WHAT THE ARTIST OWES THE ART
Last night I went to an open mic. It was three and a half hours of soft, earnest poetry and vulnerable stories: most of it unshaped, emotionally indulgent, and frankly, hard to sit through. And not because people were bad or untalented, but because the room wasn't built on craft, it was built on catharsis.
That’s what hit me: so much of what was shared wasn’t actually art. It was therapy disguised as performance. Raw feelings passed off as finished work. I realized, uncomfortably, that I’ve sounded like that before… well-intentioned, searching, but still in the early stages of forming something real.
This experience brought something into sharp focus for me: there’s a growing trend among artists to equate vulnerability with value, and to avoid the uncomfortable (but necessary) discipline of refinement. Too many creatives stop at sharing, instead of shaping. They confuse the raw with the real. It’s no coincidence we’re witnessing this at the peak of social media and “content creation” culture, where it’s normalized to share every passing thought that crosses our mind, eroding audiences with empty opinions and emotionally reactive takes. All of it, devoid of depth.
Mildly related: Vox article on making art in the age of self promotion
When vulnerability becomes a performance (always raw and exposed) it flattens the work and traps the artist in a cycle of self-mining and suffering, feeding the deeper cultural myth of the tortured artist.
The “tortured artist” believes that suffering is the birthplace of all meaningful work. I champion the belief that we have to drop the delusion that great art requires us to suffer. That the more unstable, broke, or repressed you are, the more ‘real’ your work becomes. That’s an identity trap, not “depth”. Meaningful work comes from integration: from making sense of your experience, not getting lost in it.
Identifying as a suffering artist can sound like:
“I can either make art or make money — not both.”
“True artists suffer for their work.”
“Making a living from art means selling out.”
“Only a lucky few get to make it.”
“I’m not good enough yet to be seen or paid.”
“If my art isn’t perfect, it’s not worth sharing.”
“I’m more of a ‘creative type,’ not someone who can handle business or money.”
“I have to wait for someone to ‘discover’ me.”
“No one cares about what I have to say.”
“Pain fuels my creativity. If I’m too happy, I’ll lose my edge.”
“Being misunderstood is part of being a real artist.”
Repression doesn’t make good art. Presence does. Wholeness does. Self-respect does.
Real artists hold themselves to a higher standard than the rest of the world. They refine, study, push past their first drafts and first instincts. They do it from a place of well-being, not in spite of it.
The art that moves people, that stands the test of time, comes from those who demand evolution from themselves, not just expression. They are familiar with the discomfort of constantly meeting the edge of their ability and widening their capacity.
I’m rejecting two extremes:
The soft, unrefined, self-indulgent output that masks itself as authenticity.
The glamorization of pain and instability as necessary for creating meaningful work.
Neither leads to mastery. Neither honors the art form. And neither leads to work that truly endures.