway, I hope that this was useful 🙂

Giving The Audience Options – A Ramble

Well, I thought that I’d talk briefly about the importance of giving the audience options. This was something I ended up thinking about in very late September last year after a DRM-Free version of the 2016 “Special Edition” of the famous 2011 fantasy role-playing game “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim” was released 🙂 I’ve been waiting ages to play this game 🙂

Annoyingly, this special edition only seems to allow for windowed widescreen resolutions by default… and I had to use an external window resizing tool called “Sizer” to get the resolution I actually wanted. Still, with the graphics on their lowest settings, it is surprisingly playable on Intel HD 2500 integrated graphics – although the frame-rate can get a little choppy at times, especially during fast-paced fight scenes and/or when there are lots of fire effects.

Although its sheer length probably means that I won’t get round to reviewing it properly, it’s a really good game. The atmosphere of it is like a cross between the third and fourth “Elder Scrolls” games, but with Vikings and some subtle hints of the “Fallout” series too (eg: slow-motion “critical” attacks, perks etc..). Even at low settings, the locations still look stunningly beautiful and the gameplay has also been streamlined a little in a good way too (eg: no need to repair weapons, you can run for an unlimited amount of time etc…).

Still, the reason that I mention it is because – despite the relative lack of resolution options – the game gives the player a lot of choice about how they want to play the game. When I started playing, I ended up doing a side-quest where I got completely “stuck” fighting a powerful “Hagraven” monster who threw fireballs at me. Despite many attempts, the battle seemed unwinnable.

So, I loaded up an earlier save and decided to follow the main quest instead… only to find myself trying to fight a flying dragon with a war-hammer (because I didn’t realise you were supposed to bring a bow and arrow, or some spells).

Frustrated, I loaded up the earlier save again and decided to fight my way through one of the many dungeons you can find in the game’s world instead. It was an ice-cave with vampires in it. “Cool” I thought as I fought my way through the earlier parts of it with relative ease… only to then find myself up against a “master vampire” and several of his vampiric followers. It was, again, a very one-sided fight… and one which eventually ended with me storming out of the cave in frustration after several failures.

Yet, I still kept playing the game. This was mostly because, with a large open world, I could just explore at random and find interesting places:

These are some beautiful hot springs, with added necromancers and zombies, which I found whilst exploring in “Skyrim: Special Edition” (2016). Again, I used an external program to create a custom resolution and have also cropped the window border out of this screenshot too. Still, on low settings and running on approximately decade-old integrated graphics, it’s still a surprisingly good-looking game.

Plus, I found this harshly beautiful city called Windhelm too. Yes, some of the residents aren’t exactly the nicest people in the world, but the visual design of the place is absolutely brilliant.

The fact that the game allows you to play it in many different ways – whether it is just doing the main quest, just doing side-quests or even just exploring at random – actually helped to balance out the difficulty issues I mentioned earlier. In a more traditional game that only allows you to play it on one way, borderline-unwinnable fights so early in the game could have been a deal-breaker, but the fact that there are many ways to enjoy the game kept it interesting.

Whilst this sort of thing obviously works best in interactive mediums like computer games, you can also see examples of it in other mediums too. For example, Unleash The Archers’ 2020 heavy metal album “Abyss” is a concept album which also continues the story from their 2017 album “Apex”. I’m sure it is probably a really dramatic story, but I’ve only heard a few songs from each album. Yet, these are songs that I’ve listened to repeatedly because they are really good songs in their own right.

In other words, the audience has options. You can listen to every track from both albums in the correct order and get a really epic sci-fi/fantasy story, or you can just listen to individual tracks and still enjoy them on a purely musical level.

Giving the audience multiple ways to enjoy something is always a good idea since, not only does it widen your audience, but it also means that people are less likely to be “put off” by elements of it that they might find annyoing or unappealing either.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Why Creative Works Can “Grow On You”

So, I thought that I’d talk briefly about two of the reasons why creative works that you dislike at first can “grow on you” after a while, and seem a lot better than they originally did. I ended up thinking about this early last December after finding a Christmas song called “The Yule Fiddler” by Patty Gurdy and Fiddler’s Green on YouTube.

When this song first appeared on the site, I think I only watched about half of it before watching something else. Yet, a day or two later, I decided to listen to it again – and it seemed a lot better than I remembered. It’s a surprisingly catchy and atmospheric “feel good” Christmas folk song that I’ve found myself listening to a lot more than I’d initially expected to. In other words, it “grew on me” a lot.

So, naturally, this made me wonder why this sort of thing happens.

One major reason why a creative work can seem “disappointing” at first and then seem a lot better when you take another look at it has to do with your expectations. If something is different to what you expect it to be like, then this can sometimes feel disappointing. Of course, when you revisit it – you know a lot more about it – and can see it on it’s own terms.

This can happen for a lot of reasons, such as advertising, previous creative works, the genre of a work, cover art, stylised pop culture references to a famous creative work etc… and sometimes, it can take another reading/viewing/listen etc.. after you’ve changed your expectations in order to fully appreciate something.

A good example of this was when I watched “Blade Runner” (1982) for the very first time when I was about fourteen. At the time, I’d foolishly expected it to be a thrilling sci-fi action movie – like “Total Recall” (1990) and “Aliens” (1986) – and the old-second hand VHS cover art sort of gave that impression to me. Of course, it is actually a thematically complex, intelligent, visually-detailed and slow-paced proto-cyberpunk sci-fi film noir. I watched it and thought it was “boring”. About three years later, whilst going through another sci-fi phase, I decided to revisit it without expecting it to be an action movie and… wow… It has been my favourite film ever since.

Another reason why a creative work can grow on you is because of detail. When you look at something for the first time, it’s easy to miss a lot of stuff – since you’re probably more focused on the general story or experience than anything else. So, something that may not seem that interesting when you look at it for the first time may be more interesting when you return to it and begin to notice things that you missed.

There are too many examples to list here, but one good one is Chuck Palahniuk’s notorious short story “Guts”. When you read this story for the first time, it will shock and disgust you (yes, even if you’re a jaded horror fiction fan). It will seem like nothing more than a “gross out” story that was written purely for the sake of “edgy” shock value. Yet, if you re-read it, you’ll probably start to notice all sorts of clever elements hiding behind the shock value – such as the three-act structure, the story’s hilariously rude theme and the story’s brilliantly twisted sense of humour. Because you’ll be less shocked the second time round, you’ll actually be able to think about the story more and will realise that it’s actually in the comedy (rather than horror) genre. Genius!

“Blade Runner” is yet another example of this. I’ve watched this film at least six or seven times… and I still notice “new” visual details and/or thematic elements that I had missed on previous viewings.

Finally, as hinted earlier, another reason why a creative work can “grow on you” is because you have changed in some way since you last looked at it. For example, if you’ve grown older or have since become interested in something related to that creative work, then something that seemed “disappointing” or “boring” when you first encountered it can seem a lot better the second time round.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂

Why You Shouldn’t Focus On “Mass Appeal” – A Ramble

Well, I thought that I’d talk about some of the advantages of not aiming for “mass appeal” with the things you create. I ended up thinking about this whilst listening to an utterly epic fantasy-themed melodic death metal song called “The Sun, The Moon, The Star” by Aether Realm. A little over nineteen minutes in length, this song tells the poignant and bittersweet tale of a homesick adventurer who has been permanently changed by his journey and is mourning the person he was before he left home.

Musically speaking, it contains a contrast between beautiful melodic elements and furiously intense elements (both instrumental and vocal) that really helps to give the song it’s own personality. There’s also enough musical variety throughout the song to keep it feeling consistently interesting throughout it’s extended running time too. The best way to describe it is that it reminded me a little of bands like Wintersun and Ensiferum – but it is very much it’s own thing at the same time too.

Anyway, whilst listening to this song and trying to think of an idea for an article, I suddenly realised that this song probably wouldn’t ever be played on the radio. Almost twenty-minute long melodic death metal songs  with a bittersweet emotional tone probably don’t have the “mass appeal” needed for mainstream radio airplay.

Although “mass appeal” is an enticing idea, thanks to the fame and wealth it can bring, it also comes with a lot of limitations. After all, if you are aiming to get the largest possible audience, then you will probably end up creating something slightly bland and generic in the hope that – at the very least – most people won’t actively dislike it.

Even something like the emotional tone of what you create will be affected by this – I mean, have you ever wondered why a lot of major Hollywood movies have a “feel good” mood? If you make the audience feel good, then a larger number of them are probably less likely to dislike what you have made. And if you’re aiming for mass appeal, then this is probably a good thing.

Likewise, aiming for a larger audience also limits you to things that are familiar and have a “proven track record” too. Have you noticed how many songs are about love? Have you noticed how sequels, remakes and superheroes tend to be common in Hollywood? Have you noticed how the mainstream “AAA” videogame industry will often just find one “popular” genre and focus really heavily on it for a while?

I could go on, but aiming for a mass audience drastically limits what you can create. On the other hand, if you are willing to create something that won’t appeal to literally everyone – then, although it will have a smaller audience, those audience members are more likely to really love it. It’s a “quality vs quantity” type thing. Yes, what you create will make less money and be less famous – but you’ll end up with the kind of fans that more “mainstream” things could only dream of.

But, why? Well, it all has to do with personality, creative freedom and emotional resonance. If you are willing to create something that won’t appeal to literally everyone, then this drastically increases your options. You can include a wider range of emotions, you have a much wider range of genres you can focus on and there’s also a lot more room for things like creativity and self-expression too.

Likewise, because you have more creative freedom to express yourself, the things you create are more likely to resonate with or feel relevant to some of your audience members because it fits into their individual tastes, thoughts and/or sensibilities. People are individuals and a “one size fits all” approach often overlooks this fact – so, although something that is made for a niche audience will resonate with a smaller group of people, it will resonate a lot more deeply. It will be memorable, cathartic, relevant, interesting or even just refreshingly different. Needless to say, this results in a more devoted fanbase.

Yes, there’s obviously a balance that can be struck between these two opposites and – even if you aren’t aiming for a mass audience, you still need to think carefully about your audience’s experience of the things you create. You still need to make something that they will enjoy and consider to be worth their time. But it is worth thinking about the type of audience you want. Do you want an audience of millions who think “It’s ok, I guess” or do you want an audience of hundreds or thousands who think “Wow! This is AMAZING! It was almost like it was made just for ME! “?

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Anyway, I hope that this was useful 🙂

Three Possible Reasons Why Your “Failed” Art Becomes Popular

Well, I thought that I’d talk about something that is both incredibly cool and incredibly annoying that pretty much everyone who makes art and posts it on the internet experiences every now and then.

I am, of course, talking about how your least-best artworks are almost always the ones that inexplicably become popular. You can spend hours carefully crafting a detailed piece of art during a moment of inspiration, but a “failed” painting or a quick “practice” picture that you churned out in a few minutes can sometimes end up being more popular amongst your audience.

So, I thought that I’d offer a few theories about why this happens:

1) Knowledge and perspective: One of the important things to remember is that you know more about your art than your audience does. After all, you were the one who made it. You probably remember the mood you were in before you made it, how inspired you were feeling and/or how you felt immediately after you made it. Likewise, you also have a general knowledge of your entire body of work and will probably judge each piece of art you make in comparison to the rest of it.

On the other hand, a random audience member probably doesn’t know any of this stuff.

Because of the non-linear nature of many websites and/or because they might have found your art using a search engine, your “failed” artwork might be the very first thing you made that someone else sees. Plus, unlike you, an audience member will also judge a piece of art entirely on it’s own merits. They will not instantly know what mood you were in when you made it or how inspired you were feeling. All they will see is the art itself, and they will make their judgements based on that alone.

So, yes, one of the reasons why your “failed” art can inexplicably become popular is because your knowledge and perspective about it is different to that of a typical audience member.

2) Algorithms and trends: Another reason why your “failed” art can suddenly become popular is because of algorithms and/or trends.

Large websites will sometimes use algorithms to sort and recommend content to the audience. These algorithms almost seem to have a mind of their own and this could be one possible reason for why “failed” art can suddenly become popular. Your “failed” art might fit into the criteria that an artificial intelligence associates with “popular”, thanks to years of machine-learning.

But, a more human explanation for this phenomenon is simply that you don’t know what is popular amongst random people on the internet

A more obvious – and annoying – example of this is how things like fan art and cover versions of songs will usually be more popular on the internet than original material will be. The main reason for this is that people tend to look for what they know about (rather than what they don’t) and, more importantly, for things that they know that they will probably like. So, this is why a piece of bad or mediocre fan art can sometimes be considerably more popular than a great piece of original art.

Other factors probably play a role in all of this too – even possibly the time of day that you post a piece of art online. Many websites will prioritise the most recent content posted onto them, and this probably affects how many people see it at a given time. This is especially true when you factor in things like time zones too. If a website is popular in – for example – the United States, then posting something to it from the UK in the evening on a weekday means that it’ll probably appear in the US in the mid-afternoon, when people are probably busy with other things.

So, yes, all of these things probably play a role in why your “failed” artwork can sometimes suddenly become popular.

3) “Failure” is relative: Going back to the first point on this list, “failure” is a relative term – especially if you’ve been making art for a while. If you don’t believe me, go back and look at the very best piece of art that you made a few years ago. There’s a very good chance that it won’t look quite as good as you remember it looking. This is a good thing. It means that, thanks to all of the extra practice you’ve had, you are a better artist than you were back then.

The whole point of this is, if you’ve been practicing for a while, then a “failed” piece of art that you make today will still look better than a “good” piece of art that you made a few years ago. You know more than you did in the past, and this means that all of your current art is better than it used to be.

So, this is one reason why a piece of art that you consider to be a “failure” might be something that other people think looks really good.

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Anyway, I hope that this was useful 🙂

Three Thoughts About Viewing Creative Works As A Whole

Well, I thought that I’d talk about viewing creative works “as a whole” today. This was something that I seriously began thinking about when I went through a phase of writing regular book reviews for about a year or two and it was probably also influenced by all of my reading about British film censorship over the years.

Since, for all of the many criticisms that I could make about film censorship here, one of the good things about it is that the BBFC do make a point of considering the entire film rather than focusing too heavily on any one individual moment or element of it. It’s a good attitude for anyone looking at a creative work to take.

But, why should you care about this stuff if you aren’t an amateur or professional critic? And how do you even do it?

1) How to do it: Viewing a creative work as a whole is something that is surprisingly easy to do. Just look at the entire creative work, think about the things you liked about it and the things you didn’t and then work out whether the good outweighs the bad (or vice versa). At it’s most basic level, it is this simple. You probably already do this anyway, without even noticing.

Viewing creative works as a whole means that you have to get used to forming nuanced opinions that are very rarely “100% good” or “100% bad”.

On a more advanced level, viewing creative works as a whole means actually thinking about them. It means trying to work out why parts of a creative work are even there in the first place.

To give a simple example, if you see a film which has some fairly dreadful special effects – then you might think about when the film was made, whether it is a low-budget film and/or whether the special effects are bad because they aren’t meant to be the main focus of the film (eg: a bad special effect in a film that mostly focuses on character-based drama is less of an issue than in, say, an action movie that relies entirely on special effects).

The thing here is to actually think about the reasons for things. Even if you still don’t like a creative work, you will at least be able to understand and explain why you don’t like it in a much clearer way. For example: “Yes, the slow-paced formal narration in this novel is meant to make this story feel like it is set in the past – but it doesn’t fit in with the fast-paced action thriller plot and this is why I found it such a chore to read” etc…

In short, thinking about creative works as a whole just means actually thinking about the creative works you look at rather than just simply calling them “good” or “bad”. But why should you do this?

2) More enjoyment: Simply put, seeing creative works as a whole allows you to enjoy more things.

Not only does thinking more about what you watch, read or play allow you to spot all sorts of clever details that you might have otherwise missed (although, on the flip side, it means you might end up enjoying “shallow” entertainment slightly less), but it also means that you are able to enjoy the good parts of something as well as disliking the bad parts of it.

Thinking about creative works as a whole also means that you will learn a lot more about what you do and don’t like. Not only can this help you to spot and avoid creative works that you probably won’t enjoy, but it also means that you will be better at searching for things that you will enjoy too 🙂

3) Better discussions and better creativity: The whole point of any creative work is to evoke emotion and/or to provoke thought. Even a “bad” creative work will often do this, even if it is just “This film would be a lot better if the director did these things differently…“. Studying and/or discussing why you disliked a “bad” creative work can not only teach you more about what creative mistakes to avoid, but it can also teach you a lot about yourself too.

On a larger level, complex discussions will also result in better creative works being made – not only because it helps people to avoid mistakes that other people have made but also because, if a writer, director or game developer expects a high-quality discussion of their work, then they will think about it more when they are making it too.

They will want to add things like emotional nuance, innovation, clever narrative techniques, subtle themes etc.. because they know that the audience will not only spot these things but will also judge their work in a fairer way too. This allows creative people to do more things and to experiment more – albeit paired with the awareness that everything they do has to be handled well and done for a good reason. Because people will actually be thinking about it and judging their creative work as a whole.

On the other hand, separating creative works into simple categories of “good” and “bad” shuts a lot of this down. This simple “success or failure” dynamic also results in less innovative or less experimental creative works that, whilst not always perfect, may eventually result in the creation of new genres and/or allow later creative works to learn from any mistakes and refine an innovative/experimental creative technique into something better.

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Anyway, I hope that this was useful 🙂

Three Ways To Handle Watching Or Reading Something “Too Late”

Well, I thought that I’d talk about those types of annoying experiences when you watch, read or play something that you just know that you would have enjoyed even more if you had encountered it several years earlier. I ended up thinking about this after watching a horror movie sequel called “Hellraiser III: Hell On Earth” (1992) for the very first time the night before I prepared this article. Although I’d seen the first two “Hellraiser” films and read both of Clive Barker’s “Hellraiser” books before, this film had passed me by for some reason.

Anyway, even though I didn’t find “Hellraiser III” to be particularly scary, it is pretty much the perfect cheesy early 1990s horror movie – with a wonderful mixture of heavy metal music, hedonistic nightclubs, ludicrously “over the top” special effects, cynical satire, retro fashions, freaky dream sequences, hilarious villain dialogue, retro technology and lots of wonderfully stylised characters who could have only come from the early 1990s. It is one of those gloriously cheesy “so bad that it’s good” horror movies that is just fun to watch on so many levels.

Yet, my joy at finding this film was tinged with a certain level of sadness because I could think of at least two times in my life where I’d have enjoyed it even more. If I’d seen it between the ages of about thirteen and fifteen – when heavy metal music was still new to me and I’d begun to discover the wonderful world of old second-hand 1980s splatterpunk horror novels – then this film would have been the coolest thing ever. Likewise, if I’d have seen it in my mid-late twenties – when I was just beginning to really get into the whole “1990s nostalgia” thing and trying to learn more about the atmosphere and style of the 1990s – then this film would have been the perfect distillation of everything I had been searching for.

I’m sure that I’m not the only person to have ever experienced something like this and this is hardly the first time it had happened to me either. So, I thought that I’d offer a few tips for how to handle it.

1) Introspection: Although watching, reading or playing something you should have found many years earlier can be annoying, it can also be a good way to connect with earlier versions of yourself. To briefly “travel back in time” and learn more about who you were in the past.

Not only can this show you how you have changed and developed over the years, but it can also be a good way of gaining a more nuanced and compassionate understanding of who you once were. Although finding earlier versions of yourself to be slightly cringe-worthy is a good thing in some ways (since it means that you have matured), sneering at earlier versions of yourself too much can make you feel like less of a complete person.

Finding something that would have brought joy to an earlier version of yourself can allow you to briefly see the world in the way that you did back then. It can show you the positive qualities of that limited earlier version of who you are now. It can show you the good ways that an earlier version of yourself shaped who you are today, which can help to balance out any judgemental or “cringe-worthy” feelings you might have when you think about past versions of yourself.

So, seeing things that you would have enjoyed even more if you’d found them many years ago can be a great prompt for introspection and learning more about yourself.

2) The present day: Another way to feel good about finding something “too late” is to remember that you now live in a time and a place where you could find it. For all of the many reasons there are to be cynical about the present day, the fact that it is easier to find things that you couldn’t find years ago is one reason to feel good about being who you are and where you are right now.

For example, whilst I could have theoretically found “Hellraiser III” in almost exactly the same way back when I was fourteen (with the only difference being setting up a VCR instead of a DVR when it was shown on TV) – it was so much easier to find it these days. Not only has the selection of Freeview channels in the UK expanded to include the Horror Channel, but I could also easily go online and find a trailer to see whether it was a film that I would like. Plus, even if it wasn’t shown on TV, getting a physical copy of it would be easier these days for the simple reason that age ratings are no longer the dystopian obstacle to me that they once were when I was a teenager.

If you find something that makes you think “I wish I’d found this years ago!“, then it is important to remember that the only reason that you found it is because you now live in a time when it is easier to find things like this. Whether it is because the internet contains a lot more information than it once did, whether it is because you are better at spotting things that might interest you or whether it is just because people are now making more of the types of things you would have enjoyed years ago.

So, it can be a good reminder that the present day isn’t entirely terrible.

3) Curiosity and satisfaction: Finally, another way to handle the feeling of “Why didn’t I find this years ago?” is to think about what other things are out there that might evoke the same feelings either right now or in several years’ time. Because, yes, they exist. Since there are literally millions of films, games, novels etc… out there and more are being added all of the time, the odds that there is something else that your past or current self would really love are very much in your favour.

So, when you feel regret about only just discovering something you would have absolutely loved several years ago – see it as a reminder that, yes, there are good things being made. See it as a reminder that there are also other good things (including things your current self will really love) out there that are “hiding in plain sight” too. Even if you found it “too late”, then the fact that it even exists at all is a good sign 🙂

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Anyway, I hope that this was useful 🙂