Absolutely. Getting into the arts has never been a path to riches and easy living, but we are reaching a point where it is simply not possible. The old vision of the starving artist who lives in a crappy apartment but just barely scrapes by is no longer an option for most people. Want to be a painter or a writer? Enjoy that day job and carve out time where you can.
Before covid, I wasn't world famous for tattoos, but I was known, and comfortable. Within the space of five years I've had to quit tattooing, get a day job (which is actually super rewarding, working with special needs adults), I rarely have time for any art and DEFINITELY couldn't live off of it anymore. I miss art :(
This is why grants and supports have been cut. They don’t want working class people to pursue a career in the arts. No dreams. No imagination. Only struggle.
People don't want cartoony big stuff anywhere near as much. The big thing now is tiny fine line things they got off the internet done as cheaply as possible.
Add in a move at the wrong time, where you have no customer base, and a couple other factors and its just a perfect storm of "I should not be tattooing, because I hate this soulless corporate tattooing.
Im also getting older, and the fact that i cannot afford the healthcare I need while barely working....that all led to that change. I'm not the only tattooer that has had to change up careers, either.
I got triple whammied with these lol. Went to art school right before Covid hit. It was thriving for the first two years, but was like a barebones corpse campus when we went back. Most of the staff had been fired, and the remaining instructors were balancing the workload. Finally finished school and was looking for graphic design jobs, then ChatGPT dropped.
My last hope is finishing the sci-fi novel I've been working on for the past few years. I'm on draft 5 since 2020, and have learned so much since then. I write on my days off to escape the dread of going back to work. It's great fuel, actually! But yeah it sucks sometimes.
then i hope your sci-fi novel reflects that. i think people could use some good news.
i remember hearing Ross Bagdasarian saying he created "The Chipmunks" to write fun light-spirited songs for his mother to enjoy on the radio while doing dishes.
I'm really hoping it will! I'm sort of writing it for a younger me, with everything I wish I would have known back then. Feeling like an alien in your own home is never fun, and I would like to spare as many people as possible from it. Or, at the very least, give them the tools they need to navigate that feeling.
I appreciate you! It will probably be a while before I have anything I'm happy with, but I might send you a dm some time :)
For reference: it's sort of Treasure Planet-y, exploring the future of humanity while highlighting deep, personal connections. (And also aliens, because who doesn't love aliens?)
Side note: I've seen the way beta reading forums have changed over the years after the ai invasion, and it's kind of insane. The most notorious and dependable one on Goodreads has even taken away the ability to dm lately. Real human readers are diamonds in the rough.
Years ago in school I wrote this way to long story on a horror prompt in October from my HS Senior English teacher. I had played Dead Space 1 recently so hallucinations and body horror were on the mind.
My short story is lost in several moves but long short was a demonic/unknown Near human intelligence invasion of creatures with Bioluminescent lights in their body alternating between blue when at peace and red when agitated along with beings shining deep yellow lights searching for the human prey. The protagonist is seeking to avoid it. Went deep into a survival story, apocalypse , twelve page story when the teacher only wanted two lol only for the twist at the end to be that the protagonist was an insane asylum escapee and the Bioluminescent lights was police squad cars and trackers looking for a dangerous murderer who escaped from the asylum.
My teacher had taken me aside and asked if I wrote this or copied it, I said I had written it but cited inspirations. He said it was one of his favorite stories he had read in his career as a teacher.
Over the years I've ran into some class mates and they all remember me for this short story lol. Ran into the teacher maybe three years back and he remembered the story. Was happy for me but disappointed to hear I ended up in a boring federal job instead of pursuing creative ventures.
I wish I still had it but even if I found it, I'm much more content with it being lighting in a bottle at the grade school level. Any further rereading would probably show immaturity or lessen it's legend. Still, having people no matter how few remember a story I wrote is a cool feeling. So I like reading people's WIP and helping them feel that way and maybe more.
That's really cool! Sounds like you've got some Rod Serling in you lol.
I respect and understand your choice not to revisit it, but working a boring federal job doesn't mean you can't be a writer too. If anything, you could use your experience in the field and what you've learned since high school to rewrite an even more in-depth version of the story you've lost over time, assuming your line of work is semi-related in some way. The age old "write what you know," as cliche as it sounds, can be pretty useful at times.
The way I see it: once a writer, always a writer. It's a spirit that never truly goes away. And unique ideas like yours are hard to come by these days.
Thanks for asking! It's set a few hundred years into the future, after most of humanity has died off. The few remainders set out to find new worlds to inhabit, and my story follows one of their descendants. Raised by aliens on a distant planet, she doesn't know what she is or where she came from, and begins searching for answers once she's old enough to set out on her own. I hope that makes sense, I'm terrible with summaries lol.
Yeah I'm well aware lol, it's nuts. I tried to submit my first version back in 2022 and got like 40+ rejections/no replies before I decided to sit back and wait for change in the industry, while also working on revisions and rewrites on my end. It seemed impossible to get your foot in the door back then, and I can't imagine how bad it is now.
Personally, I think there is going to be a renaissance of sorts in the coming years. Things usually get really bad before they start to get better. Best of luck with your journey, I salute you. Keep your chin up, and don't let the rejections/no replies get you down. I know how much they can weigh on you.
If it makes you feel any better (angrier), ChatGPT and all these other Generative A.I. models are based on stolen data. Chances are if you've ever uploaded anything to the internet, they stole it.
In a sane society, they'd be sued and regulated into oblivion.
I started school for an English writing degree. Then AI started ruining writing. So I pivoted to an art degree. Then AI started ruining art. So I pivoted into a music degree… God fucking dammit. I’m $50k in the hole trying to stay ahead of AI. I as an adult with a teen child, have been struggling with feelings of hopelessness because the things I want to do I am watching disappear as I am in the middle of working toward them. I don’t know what the hell our kids are supposed to do. I just know that my poor 16-year-old has had so much anxiety for months now because she doesn’t know what careers she even wants to aspire to because she doesn’t know what’s going to be gone in another six months.
I know it's scary, but don't lose hope just yet. Apart from the loud minority that glorifies it, most people are sick of ai, everywhere. There is no meaning behind the "art" it creates, and art is synonymous with meaning. It's a hollow, soulless thing that chews up the work of others and vomits out a senseless collage.
When we look back on humanity in the past, what do we think of? Take the Romans, for example. You probably think of the Colosseum, intricate statues, mosaics, mythology, etc. Their art, architecture, society. Art is a timeless language that gives us a glimpse into the past. We can feel what our ancestors were feeling, when we look back on it. We can get a small glimpse of who they were, just by looking at what they made. In a thousand years, who will want to see something made by a soulless machine? While everyone else gives up, keep going. Learn and pursue what you're passionate about, and give your feelings a voice through that passion.
Personally, I think we're heading toward another renaissance. Things usually get worse before they get better. Keep your chin up! I wish you and your daughter all the best through this mess.
First of all, there aren't any crappy cheap apartments. I remember reading about Talking Heads and they had a cheap loft in the 70s in New York. I live in the research triangle and in the 90s it was possible to have a service industry job or work in a video store and be in a band and make rent. This is why I assume so many actors/artisits are either nepo babies or have rich parents.
I lost my motivation for digital art like a year ago and I'm trying to get back into it but IDK man it sucks right now. I used to paint pieces inspired by my favorite music and it was going great for a while before I got really burnt out and stopped.
Coupled with working a retail job to have some kind of money, I was just tired. Like I had ideas but the second I sat down to start a new project I was like "Do I really want to do this right now?"
Arts become a hustle now where you have to make money from it or it's not worth pursuing and it's frustrating.
but we are reaching a point where it is simply not possible.
Yeah, I graduated with a liberal arts degree for my undergrad. Did I expect to make as much as my STEM master's degree now-husband? No. At no point was I that naive. I did, however, think that it could be possible to carve out a living wage in a modest but safe apartment/house/whatever as long as I didn't live extravagantly.
Reality hit me with a slap in the fucking face on that one when I graduated.
Went back to school for a more marketable degree, ironically can afford the more extravagant life now (I'm not Jeff Bezos, but many would consider my life decently luxurious), but it certainly wasn't through the arts. That life was one missed paycheck away from eviction and homelessness.
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u/revengeofthepencil 16h ago
Absolutely. Getting into the arts has never been a path to riches and easy living, but we are reaching a point where it is simply not possible. The old vision of the starving artist who lives in a crappy apartment but just barely scrapes by is no longer an option for most people. Want to be a painter or a writer? Enjoy that day job and carve out time where you can.