THE WALL: THE UPDATE and also some idealistic bs

Is it weird that I keep updating this blog when I haven't put out any cartoons for over a year now? I don't know how many people read these, but thanks for sticking around. I've got something real great coming out real soon I PROMISE.

Nearly a year ago today I wrote a whole thing about I used to hate everything I've ever made and then that stopped so I thought maybe I wasn't getting any better anymore. Then I started to make a conscious effort to get better at drawing, and now I'm back to cringing at my old art so I guess you could say everything worked out great. Except for the whole part where I hate everything. Let's talk about that.

I can get really critical about stupid shit on the internet, but I hold myself to all the same standards I impose on other people. One of my little rules is I never delete any of my old cartoons 'cause I feel it's dishonest, and I like looking at the evolution of people's work, so I try to keep everything up in its original form. The flip side of that is I can't stand most of my movies from before 2013, so now before I put anything up online, I think to myself "will I hate this in a year?" and usually the answer is "yeah" and then nothing ever gets made.

My theory is that great ideas never come out fully formed. Usually they start as something small, and then you'll sit on it for a while and then you come back and refine it and add some new stuff and eventually something will click, and you'll have your great idea. But if you're too deep into critiquing everything and dismissing ideas as hacky and derivative, you'll end up throwing out your ideas before they have time to grow into something great and original.

Maybe I should revise my opinion on taking down old work. The threat of it eventually turning into something I hate myself for is legitimately starting to censor me. Not a lot of people know this, but I spent over a year working on a video game review show, but I never put anything out 'cause I was never 100% happy with it, and I didn't want it to become another thing I'd kick myself over later. At the same time, if I hadn't held myself to the "never take anything down" rule, I probably would have unpublished "what are the odds" five times over, even though almost everybody thought that was a really cool idea.

Now if I were to take anything down, I wouldn't deny it existed, and it would still be on the wayback machine for anyone who wants to do the digging. And you know what, it would sure be a load off my back to do away with some of these snarky 2011 tweets. (I mean OOF I thought I was a real wise guy!) But I'd feel kinda shitty about it 'cause I've also been pretty mean to people for trying to "hide" their past, and I'd be a real hypocrite to start burying some of the embarrassing stuff.

And I know how dumb it sounds to actually care about any of this stuff, but this has been one of my bigger ideals, and it actually feels pretty weird to think about letting this one go.

What do you guys think?

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^not on purpose

Comments

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Reaxrami 2015-06-16 19:08:55

excited to watch ur animations blue brewsterr

Emrox 2015-06-16 19:08:55

*brewstew

Flikkernicht 2015-06-16 19:45:20

Yeah I get the whole thing about dismissing stuff as hacky and derivative and never getting anywhere. I've written way too many scripts that have either had animation begun and then dropped or just fully drafted and then dropped. Right now where I'm at I'm thinking way too hard about everything I write, but as a result I feel like I'm getting better at writing so I guess there's that?

As for your DILEMMA: I felt the same for a while, thought it was kinda shady when people take down their old stuff, kinda gives off the impression they're trying to hide something. And again, as you said, it's cool to see the progression. Recently though I've kinda done some spring cleaning of my stuff-- mainly, I feel a lot of content I've made in the past would make a bad first impression on anyone that were to happen onto my stuff. Especially where I'm at now, where I'm getting offers to collaborate and do commissions and whatever, I want to have a collection of solid stuff as a first impression. I wouldn't say anything I've done is "good" but it's where it won't immediately repel everyone interested in my work like my older stuff would. Additionally, when I find a content creator I like, I'll try to go through most of their stuff. Basically I don't want people to have to sift through a bunch of unfunny bullshit I made when I was 14 if they wanna watch my stuff.
I try to keep the more "popular" things, or stuff I put a lot of work into at the time, on public; only a few smaller cartoons I've got set on private. I think as long as you're not denying its existence entirely I don't really see anything wrong with it. If someone was legitimately interested enough in a cartoon I privated/unpublished, I'd put it back on public or unlisted. Like, not gonna pretend that it wasn't a thing I did.
If it's legitimately causing you problems, fuck it. The ideals are self-imposed, so if they're holding you back creatively, I say do whatever you want.

Emrox 2015-06-16 19:45:20

Thanks Jon I needed that. Sometimes you just have to refocus and see if all these standards are making you a better person, or are just sorta arbitrary things you use to say you're better than other people. (Not saying you do that actually that's just me)

Bill 2015-06-18 00:44:36

This post is terrible, delete it.

Kajenx 2015-06-18 04:17:06

The best way to look at anything important in life is to consider if it will still be important in one million years. Let's say a few people watch your cartoons - maybe more than a few, maybe 10,000 people are influenced by you. Maybe most of them forget about your work completely by the end of a year. So you have, say, 20 true fans. From there, those true fans forget what you've done after 5 to 10 years. A few might go on to create other things themselves and you've had a small influence on the cultue. But then as the culture changes these ideas are forgotten, or morph into something different. If you're very lucky, maybe you do something big and some of what you do may be preserved for a few centuries as an example of past artistic acomplishment, but eventually things get lost or corrupted or deleted. Not enough digital copies are made, the files you use are no longer readable, the computers your work is stored on are destroyed in a war - or if it's physical, it rots or decays. Maybe some people devoted to the past save a few screenshots of your cartoons, but even these are subject to eventual destruction. So even the greatest artistic achievement you can accomplish - say a blockbuster movie - will eventually be forgotten. The cultural imprints may remain, but since nothing exists in a vacuum, we can't take much credit for this kind of thing. After 1000 years, your work will be nothing more that a curiosity in a museum at best, some long-tail extrapolation of your ideas still floating around in the cultural mind.

But then the sun explodes, or an asteroid whipes out the earth, or a ruthless alien race extinguishes humanity. Or, hell, say humanity flourishes for the next few billion years. As the universe decays into nothing maybe a single human ancestor exists at the very end of the universe, living on the last bit of decaying atomic radiation. Even if this last human descendent - some kind of modified brain in a vat floating in a void of space - has some infinitesimally small amount of cultural influence left from your movie, this human will die, it's atoms will decompose, and all that will be left is the empty void.

In light of all this, it's completely irrelivant whether you compose the most emotionally touching, culturally compelling, beautiful works of art, or nothing at all and just enjoy sitting in your back yard watching grass blow around for the rest of your life. There is no obligation to be anything, accomplish anything, or get anywhere in life. The truth is, there is nothing that needs to be done. So do what you enjoy, and post it if you enjoy posting it, and who cares about what or why or if it's better or worse or whatever. Everything returns to the void, so just be at peace.

Plebs 2015-06-18 09:17:20

It's funny that you have the same thoughts about your work as i have with my words. Ever read back something you wrote 5 years ago and the only thing you want to do is smack that past you on the back of the head? Well I'm guessing it's a normal thing.

All i can say is that however much you might hate your past work. Know that everything, whether good or bad, helped you get exactly where you are now. If we were afraid of making mistakes and taking risks we would be nowhere. That is something I try to remind myself often.

I'm just reserving this comment for myself 5 years from now to read and be ashamed of.