Missed last week’s editions? I shared two great posts:
Here’s how my mom tells the story: I was five years old, watching a High School production of Annie, when I turned to her and said: “That’s what I want to do when I grow up.” My very first dream.
Years later, my desire to be part of the stage and performing and storytelling morphed into a specific goal of writing. I would walk home from school observing my surroundings and forming sentences in my brain about them. (How I yearn for the days of uninterrupted observation.) I wrote my first screenplay in 7th grade. I hold onto these early memories as proof: The desire was pure. I didn’t think about the public nature of an entertainment career — about being liked — until much later.
Ten-ish years after writing that first script, I sat in my bed in a tiny apartment in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, hand hovering over the publish button on Vimeo. I couldn’t press it. I was so scared to release my first proper short film. Everything else I’d put online was a collaboration. This one was directed by T.J. Misny, but I wrote it alone. What if everybody thinks this is the best I’m capable of? And what if it’s not enough? What if people don’t like it? The panic was so strong that I considered not releasing it at all. I thought about calling it a learning lesson and working on a new, much better short film, instead.
Eventually, in a place of fear, I pressed publish on EXES.
Its reception the next day overwhelmed me: Press on every website that covered videos in 2014, from Glamour to MTV to Jezebel to Huffington Post. A coveted Vimeo Staff Pick. Within a month, I met with Condé Nast Entertainment, pitched them a web series, and signed a contract. Seven months later I moved to LA and started a job as a Video Producer at BuzzFeed. What would’ve happened if I never released it? What if I let the fear win?
The success of EXES was a confidence boost. I felt good at what I was doing. I’d moved into the field I wanted to work in. So why didn’t my fear of judgment dissipate?
Because a new one emerged: By working at BuzzFeed, I was afraid I was selling out or not alt enough. I came from the world of UCB in New York which still felt underground and against the grain. Instead of accepting I’d achieved a dream — making my living from creating art — I felt embarrassed that I worked for a company that also made some videos I do not consider “art.” How differently I can see it now, with perspective.
Despite my fear of judgment — fear that people I wasn’t even friends with wouldn’t think I was cool — I had a job that required me to publish several videos a month, or I’d be fired. I would read comments like: “She is unlikable and her hair is ugly” and wonder why I wasn’t more likable, or more of a star. Should I do something differently? Then I would read comments like “This is the best thing BuzzFeed has ever made,” and consider that maybe I should just keep doing my own thing.
I grew accustomed to the panic that arose before releasing a new video. But a funny thing happened. I realized the panic was a warning sign: It only happened if what I was releasing was very good. The panic indicated that sharing it required sharing part of myself, which meant it was intensely vulnerable, which meant it would naturally resonate with an audience.
The fear taught me something. It showed me what to move towards. What resonated with my soul, my values, what felt true and real. If there was no fear, it told me that I’d created something for somebody else: Our audience, my boss, the unyielding quota. The panic, I realized, was a gift.
I had embraced the fear of sharing my soul through art… So why didn’t my need to be liked go away?
My social media following shot up as my short films became more popular and received more press. And with it, I started wondering why people were following me. What should I post? Twitter (RIP) came naturally, it required words. I often made lists of the funniest Tweets of the week — Nice! They like me. Instagram was harder. As my career moved off the internet and into TV, it became especially hard: If I’m not posting new videos, what do people want to see? Pictures of my face? Things I like? My following dropped off by over 10,000 the year or two after I left BuzzFeed, even as my career success grew. I don’t understand social media! I’d think. How do I get people to like me?! I wondered. (The answer is, of course, by not trying to be liked.)
How ironic for me, a person afraid of judgment, to pick a career entirely based on gatekeepers judging you. How powerful it is to make art despite that. We hear all the time that if you’re an artist, not everybody will like your work. Sometimes we are even told directly: Don’t care what other people think of you! For many, this is an impossible request that only leads to shame that you do still care.
It is okay to care what other people think of you. You simply must choose to keep going anyway.
As I’ve grown into myself as a proper, 30-something adult, have the fears gone away? Of course not. I am afraid all of the time. I wonder how I am perceived all the time. I just keep going anyway.
The best cure for craving approval is to always create for yourself: Both so the need to share it outweighs the fear, and also because it’s the only way to write anything good.
To respect your audience, you must not think of them. You must create something deeply personal, for you, so that it is honest and vulnerable and true. Not considering them is the best gift you can give an audience. They too want to see something uniquely yours. How exciting when a work of art makes us feel closer to its creator. Isn’t this part of why consuming is so meaningful to us? Because we’ve been let in on somebody’s secret? Their individual, totally weird, riveting way of seeing the world?
This is part of why the integration of Artificial Intelligence into art is so terrifying and disappointing. Without a soul to bear, AI cannot make anything worth watching.
Is it ever okay to consider the audience? Yes! The time to think of them is at the very end, once you’re ready to share your work with early readers. The audience comes last.
Over the weekend I saw a screening of the film adaptation of the novel EILEEN followed by a Q&A with its author, the great Ottessa Moshfegh. She said *SPOILER ALERT FOR EILEEN* that at the end of the book, Eileen originally shot Rebecca by accident instead of you-know-who. When getting early feedback, her mom suggested that Rebecca didn’t deserve to die. Moshfegh revealed that before that moment, she’d never considered the idea that her ending should make a moral statement. Thank god she considered what she wanted to say about the world when deciding on the ending. It reminds us that feedback on our work is often helpful and essential. At the same time, thank god she only thought of her audience at the very end, once the book was fully formed and she’d explored all her whims.
“Recognizing that people’s reactions don’t belong to you is the only sane way to create,”
writes in her book Big Magic. She continues to explain that what anybody thinks of your work has nothing to do with you and your art:“If people enjoy what you’ve created, terrific. If people ignore what you’ve created, too bad. If people misunderstand what you’ve created, don’t sweat it. And what if people absolutely hate what you’ve created? What if people attack you with savage vitriol, and insult your intelligence, and malign your motives, and drag your good name through the mud? Just smile sweetly and suggest – as politely as you possibly can – that they go make their own fucking art. Then stubbornly continue making yours.”
Learning to create for myself is probably the only reason why I, a person who is anxious about sharing things and social media, could start a Substack. With this reframing, I can both admire and feel grateful for the people who are part of my online communities and also know that to authentically show up for them, I must do it for myself. For the child who first looked at a stage and thought: That is what I want to do. Not for the adult that considered, How can I make myself more likable?
Now, I never let fear of perception stop me from being my true self, and have no attachment to other people’s approval! Also, DO YOU LIKE THIS POST? If so please press “like” and/or comment so it gets a lot of engagement and everybody knows how great my Substack is. Also, subscribe, share on social media, email it to everybody you know, and tell Substack to feature it. By the way, do you know any publishers? Please casually mention to them that I should write a book, also follow me on Instagram please, and you know what, here’s every way you can support me:
Okay… so maaaaaybe this is an ongoing struggle. Maybe writing this to write it is enough. Maybe the rest has nothing to do with me.