Special Feature: Art and hypercapitalism

SPECIAL FEATURE FINALE
ONCE in a blue moon, I get to witness how thinking too much causes problems.

Exhibit refused: “Fountain” by Marcel Duchamp (signing as R. Mutt), 1917. Photograph by Alfred Stieglitz. (via Wikipedia)

How do artists cope with living in a society of plutocratic hypercapitalism?

What I mean by that is, once you realise you have no power over anything whatsoever and you are meant to be ‘controlled’ by corporations for maximised gains, you tend to lose the will to live and the motivation to pursue larger-than-life concepts. Or maybe you pursue art exactly because of that to escape it (at least in your mind).

For me, it’s the opposite. The art I would do would be for entertainment. Ironically, that in itself is precisely what makes it all go to shit in its current state. Even if I go the route of simple thinking and enjoy a simple life, I’m still a victim of systems that work against me. I still have to draw for cheap money. I still have to whore myself out so I don’t starve. I don’t know, but I feel like I had lost a purpose to do anything, really.

I realise that learning and doing art is one of those few things that can actually help me feel more like a human being. I just don’t know how to form a good mindset for that. — Art Dickmouth

In short, you’re also interested in how to be a bum, right?

It isn’t hypercapitalism. Not even capitalism. It’s just the nature of society everywhere since the beginning of time.

Don’t “cope” — ADJUST. If you (as you put it) can pursue art to escape this “hypercapitalism” and “whore yourself out,” then you are already adjusting — why ask about “coping”?

There is literally NO POINT to knowing or asking about how others ‘cope.’ You need only know two things:—

1. What are the commonest things you are having to cope with?
2. Why are they still common things you have to cope with when you know their effects on you?

If I chucked you into the wilderness with no laws and no bills to pay, you still have to do the stuff you dislike in order to survive — fetching water, hunting, foraging, farming, raising livestock, build a shack, make tools and clothes, and so on.

Gee, I don’t know, maybe it’s because pretty much everything we see around us that’s not a stump or a natural rock formation was made possible by small businesses and bigger corporations. Your art materials and mobile phone are made by companies, if you’ve noticed.

If you don’t want to work, go act crazy or cripple yourself so you can be a part of that universal income apparatus called WELFARE like many people do.

• If anything, capitalism is overall better for you. Maybe you have to ‘whore’ out your art or yourself to make ends meet, but at least that’s related to your interest and, hopefully, be recognised for it.

Most companies have a gross profit margin of 10% to 15%. This means 85% to 90% of the money they make goes into employee payroll, rent, technological research, insurance, and then taxes. Ultimately that “10–15%” money is used for the creation of a product or service (in your case, art) that people would want to pay for because it provides a ‘benefit’ to them. How can that arrangement possibly offend you? LMAO.

• Contention:— “Plutocratic” was there for a reason.

You gave none. You presumed the rest of us would know what you mean by your fancy term “plutocratic hypercapitalism,” which, by the way, makes no sense in economics or political science.

What has plutocracy got to do with anything? The wealthy has always influenced and controlled the government. With companies, it has to be plutocratic because there’s no other feasible way. Plutocracy is also relative — I’m ‘wealthy’ relative to my employees, but I’m scarcely wealthy in objective terms. So what’s your point?

Ever heard of wage-cutting and looking for cheaper labour? Plutocracy and hypercapitalism my foot.

Art is no different. If you’re not in the top 5%, you have to meet bigger and bigger expectations while getting the same or sometimes a lesser amount of money.

It’s self-evident from looking at the quality of art 15 or 20 years ago and compare it to now. You have to be like a million times better now than before, but you get generally the same or less money because of inflation and so on. It’s pathetic but that’s “capitaluserism” for you.

WHAT YOU ARE NOT TELLING US

You talk of “losing the will to live” due to having “no control over anything whatsoever” and “meant to be controlled” by mega-corporations or plutocratic hypercapitalism — and I’m asking why you see it that way. Losing the will to live is a pretty extreme reaction to a form of ECONOMICS for someone claiming no control yet have the control to escape the system by pursuing something EXPENSIVE like art and whoring it out.

I’m curious as to what are you not telling us because you’re using the meaningless words “plutocratic” and “hypercapitalism” — one of the classic fascist/communist agitprop ploys to play people off against each other. You’re using “art” as a launchpad for running the ploy of the few vs. the many.

Hypercapitalism is politicalspeak for “unregulated capitalism” — political euphemism for “imperialism” to disguise it under the cloak of economics. It was the capitalism of the 19th century. It ended after the First World War. We don’t have that anymore due to the fact that we have uniform trade treaties between countries and national laws regulating employment conditions, wages, consumer rights and so on.

Plutocracy is the wealthy influencing or controlling the government. There is nothing strange or new about this because this has been going on for centuries. I’ve already explained plutocracy in companies in the 12th paragraph above.

Capitalism — or whatever you like to call it — is a traditional pattern of nature since the New Stone Age. It is not an actual ‘system.’ Economics treats things in terms of systems behaviour to analyse the variables and predict trajectories.

Art is just expression, no more and no less. Even if aliens exist and land on Earth, they will do more business with us than art. Selling art is selling this ‘expression,’ and it’s kind of weird desu too, I grant you that.

At first, even The Naked Listener thought it was a megacorp conspiracy hating on art. I’m afraid it’s worse than that:—

• Art itself is not only for money but for loving it.

This is literally everywhere in every field. That’s just how society is going to continue on until the population implodes or there’s a shortage of workers for every conceivable job.

Oh, wait, by then everything will be automated and robots will do everything for the 100,000 or so human beings that still survive then — just like all those barely populated planets in Star Wars or Star Trek.

NOT ADDRESSING YOUR POINT

I said that you get the same amount of money for doing art today while the required quality had to be a lot better than before. This is tantamount to saying less money obtainable for the same quality given because of inflation and other economic factors.

Is THAT a healthy industry for you?

Theoretically, I could get unbelievably good like da Vinci or Michelangelo and be well off — but that’s not what 99% of artists got in any century.

Some people think (and automatically brand) anyone a “commie” for desiring some degree of equality and equity. But seeing flaws in a system doesn’t make a person a “commie” any more than wilful blindness makes one a “fascist.”

The citizens of the former USSR all knew the Soviet economy was shit, crumbling and unequal even with no inkling how life was in the imperialist West. “Commie” much?

Japan is the perfect “communist” society, but you’ll get your face bashed in from calling anyone there a “commie” because they’re out-and-out capitalists.

• If anything, capitalism helps make artists rich and opens up possibilities to more people in art.

The bunch who wants “equality” plus the group that brands others as “commie” or “fascist” are people who hang around with (and hang onto) kiddie ideas. They don’t have enough experience of the real world, no matter what their age.

The bunch that disses the equalityfags operate on the idea of “Life is unfair” or “There is no equality in life” — and they are closet dumbarses because they didn’t learn to know the final part of those phrases, which is “… but we can improve things.” This bunch is precisely the people who have no control over anything whatsoever because they are victims of systems that found it easy to work against them. So they don’t see the need to improve anything (or themselves) because “hey, that’s life” and the system treats them for what they are — like dust.

At least the equalityfags (the less extreme versions) still aren’t too victimised and still have a modicum of control to have a crack at making improvements.

Meanwhile the equalityfags insist having equality, often at once with a hard reset to society, and they are equally brain-damaged. They operate on the idea of “We are all born equal” — not learning to know the phrase end with the words, “but we lead different, separate lives.” We spill the same blood in the same mud, but some spill earlier or spill more than others. So it’s “Oklahoma, or Bust!” with them because they don’t have the self-control to stick around long enough for the improvement effort to work its way through the inertia of the system. So they create various schemes to shoehorn ‘equality’ into things — at the expense of fairness. In the process, they become like the unfairfags above.

Just get good at the art you do. This allows you to have a fighting chance of making a living off it. You’re entirely free to do or not do. Nothing in the world stops you from getting good at it, though lots of circumstances in life can make it hard or even impossible for you to do so.

You cannot in good faith complain that you have to “slave away” at a company job or whoring yourself in art. Either you want to sell your skills, or you’re a lazy bum. You can even freelance. There’s really little or nothing to complain about.

• The ‘flaws’ in art or the art world that some ‘artists’ bitch about are simply because of competition.

What am I suggesting with that? That we have an artist “battle royale” so we can cull and thin out the competition?

• You are COMPETING in and with a GLOBAL market in art. That’s how it is. It’s the same in other fields.

The situation you’re facing is competition. The difference is you’re calling it by a made-up label that has no validity in economics and no meaningful definition in political science. Then you rabbit on about the system victimises you but with opportunities for your whoring-out because the system is run by the select few, which altogether has no bearing on the form of art you do in a system that doesn’t mandate you to do an approved artform. What are you not telling us?

That competition comes from more and more people getting into the art domain. Those increased numbers of people stem from both ballooning population levels and general upward development of societies everywhere.

People get better in their knowledge or skills in art. More and more information are freely available online. People are no longer tied to their parents’ or grandparents’ line of work, unlike the generations before us.

Andy Warhol was competing against barely a dozen other artists of his calibre and style, but was already eclipsed by some 500 others in his niche by the time he died. Henri Cartier-Bresson was unique in genre and aesthetics in his time, but tens of thousands were doing the HCB thing by the ’70s and ’80s when camera and film prices went down to mass-affordability levels. Imagine Warhol and Cartier-Bresson having to compete against today’s deluge of just those on digital with even a little bit of art or photographic training. The bar goes up for literally everybody.

So it’s bizarre what you’re complaining about. It’s a simple trade, and people want to make good deals.

• If art is your passion in life, then you’ll be happy to make a living off it. Indeed, you’re lucky to be able to whore yourself out for art because lots of artists don’t even get that chance because of the economics of numbers.

It isn’t like you’re an illegal immigrant sweatshop painter selling master copies to a scammer. The underdeveloped countries have laws regulating contracts, employment and wages, so never mind the developed countries. Even in the underdeveloped countries, you can still survive on freelancing, hard and horrible as that may be.

NOT THE PROBLEM YOU’RE LOOKING FOR

Blaming crapitalism (indeed, soshitcialism too) for everything betrays your paper-thin experience of the real world.

For 90+ years the Cumshotmunists and Suckcockcialists had been some of the most important players and market-makers in the stock exchanges and commodity markets worldwide, and I know it’s true because I’m a financial security printer. The USSR invented the petrodollar in the 1970s. The Chinese have been big forex traders since the 1960s through Hong Kong, Singapore and London. Try trading against these dyed-in-the-wool capitalists and see what happens.

Like I said, you get the same money today but required to do better art.

• There is no such thing as ‘better’ in art. That argument is based on a false premise.

True. It’s not “self-evident” (at all) as I claimed earlier that art today is a million times better than it was 15 or 20 years ago. Really — because I don’t actually see that happening either.

What in fact I do see is shitty and shittier artists pass the bill, simply because they’re put on a time factor.

Depending on what you do, there are literally TENS OF THOUSANDS of forms of art, ranging from ultraconservative classicism to bleeding-edge hyper-abstractionism.

INSPIRATION, PERSPIRATION, TRANSPIRATION

Since we’re on the subject of Capitalism vs. Communism, let’s talk about art in the USSR.

Did you know Pope Julius II forced Michelangelo to work on the Sistine Chapel? Did you know why?

Yes, I do. Jules forced Mikey to work on the thing, not because of art, but because of politics and blackmail over Mikey’s homosexuality. Despite that, Mikey was paid handsomely for the work.

Let’s start with the most notable art style to come from the Soviets — Socialist Realism (1932–88).

Socialist Realism is exactly what it sounds like — realism that depicts and promotes communist/socialist ideas and IDEALS.

Then you have Russian Futurism (1910s–20s), which was another artform that rejected traditions and history in favour of the glorification of science, speed, machinery and other man-made things.

The main thing wrong with these forms of art was that both were inspired mostly by a brutalistic government based on authoritarian dictatorship. One was capitalist and imperialist, and the other socialist and monopolist.

An artist COULD paint or sculpt what he wanted, but SHOWING a painting of McDonald’s most likely would get him shot by the KGB. That’s one reason easy enough to understand.

Another reason is that the inspiration source actively EVADED a facet of everyday reality — one that happens to be an irresistible subject matter in art — Love and Desire expressed in the forms of sexuality and sexualisation. So you just follow the memo and avoid as well.

Both represent simultaneous situations of self-limiting your artistic range (“a victim of systems that work against me”) and doing your art to what’s required or payable (“whoring” yourself out) just to have a reasonably normal life. The price is your art and mind quickly resemble a rusted-up cnut. Neither of the situations have anything to do with capitalism. It has everything to do with who’s making policy and who’s your competition to be at the top of the game inside the box.

It was laughably dubbed “only recently discovered” by the art press that Stalin owned dozens of HOMOSEXUAL artworks. Yet in his Stalinist Russia, it was illegal and punishable by gulag labour for being gay and for doing or having art of a homosexual complexion. Ironically enough, it was Stalin who installed the anti-homosexual law.

If you don’t like your arse being poked, then you must be a communist. Right?

You might find having your arse poked is considerably more profitable than doing art, all told.

Here what The Naked Listener has learned from observing and listening to artist friends and their acquaintances over the years:—

• Many artists have “artist’s block” for years on end because they couldn’t handle the constant shifting of focus on the artistic continents of form, function and aesthetics. So they frazzle at interruptions and disturbances when working. They convince themselves that they need or have a “membrane” enveloping them during their creative process to stay on course on their artistic petroleum tanker for discharging their artistic load at the right artistic oil refinery port.

They don’t have a membrane. They have a WALL.

A membrane is permeable. A membrane allows all sorts of things to pass in and out IN A REGULATED WAY AND RATE as it happens with a real biological membrane.

The wall some artists have around them blocks the incoming as well as the outgoing. It is as though the incoming would CORRUPT the inside and the outgoing is more valuable than the outside deserves. In the end, the outside wins because the inside has no effective frame of reference for evaluating its own qualitative and quantitative contributory value.

This is what happens when artists spin on a meaningless axis that has no navigability in art (such as plutocratic hypercapitalism) and wonder why their art doesn’t have the commercial potential or artistic recognition they believe it deserves. All the while they slowly burn out from their diminishing outwhoring instead of just sell out completely by doing the art that ‘sells’ to a reasonably predictable clientele. They should have stuck to something more generic (say, just “politics”) and do “political” or “politicised” art. You just can’t do art about something hypercapitalistic like “exchange-traded emerging-market commodities future options index funds.”

Poke your own arse. Nobody wants to go in dry.

LIVING AS PART OF SOCIETY

How do artists cope with living in a society of plutocratic hypercapitalism? Imagine being cucked by capitalism and still defending it.

They just … live … in society.

I’m curious to know the ideal society that you’re measuring capitalism against. Would you rather live in the Europe of the Middle Ages? Ancient Egypt? Maoist China? Hyperinflationary Latin America? Fundie Islamic Syriaqistan?

Those artists just live and run with the system they’re living in, whether it’s capitaLUSERism or SHITcialism, never mind ‘hyper-’ or ‘plutocratic’ — that’s how.

Some successfully ‘game’ the system and make what they want within the limitations of the system (“flying rink”). For most, the choice is either burn out or sell out. Those who didn’t burn out choose to sell out. The decision generally isn’t a hard one. Most people have pressing financial obligations like child support, alimony, medical, rent, utilities, food and shit.

Even cavemen had to get up every day and forage for food. Everyone has to do something they dislike in order to survive. Some poor sod has to clean the drains and filters at the sewage plant just so that prissy tots like us can flush our goddamned toilets. That’s life. That’s society.

Is it anything like being so stupid that you don’t realise the problems that come with the proposed alternatives to capitalism are always worse than the problems you’re trying to fix?

It’s literally effing this, isn’t it?

It never fails — ignorant house tyrants and spoilt brats who haven’t seen or won’t see the problems within their alternatives are the ones who always complain.

It’s one thing to criticise capitalism, but it’s quite another to think capitalism as a whole is ‘evil’ or useless. It’s pure wilful insincerity. This isn’t a movie storyline in which anything had to be pure evil or pure good just to fit into 120 minutes of screentime. Unless you have a better replacement in mind that works, stop bloody bitching. Please don’t brand others as “a commie/fascist.” That’s defamatory and can get you sued.

• Protip:— Learn to make yourself non-ignorant.

Stay up late one night or two AWAY from your Internet shota porn or videogame. Read up and learn about what’s happening in—

• countries with a system that “isn’t capitalism” — like Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Vietnam, North Korea, the states of the former USSR, etc
• countries that are capitalist — like China, ‘socialist’ Scandinavia, ‘socialist’ France; the “welfare states” of UK, Germany, Italy, Greece; or the “fundamentalist Islamic states” of Algeria, Egypt, Emirates, Indonesia, Lebanon, Morocco, etc
• the ideal communist society of Japan, which isn’t communist (at all)

Then you might find a more well-rounded perspective for your ‘art’ and ‘worldview.’

• Capitalism is a PATTERN or a SYSTEM. It’s not a person. It cannot commit evil, though its existence can be harsh or not harsh depending on how it’s structured. PEOPLE commit evil, which in a way makes ANY system worse.

Why must society be like this?

Why must there be a ‘boss’ who takes part of what you produce just by being a boss?

Why must profits be prioritised over people?

Why must most of the wealth produced goes to the 1%, leaving crumbs to the rest of us?

They ‘must’ be like that because they exist only in your mind.

That’s because you’ve bought into the hostile agitprop rubbish calculated to pit people against each other. Or maybe you’re the one propagating it.

If you sincerely think society is like that, you’re just being blinded by how things are to imagine anything different.

There’s no arguing about the facts. Most of the wealth really do go to the so-called 1%. Many really are left with the crumbs. But society as a whole really isn’t entirely like that. Neither has it always been like that. Nor must it be like that. The picture overall isn’t a good one, but it’s not down the drain either. The reality is that societies everywhere are STRATIFIED — some places are worse than others, and some levels of the population are worse off than the rest.

The problem isn’t that there are winners and losers because of capitalism or socialism. To anyone who has reasonably been around the world — and surfing the Internet doesn’t count — it’s just two things:—

1. Winners are the result of a competitive society or economy — whether capitalist, socialist, feudal, barter, slave, etc.
2. Lusers are the result of letting cnuts make policy.

Do you sincerely imagine in the history of mankind that there was ever a society with little or no problems?

If it were really that easy to formulate a better society, we would’ve HAD that society a long time ago. Nobody would be asking awkward questions about art and crapitalism or shitcialism.

If it’s that easy, go ahead and tell me. I’ll lay down my strapons guns right now and admit I’m too brainlet to understand.

Yes, I feel you, brothers and sisters. I do’t think it’s unfair the 1% gets to have everything and abuse us our pouting daughters their power.

This is especially because I got the short end of the stick and live in a “First World” third-world country like Hong Kong — and the Second World country (China) ruling us is also the economic 1%.

• Freedom to exchange value is what society relies upon to give others value and stability. How it’s done is the question, not whether capitalism, socialism, democracy, plutocracy, meritocracy and whatever-cracy is the problem.

The only thing you CAN do in whatever system you’re living in is give your best in your own way. Teach others, and understand good luck also plays a biggish factor in life. Hard work, fatigue, momentary depression and loss of youth can also get something in return if you make some small sacrifices. That’s how reality is. And that’s why people say life isn’t easy. It doesn’t have to be HARD, but it couldn’t be easy. Learn to be grateful for the small things and be thankful for small joys.

• Contention:— But what if you realise you have no power over anything and you’re meant to be ‘controlled’ by corporations for maximised gains?

Why are people so shite at understanding capitalism? Capitalism is literally the opposite of what you described. It’s just an economic PATTERN (not even a system) that at any point allows you to present something useful to the world and get rewarded for the work YOU made.

The point is that the wealthy only profited from the work done by others under them by using METHODS or PROCESSES to depress value to help obtain their economic gain. There is no meritocracy whatsoever in capitalism. Only those with capital become wealthier through investing for a return.

• Contention:— Society itself fosters problems. The solution is to give economic and political power to those who work and not to the few who don’t.

That’s easier said than done in ANY system. There’s a lot of leftist/socialist theories on how to go about it — and also a lot of infighting among their theorists and supporters.

Above: The figures are politicised and not altogether accurate.

• Contention:— The real problem is overpopulation.

Yet no one is touching that with a million-foot bargepole. The rich is ultimately just as much a victim as the unrich of a “dynamic, progressive, ever-changing global economy.”

Depending on what statistics we use (or believe in), the planet has around 7 billion people, and we should have enough food and other resources to sustain another 1.2 to 2.2 billion people on this planet over the next 100 years. Yet most of those resources get wasted, so about 20 million people starve to death every year.

• The problem isn’t overpopulation. The problem is how resources are distributed. Our distribution systems are still pre-mediæval in structure.

The problem isn’t how they’re distributed under capitalism. The problem exists in socialism and any other “-ism” we cared to name.

• Contention:— Please, for heaven’s sakes, I just went to poverty.com and looked through the tabs. Literally ALL of them say sweeping improvements have been made recently.

The reality is that there isn’t even enough resources for everyone right now to live a reasonably comfy non-American-type Western lifestyle without stripping the planet bare in under 100 years. So either we go do that (and ruin the planet and A LOT of people are just going to have to go without), or a bunch of people are going to get killed off. That’s the galling choice.

STOP CHANGING THE SUBJECT

The “commies” (who are not necessarily actual communists) are bloody hilarious in a disgusting kind of way:—

1. So everything bad is capitalism.
2. So espouse communism.
3. Doesn’t realise that under the communists, he’d be complaining again about not making money from his art or Patreon because of competition from other artists who are better than him at doing the officially approved form of art.
4. Feels obligated to feel a loss of will to live due to being victimised by his own lack of earning power.
5. Compelled to remain with his art and whore out for it because of being a victim of systems that work against him, instead of selling/whoring out by getting a better-paying job.

Stop pretending the form of government is the problem.

The real problem is being too lazy to get a job or make money off your work.

No, the actual real problem is that many artists around the world are simply no bloody good and don’t do enough of the art that’s wanted by people who are willing to pay.

No, the true actual real reason is that many artists are shit and are envious of the small numbers of artists who CAN do the type of art to high enough quality that could persuade people and companies to pay for it.

• Contention:— But you have no power over anything and you’re meant to be ‘controlled’ by corporations.

Tell us in what universe do you live in where anyone has any control over anything beyond themselves?

Oh, that’s right — you live AT HOME under the protective umbrella of mum and dad. So you don’t have any real worries.

Piss off, bruv. You didn’t see brooding emo wankers like Michelangelo complaining about being a wage slave to the Church in the past. They just got on with their art, even in the face of blackmail about their homo-lesbi-furry-sexless sexuality.

Unlike in communism, you have literally no obligation in capitalism to work under another person, though it would be srsly stoopid for you to not work in any system.

Capitalism doesn’t punish the mindless sheep for having no original ideas. It just doesn’t get to have any effect in the system. If you have no mind and no originality, don’t expect to live beyond the level of the mindless and the unoriginal. You are what you are.

Capitalism doesn’t punish. It’s a free highway. If your car is fit to drive on it, great. If not, then you’ll be overtaken by all the other cars. You’re free to drive off the cliff if you want, but we appreciate you not making a bloody mess in the process.

Bruv, even with original ideas, without capital there’s no way to execute them. Without some pre-existing capital, you are absolutely obligated to either work and save, or starve.

If you want control over your own life, do two things:—

1. Regulate yourself and devise a plan.
2. Educate yourself on how you’re being manipulated.

If you don’t have self-discipline, then you’ll be a slave to your subconscious, your moods, your appetites, etc. You know this already because you’re the artist because those things are the stuff of art. I should be asking you about it, not the other way around.

Tech and social media companies are great at manipulating people who lack self-discipline. Limit your consumption of them if your self-control is on the low side.

You’re disadvantaged by the ‘system’ if you’re weak-willed to begin with, but less so if you’re self-disciplined.

It is the same with art:—

1. You are in art, an economic sector that’s more at the mercy of market forces due to it being needed less directly and less regularly by society for economic well-being. Art enriches us all in a qualitative way, but does jack quantitatively.
2. Art is more able to enrich the 1% in money terms simply because the 1% has the wherewithal to soak up the output of artists. Since there is still a limit to the soak-up, only a small proportion of artists gets to capitalise on their art in any meaningfully material way.

YOU’RE OVERTHINKING, TOSH

The same could be said about all things in existence. It’s just an impossibly large chain of events.

If you’re already blessed (or cursed) with self-awareness or ‘knowledge’ to the point you can see flaws in every aspect of life and can’t look past them, there isn’t much that can change the situation.

Consider finding happiness in your own situation. One day you’ll wish things were as easy as they are now, even if they don’t seem very easy right now.

Consider how insignificant everything is. Draw happiness from the specks of interests in anything that appears fun or interesting in this vast emptiness of life and the universe.

It’s not all that complicated, actually.

I got serious about photography and the graphic arts in my early teens. I decided at the outset that I wouldn’t do it to get rich or famous. I reckoned I couldn’t anyway. Just do it for myself. Do things I like, not for getting attention from friends or family. I just kept doing it in my own way, improved to the point it made sense to go to photography school, and then worked for 10 years as a professional photographer.

If you had actual talent, your problems and questions would all be different (but probably just as whiny and whingeing).

Just shut up and draw.

Thinking too much causes problems, bruv.

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Below is how differently “artist” comes over in different language societies.

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© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 05 Oct 2020. (B18087)

All images via allchans unless otherwise indicated.

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L’article crée le 03 juillet 2018 sur 05:01h.

Special Aside: NEET’s Guide to Working As An Artist

SPECIAL REPORT: ASIDE
Warning:— Contains language that may be NSFW (Naff Sarcasm For Wankers).

HERE is a quick guide to making it when you are working as a full-time artist:—

Sleep — If you follow this guide, you’ll only need about three hours of sleep every two days.
Getting rid of sleep is one of the most important things you can do if you really, sincerely want to be an artist. If you take a healthy approach to less sleep, it’s just as healthy as getting a full eight hours every day.
The thing to remember is that, as artists, our lives are incredibly sedentary. Sleep is generally a thing the body needs when it’s doing something rigorous and building muscle. Manual labourers need sleep to function properly. Artists need significantly less.
As an example, carnivores sleep more than herbivores. Elephants sleep about three hours a day — something that is doable because they have almost no predators. As human beings, we have absolutely none. There’s no need for us to hunt for food. Most of the time, there’s no need to move at all, especially if you’re an artist.

YEAH, SUUURE…

Idiot.

The less sleep, the more sedentary and lethargic you become — not the other way around, liar.

You just have to wonder how is it that anyone could actually believe this tripe. And they are many who really believe, no kidding.

When you get rid of sleep, you need to take the necessary steps to prevent a blowout — never mind maintain a healthy lifestyle — by adjustment.

For starters, you won’t eat full meals anymore once you reduce your amount of sleep. Your metabolism slows down — you will basically have the metabolism of people in their 70s. You will have to cycle through some vital things to eat several times a day every day to function, and you cannot skip them.

In short, you have to turn into a ruminating cow or sheep, munching four or more meals a day, or just munch non-stop — protein (beans, meat), fat (whole milk), vitamins (citrus fruits), carbohydrates (fruit) and water throughout the day. Your metabolism has slowed down to the point it cannot take the stress of dealing with a proper, full-blown meal.

By the way, I’m also curious to know how you can be a NEET (“Not in Employment, Education or Training”) and be a working artist. “NEET’s Guide” — rum tale.

Another vital thing for being an artist is energy storage — as much as possible. Sleep will be anytime whenever you feel tired. You’ll stay motionless for a while.

You have got to be kidding me with that shit.

Another good way to stay awake is to have sex or masturbate. When it comes to sex, it’s best to find the most attractive girls you can get because then you don’t have to spend too much energy to have an orgasm. Sex should then last about 30 seconds to two minutes. An orgasm therefore is a quick way to relax your body and energise yourself to work for a few more hours.

It’s just like saying, it would help to get good at cunnilingus because you want your models to stay awake, so you need to give them orgasms too — because sex is way too exhausting to do it for too long. Pffft.

Orgasms are good in case you need to drive somewhere and you don’t have time to take your three hours of sleep. So it’s best then to bring coffee and cigarettes with you and stay awake on the drive back. Also try to restrict the drive to early morning and late at night when there aren’t many road users around.
And it’s best to drive the speed limit — or a little slower — to keep your heart rate down because it can be hard to pay attention on little sleep. It’s a courtesy to other road users too since you wouldn’t want to be stuck behind a guy doing 25 mph in a 25 mph road when you’ve only slept eight hours last night.
If you do all this, you’ll notice an amazing increase in your productivity and creativity.

Part of being an artist is having your eyes open as much as possible so you can ‘study’ your surroundings visually. You can’t do that with just three hours’ sleep for every 48-hour period. It goes against the laws of physiology.

Wake the bloody hell up, people!

• Three hours of sleep every two days sounds like a good method to kill yourself.

I know this is an obvious troll, but at least try to be a wee more subtle.

Besides, only a chad can get aways with being a two-pump chump. Only a chad gets to hit prime trim. No woman would ever sleep with any man who looks like a wreck — and three hours’ sleep every two days is what gets you. Then again, no woman wants to sleep with any man who falls for this crap.

It’s because the Internet isn’t a place for “Projection much, LOL?” but one to get honest critique, right? Riiight… you’re retarded.
NOT REALLY, BRUV

Just huff paint thinner. Artists love doing that, right?

Wake the bloody hell up, peep’l. When you cut back on sleep, you also cut back on your brain’s ability to process the learning done when you’re awake. It literally promotes the growth of cancer cells by staying awake so much. Sleep is the period for our bodies to repair tissues and reconsolidate the metabolic processes.
THEY WALK AMONGST US

Listen to me, boys and girls. Sleep deprivation will give you cool hallucinations, which you can then paint and sell for millions. Thing is, the “shadow beings” seen in hallucinations are actually there. Many people see the same description of the same things for a reason. It’s all part of fallen witchcraft.

If you actually believe THAT, then maybe your hallucinations have become permanent and entrenched.
GO FOR BROKE

Let’s just not sleep at all. I can invent crap too:—

• We’ve been conditioned to sleep, even though we don’t need it. Remember when you were a kid and did’t want to go to bed? You weren’t tired, but your shitty parents — whose economic activities raped the environment, depleted your natural-resource inheritance on rampant consumerism and Cold War militarisation — said you had to. They just wanted to get rid of you and have a few hours of peace and quiet so your crack-whore mother could suck off your ghey father once every six weeks. So stop this sleep shit — you don’t need it. Forgive your shitty parents, for they didn’t know what they were doing.

We sleep not just because for tiredness but for rest and relaxation.
THE PITS

This crap is probably the worst guide to anything I’ve ever seen or heard — especially the surrealistic part about masturbation being a good way to stay awake.

• Masturbation literally keeps you lazy and in low energy. You become content with doing NOTHING.

Stop wanking and get your goddamned sleep. You should also spend some time on exercise — 30 minutes a day won’t hurt your lifestyle but will actually improve it a lot. Eat a balanced diet. A healthy body makes for a healthy mind.

Pay no attention to “NEET’s Guide” writers. They either fools or trolls.

Now you can go back to masturbating or sleep.

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Below are items found resting on the ultra-deep ocean floor by oceanographers. You too could sink to the abyss if you’re careless with your information.

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© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 03 Oct 2020. (B18051)

Xxxxx words.

L’article écrit le 08 avril 2018 et crée le 10 avril 2020.

Special Feature: Art school redpill

SPECIAL QUARTERLY FEATURE 2
ONLY very few art schools are worth the bread in the sense of actually teaching you how to draw, paint, sculpt and whatnot. Your art school is probably shite, particularly if it isn’t in a First World country, and then some even there.

Watts Atelier and CalArts, for example, are in the category of greats.

Most art schools will just teach you useless shit like philosophy of art or the gestalt or zeitgeist of various artistic genres — when you just want to do something cool in art. Some will glorify some modern art bullshit because “muh expression.”

A lot of people graduate from art school can’t even operate on the level of begging. I’ve seen it first-hand many times in different countries, and it’s sad as it sounds.

It gets worse.

You will be tens of thousands of dollars or pounds or whatever currency in student debt.

Meanwhile a kid drawing anime for fun will draw 10 times better, and ironically, will have more money in the long run.

And that’s because you can learn most (not all) of the ‘art’ cheaper or for free online.

If you paid Watts Atelier or New Masters Academy and pay extra for critiques by their professionals, you will be learning more than you’ll save money. Then again, they’ll be worth the opportunity cost (formula here) since they accept the best and brightest — and the crême typically maximises the worth of their opportunities. So the point is moot when it comes to the topnotch art schools anyway.

Unlike the other occupations such as medicine, law, accounting, etc, employers generally don’t give a shit about what’s behind your diploma or degree. One glance at your portfolio and if it sucks, you’re effed. They would even hire a self-taught KID over you.

By what metric?

“I almost went to [Tokyo Communication Arts]. For car-design schools, what I notice is, if you just look at the designs that come out of schools, the consistently better ones come out from Hongik, Coventry, MAMI, Forzheim in Germany, and a decent one in California. Otherwise, I think every car-design programme is probably dog shit.” — An industrial designer

I’ve seen plenty of detailed, technically good art that looks like straight retardation shit.

Also, animefags have to compete with each other on who can draw the style the best. It’s oversaturated and it’s boring.

By the metric of employers who need artists actually hiring you?

Had I contradicted myself there?

So if moneyfags employers are the ones setting the tone metric, it’s a straightforward task. Find out where you ‘should’ be working and draw whatever stupid style that is selling — ideally a style high in demand yet low in supply.

Working just for money is horribly unfulfilling spiritually as well as financially, by the way. It’s straight wage slavery. Your art suffers.

Contradicted myself?

If you thought the same as the above, then you’re confusing your shitty artistic taste with making art.

If you don’t get people to hire you, you aren’t a “pro.” It’s that simple. This is for people who want jobs, retard.

What part of nobody gives a shit about your “muh expression” you didn’t understand?

You say the debate is for people who want to actually MAKE ART.

So what exactly is your idea of “making art”? Why are you so willing and ready to accept a shitty life?

Piss off! We’re strictly talking about art schools. I don’t give a shit about what “making art” is for you. I’m not your nanny fcuktoy dictionary.

Let’s say we claim art wasn’t subjective.

We then have to claim that employers decide what good art is — since it necessarily follows from our earlier claim that you’re not a pro unless you get hired or commissioned.

The thing is, the employers are still subjectively deciding what they want and don’t want— since 90% of them are troglodytes untrained in art.

Did Picasso work for some big corporate bordello?

I’ve worked in the art industry before — professionally. It was butt-raeping soul-sapping awful work.

All businesses are started by crooks people. You can start working with other insufferable artists in a collective. Even if you don’t get shafted rich, I bet you’d be a million times happier — working on things you like, with goth chicks or Gucci studs people you like, in conditions you all tolerate agreed to — rather than be rich and working non-stop to make some philistine’s dream a reality.

But welcome to the real world too. In real life, we all have to do things we don’t like in order to earn money. Very few people get to do what they truly want. Deal with it.

Only few art schools are worth the money?

Depends on the school, of course. And what your expectations are, the quality of the teaching, and how industrious and focused you’re willing to be.

You cannot learn most of the art cheaper or for free online. It’s not possible to learn much online even from AnimeKing420’s “How to Draw Manga” channel.

If we discount street prostitution and software piracy free resources from the equation, it’s still cheaper to pay a life subscription to (say) NMA than being scammed by art school having university-level debt from art school.

There’s simply no comparison. I’ll bet you the life subscription is still cheaper than just one semester’s tuition at your average art school.

The real question is, are YOU worth spending that bread?

My schoolmate and friend Giles de Gisffourde went to art school and got a ‘First’ for his B.A. in Fine Arts with emphasis in illustration. He had to take all the studio discipline modules of the painting degrees, so he got solid training in the pure-art techniques. He was hardworking and motivated. He didn’t regret going to art school at all. He is a working artist and is ‘known’ in global art circles. His aristo-sounding name helps too.

But I also knew lots of people whose parents paid for them to go to some top art academy — and they just waltzed through classes, didn’t apply themselves, and then came out with worthless portfolios.

And then they pestered people like Giles (or me!) with “How d’you do this?” about basic art materials, never mind techniques.

• To be fair, no art school is wholly rubbish. Even state-subsidised art programmes turn out talented art graduates every year.

But realise that even top-notch art schools are pretty much a “franchised school” and more about soaking up that sweet, guaranteed public-sector loan/grant money than about turning out qualified artists.

I met and talked to someone who taught and lasted only a year at The Art Academy in the USA. He said it was babysitting, not teaching art. Yet in the same city, there are private ateliers that teach students the hardcore classical techniques, and their graduates go on to actual art careers.

• One of the defining aspects of many art-related discussion forums is their users’ stunning lack of knowledge of what actually happens in the real art world.

Check out the 5,000+ threads on 4chan and reddit that ask the same question.

Those forum users post grandiose screeds when they have certifiable delusions no real clue from experience about art education or how and where it happens. They would also meme about everything.

School — never mind art school — looks like it would be useless for those forum people anyway. They couldn’t follow instructions or take critiques even on the forum threads themselves to save their life, much less follow instructions for an art programme.

“I can’t afford to go anywhere anymore. It’s a high spend. It was just a dream. If anyone else is considering it and can afford it, art school is where you want to go. Just look up their degree shows and see what design students from each school made. People like to claim art is subjective. If that’s true, why do some schools consistently produce better art?” — Angela, 29, working artist

Wait, are you saying Watts, NMA or such places are worth it — or not? Fedora guy says they aren’t worth it. I say they are.

Really?!

• The point about anyone asking if some art school is/isn’t worth the money is they’re really saying, “It ain’t worth going to art school,” period.

They’re not presenting much of a question either. Without context to the question, any answer will be true and objective.

For instance, is law school worth it?

• It’s more worth it if — you have above-average school grades or possibly a first degree — have family networks in the legal field — have some working experience — can afford the high tuition fees — and still young enough at graduation time to put in a 25-year career timeline as a lawyer and corporate weasel.
• It’s not worth it when you can’t even demonstrate simple common sense intellect to provide a context for your question. Law school is definitely not worth it when you’re barely able to write in cursive form a grammatically correct sentence.

For anything to be ‘worth it,’ you’ve got to have something in your person or background to provide the connectivity or interface to the field that the art/engineering/whatever school is supposed to help you cross into. It’s what Grandpa once said, “the maximisable molecular structure.” (In other words, the gestalt.)

Very often, that connectivity comes from carrying on some kind of family trade or activity — and the older folks helping to instill in you the knowledge base of that trade or activity.

For my artist friend Giles, he had that necessary gestalt to help make art school worth it. He’s been surrounded by art since birth. He knew how to sketch in rudimentary perspective even before he had learnt the alphabet. He’s been to more art museums more times as a 12 year old than most adults have in a lifetime. His folks are full of artists, or artistic types with conventional, unarty jobs. For him, art is as natural as breathing. From all that, Giles takes the view that art is ‘everyman’; it’s everywhere and nothing to be stuck-up about.

Those things would’ve meant nothing if Giles hadn’t ‘maximise’ them as his personal internal resources. But he did, and so avoided art school from becoming a bottomless sinkhole.

Same difference with the other professional schools. Wanting to be lawyer just because you’re argumentative or you fancy the status or potential earnings are not good enough reasons to spend 6–10 years’ money and effort on legal training and licensing. But law school could probably be worth it if you’ve worked for a few years in legal publishing (like me) or in food production compliance or HR. You get the general idea.

Sink your teeth into it, or sink in it

Any discussion about going to art school has one big issue:—

• How are you going to get a job without making use of the networking that comes with attending a famous school?

Like most things, art school will give you the result equal to the effort you put into it. If you don’t take it seriously, you probably get jack shit from going to one. Others may differ.

If you’re worried about not getting a good education, then talk to the teachers, look at their work, look at other students’ work, look at the curriculum. There are a million options out there.

• The famous art/ business/ law/ medical schools, etc, do have an edge. The difference is how you make that edge serve you.

Are you going to post on Art Station and hope to become a viral hit? DeviantArt? Instagram? Twitter? Girls Do Porn? 8chan?

Are you going to suck cock cold-call art directors and ask for a job?

Are you going to join the queues of thousands of waifu nolife artists trying to “get seen” at street corners art conventions?

Art school puts your face right in front of employers. What kind of face you want to be put up is up to you.

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Below is a spur-of-the-moment artwork by the author, 2015, in pen and ink on artboard not meant to be used in this way. It sucks as art, but well liked by everybody who’ve seen it. They also wanted a portrait of themselves in the same style and material.

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© The Naked Listener’s Weblog, 01 Oct 2020. (B19035).

All images via c4c unless otherwise indicated.

Xxxx words.

L’article original écrit le 14 février 2019 sur 06:48–07:57.