Today’s episode is all about why too much social media can kill your creative confidence. Of course, social media can be a great place to share your work and meet like-minded people. However, along with the good side of social media, scrolling through too much of it can be a sure way of feeling inferior and it can even end up destroying your confidence.
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We talk about how what you see on social media is not necessarily the whole truth. Images can be manipulated and filtered and you don’t often see the background struggle behind what’s going on. So you might see images of friends smiling and looking like they are having an amazing time at a barbecue. But what you don’t see is that all the food was burned (or maybe that’s just our barbecues) and the actual party was quite dull. It’s just that no-one is going to post an “I’m bored to death” photo online.
In general, it’s the same with art and creativity. We mostly share the work we like, not the pieces that look like you were using a wobbly jelly pencil (In case you were wondering, I don’t have a link where you can buy one of those). We only see a finished piece of art. We don’t see the bin full of scrunched up paper or the artist’s strop when arms were thrown into the air shouting “I’m crap at this!” prior to creating the finished piece. When I created a timelapse drawing of a 10-minute sketch of Danny Gregory, I drew him about 10 times. Plus I forgot to press record or set the timer once or twice. Only then did I think I had a reasonable version that we could use to promote our podcast interview with him. You didn’t see the previous 9 attempts – poor Sandra did!
Some of the social media creative confidence issues we discuss:
- How easy it is to feel intimidated by other artists on social media
- Why you shouldn’t take everything at face value (retouched eye bags)
- How we can use social media for inspiration and encouragement
- How timelapse can distort our view on the ease of creation
- How we can curb our social media addiction
- How we should compare our own work with our past work rather than anyone else’s
Apps we mention on the Show
- Focus – Social Media and Website Blocker for Mac.
- Cold Turkey If you are on PC
- Freedom (Mac, PC iOS) or Antisocial (Android). for phones and tablets
This week’s creative question
Your in a plain white, empty room with no windows. All you have is a pen and a sketchbook. What do you draw?
The best answers will be read out on the next joint podcast.
You can Tweet us your answers @KickCreatives or let us know in the Facebook Group, which by the way if you haven’t already joined, I highly recommend that you do! We will put the question up there and also on the facebook page… and of course, on our Instagram page @kickinthecreatives.
If you have any suggestions for the podcast or our challenges please feel free to get in touch.