#desperately need to get this off my chest sdfjsdf

[girlierest]

it’s my art blog’s 8th anniversary which means it’s been 8 years of this bullshit and in those 8 years I accomplished nothing and I can’t even write this on that fucking blog because I constantly lose followers for when I bump my own work, post any art, speak, breathe, etc.

8 years of trying to make it and going from being committed and optimistically hopeful to being politely chastised into giving up - “don’t try to be the kind of artist you want to be, just draw for fUnNnn, don’t care about wanting to achieve long standing goals from your childhood, stop paNdeRing to fandoM interesTs and DraW whaT YoU LoVE” (as if I haven’t been) and subsequently hating myself, everything I draw, feeling constant guilt for wanting to be successful because NuMBeRs dOn’T MaTTEr!

And this feeling sucks because I know I’m not the worst at drawing out there. At one point I considered myself on par with the other artists in a fandom and thought they also viewed me as their peer (I guess not). I didn’t bat the same traction as they did because I was drawing my own ideas and not pandering to fandom preferences of half naked men facing left so I knew where I stood. And I was okay with that. Until I was told off.

I quit, for a little while. i still drew because I knew that it was a skill I’d spent years slowly improving and working at improving so to let it rot to waste was honestly disrespectful to myself. I gave up for a spell. I cried a lot. The original question of “hey anyone have any secret to building a bigger following” came about because I’d lost my job during the pandemic and needed to pay for college and in return I got what felt like being scolded for being in a tough spot financially and hoping that I was finally good enough to open commissions. Getting told to stop caring and to stop trying to pander to people and just draw for FuUnNnNn felt more like an accusation and dismissal of everything I did - that I wasn’t enjoying anything I was drawing, which was untrue, that I wasn’t drawing for myself, which is untrue, and that I was pandering and clout chasing, which was entirely untrue.

It’s been 2 years since then and I now feel dirty and ashamed and guilty for wanting to be the kind of artist I had wanted to be when I seriously committed to my art - the kind who can open commissions, the one who has a little shop on bigcartel or something and gets to design stickers and prints. The one who gets to be in zines with other artists. It felt like I had all the people I tried so desperately to be considered a peer tell me to fuck off and sit down at the nobody table, and that there was no room for me to be among them and it still fucking hurts.

I’ve kind of bounced back into being able to draw digitally and trying to finish something once a month. Not with the same enthusiasm, but at least the sense of accomplishment at finishing something and the enjoyment of research and coming up with something is coming back to me. Maybe in a year or two I’ll be back on my feet, but honestly every time I feel like shit, the voices of the people I desperately tried to fit in with come back like a raining pile of bricks on my head to remind me that I’m not good enough to be a commercial artist, and that I shouldn’t sell out and try to be one and simply be content with being a hobbyist. Every time I feel that inch of accomplishment their voices come back to me to tell me to stop being such a clout chasing loser, and that I shouldn’t and am not allowed to want the things they accomplished. And it sucks.