Being an Artist Hurts Sometimes
Lessons in vulnerability from Jazza and RuPaul
Apparently, there are over 30 million videos posted to TikTok every day. That’s —excuse my French — a shit ton of content. Even though maybe 20 million of those are just videos of people reacting to filters like, “Who is my Disney daddy?” or “You have green eyes now,” a considerable amount of those posts are carefully curated looks into folks’ lives. Tinder date stories, budgets, impressions of their mom … My For You Page consists of a lot of women who claim to wake up at 5:30am to fit in a gym sesh before blending fruits from their garden into a smoothie that they drink while wearing a silk robe in front of a window in a house that they fucking own.
But the point is that we are surrounded by so much content that ✨seems✨ easy.
Of course, the key word is “seems”. Even if a video is one frame and barely edited, there’s so much thinking and planning and mustering up the courage to open one’s camera app. Hell, the women drinking smoothies through glass straws in their robes had to set up their phone tripods and press “record” before nailing the perfect shot.
It’s kind of like when your friend has really cute bangs and you KNOW it’s gotta take at least three products and several hot tools to style, but it looks dang effortless that you forget about all that blowdrying and end up spending more time than you care to admit searching “curtain bangs” on Pinterest.
Recently, two famous people eschewed the implied ease we’ve grown accustomed to, and I’m seriously impressed by their vulnerability.
RuPaul, arguably the most successful drag queen on the planet, announced the publication of his most recent book, The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir, on Instagram. In the video, he’s makeup-free, no wig, no glam. I’ve been an avid fan for a while, and I’ve never seen him in a baseball hat before, but there he is, no frills. In fact, he’s teary-eyed and soft-spoken, proud of his work but afraid of the world.
You can watch the video here:
As I’m promoting my own book (preorder here), I feel the pressure to exude confidence, joyfulness, and that elusive ease I see all over my internet. But the way RuPaul’s voice catches in his announcement video feels way more natural to me. Putting yourself out there, no matter how many times or to what extent you’ve done it before, can deeply hurt. That does not mean it’s bad or wrong. It’s a part of the process that gets edited out. At least until a creator gets so burned out they make a video dedicated totally to the hurt under a title like “I’m not doing so hot” or “Where I’ve been” … you know the ones.
I saw a video of Jazza announcing the launch of his Patreon on the same day. If you don’t comb the internet for videos of people painting in fast forward because it relieves your stress like I do, you might not know of Jazza. He’s an Australian artist who publicly pushes the limits of his abilities in highly edited, entertainment-focused videos. For instance, one of his recents is called “Smelting for the First Time,” which feels pretty self explanatory.
Jazza has 6.41 MILLION subscribers and has been creating online so long, his channel has well over a thousand videos. He’s definitely mastered the excited but slightly nervous thumbnail face, and you’d assume he’d announce a big project with the same youtube-algorithm-approved enthusiasm. But here he is, announcing the launch of his Patreon and openly weeping:
Here’s a summary of the video: Jazza struggles to get his thoughts in order, but once he does, admits that he needs to start a Patreon (where fans can directly support creators they love) to keep paying his employees and making high quality videos. He slips into something of a free therapy session, sharing that he started creating art in the first place because he’s the second youngest in a big Mormon family and it was a way for him to get attention and love. Oof.
He notes that when he sees other creators ask for support, he thinks they deserve it, but for some reason he does not. V relatable, Jazza.
Could this be a brilliant marketing ploy? Sure. But then this guy would have to be some kind of sociopath who can cry on command. I prefer to believe that he actually struggles with the unworthiness he describes in his video.
I’m not saying that the next time you feel the cloying sorrow of being a person who desperately needs to create you should record yourself crying and post it to the internet. But please remember that even the most "successful” people are not immune.
You’re part of a big, beautiful sad club 💕
Welcome!