Thoughts About Selling Out.
Why are artists (and for artists I mean me in this case) so repelled by the idea of making money off their art?
Throughout my professional life I have been unsure of plenty of things; the fact that I have switched jobs at the same pace as those quirky Instagram influencers who compare Shein to Zara switch outfits is the testimony to my uncertainty and internal turmoil.
I wasn’t born with a specific compulsion that drove me to dive into one subject and dedicate my whole life to it, rather I was attracted to a medley of disciplines that, looking back, all tie into one big theme: storytelling.
It took me years of experimentation, trying things out, sticking my neck out and actively seeking different opportunities within an industry that I thought I loved to figure out where my “passion” actually resided.
Like in a game of chess, I had to knock out all of the enemies before I could get to the king, which in this case is the art of writing and documentation.
If only I had somebody to point me in the right direction after I graduated high school, I probably wouldn’t constantly feel like I missed out on the chance to really hone into my talent by instead directing my focus to fashion and marketing for a whole decade. But then again, maybe I would have never come to the conclusion that narration is what I should spend my time doing if things didn’t play out that way–it’s silly to cry over spilled milk now, wise to analyze the past and move towards a brighter future.
To an extent, this newsletter is a little Lego that will play a role in building out the castle I will inhabit in the future.
When I finally came around to starting this project almost a year ago in November 2021 (wow, time flies!), despite the fact that I had been publishing articles on international magazines for over a quinquennium, I still had plenty of doubt that anybody would be interested in reading what I had to say outside of my regular topics: sports, culture, fashion. Still, I felt the urge to build a space where I could freely probe my fascination for words without having to stick to a brief or a fit into a strict editorial direction; I wanted “Things I Thought About” to be a moldable literary account where my stream of consciousness could find a home, instead of being violently scattered all over the internet.
However, being that up until then a vast majority of my writing had seen the light of day almost exclusively in the luscious pages of glossy independent magazines–you know, the most dignified category of literary work–the idea of releasing a weekly digital bulletin made me feel like I was downgrading myself to a drop of water in a humongous puddle of charlatan internet writers.
The fact that everybody and their mom decided to drop a Substack at the same time as I did definitely didn’t help unstick me of this evidently sick, bourgeois mindset that hindered me from living out my truth plenty of times before.
After all, the world is full of mediocre projects. The secret to succeeding is to find your niche, perfect the craft and believe in yourself enough to keep on trying even when you feel like hiding in a cave as the ground crumbles below your feet–the medium is only a tool, not the craft itself.
Matter of fact, if I walk outside of my apartment and use my hand to count how many similar coffee shops sit on each side of the street, sometimes less than two storefronts away from each other on my block alone, I would quickly run out of fingers. And if nothing stopped substandard gender non-conforming hipsters making the same badly roasted coffee over and over from building a clientele that affords them to stay open amongst plenty of competition in an expensive North Brooklyn neighborhood, why would my project put me under a bad light? That’s just silly.
It’s a fear-generated constraint that has more to do with my own perception of self than how others see things.
I can only blame this tendency to side-eye and shush away stuff that isn’t up to my standards on perfectionism for so long before the truth inevitably comes out: I am frightened by the thought of selling out.
I am repulsed by anything that has the ability to make me feel like I am remotely becoming a vessel of banality or sensationalism. I physically get riled up and agitated, my heart pounds. I end up rejecting any advice that benefits my ascent as a writer or creative mind.
It’s the artist’s conundrum, the weight that holds us back from living a life of abundance.
In hindsight, I think that this is the reason why for so long I dedicated my time to an industry that didn’t allow me to express myself to my full potential. Working for brands was an easy way out, a system to make money without feeling like my name was tarnished by commerciality. There was a sense of detachment between me and the client that allowed me to “sell out” without feeling dirty, yet the need to break free was eating me alive.
As my personal body of work bulks up and I strategize the steps to take make in order to continue doing what I love the most–and survive off it–without having to worry about my (Milan) apartment being repossessed by the bank for missing my mortgage payments, and consequently being pushed to slut myself out to projects I am not passionate about just to make ends meet–I once again began feeling trapped into a box of non-existent discernment.
A psychosis that my boyfriend calls “the hate of making money for yourself”.
As the pivotal gear in my support system, my greatest supporter and financial advisor–he’s the one that taught me how to ask for more, save and invest–even if hearing I am not a “boss bitch” temporarily triggers a visceral reaction in me, I can’t but yield to his words and take time to self-assess.
Why am I so against considering getting paid for something people actually enjoy consuming when it’s not designed for a publication/company ran by a stranger?
After all, it’s up to the market to decide. And if great publications have picked up my work before, meaning they deemed it worthy of payment and distribution, why would getting paid to write for myself, as part of the wider ecosystem of things I do, deprecate my credibility?
I guess the answer lies in the fact that–no matter how rebellious we are or aim to be–as humans we naturally seek external validation for the things we do; social media would have never become such a big business if we didn’t care to show off our skills, life, and qualities.
As a person who enjoys the finer things in life–good sushi, art, traveling without struggling and books–but also despises working for “the man”, I must demystify personal work and wash it from the preconception that getting paid for my personal creative endeavors will taint the quality of the product I put out.
My reputation as a writer is tied to the substance of the production, not the platform it’s released on.
If Margaret Atwood allowed the lack of “authority” to refrain her from publishing the book “Double Persephone”, liberal white women would have never been able to tweet about how we are living a real life version of The Handmaid Tales when Roe v Wade was overturned. Same goes for the acclaimed erotic book 50 Shades of Grey, Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Oscar-nominated film The Martian, which was originally published as a blog by Andy Weir. Even THE Mark Twain had to cut the middle man and start his own imprint in order to publish whatever he wanted without waiting for permission.
In conclusion, as a challenge to myself, I am considering taking this newsletter to the next level and putting bits behind a paywall in order to ensure the best possible reading experience while still being able to eat my favorite Japanese food without having to rely on the impossible hope of winning the lottery in order to afford it.
I don’t know exactly when this will phase out, but if you are entertained by my musings and have found the things I talk about useful or relatable, please sit right because it’s about to get even more fun.
Here’s a few interesting articles I read about on the topic of “selling out” as I was researching the subject: