I have given up hope for the future of my art career, and not for lack of desire, but lack of desire to interact. The more and more I am becoming involved in art outside of my high school community the more I am noticing it is less about art and more about socializing. I have heard the phrase "It's not what you know, but who you know." And while it's easy to say "yeah that's true.", coming to understand the real truth in that statement is a real defeating moment. How can one continue to create something, meant to be shared with others, if the only avenue to release it in the public is through kissing the asses of every person who enters the party with their mixed race girlfriend?

In this complete cultural catastrophe, the artist, the person who finds absolute pleasure in creating work, work which moves them so much that they hope to share it with others, has been degraded. Sadly the artist has become a cultural identity. An identity that many associate with that dark stanky word "Hipster". Why have we come to see the artist as the poloroid picture taking, asshole that talks with a peculiar enunciation of words to make them sound more educated. That name dropping, information saturated babbling idiot. With every fling of the hair and mention of a band that no one but a couple of rotting logs in the forest of life have heard of, there grows a divide between true art and lies.
I do not know whether this cultural phenomena has existed before. Of course I know pretentious people have existed for ever and a day, but has internet and the blog world given too much opportunity for the uncreative and pseudo intellectual to become an "artist"? I fear it's given them to much power, no longer do they to have to put in effort to become the hip, but just turn on the computer screen and away they go.
It would be fine if they lived on their own, but they are everywhere. Vampires who suck  your soul and creativity out with their inability to have enthusiasm for anything but the arcane. The true artist cannot break these moving confines and so he has two options; join, or quit the game. Joining means turning oneself off  to the true desires and hoping that he/she reaches people of the same interest. Quitting the game means doing it for yourself, but you've lost hope of sharing it with people, perhaps one of the important parts of art.
This great divide grows stronger as the counter-culture has been homogenized into a marketable quantity. The audience and the wanna-be artists have grown accustom to taking the ideals and aesthetics of blogs and websites like Pitchfork media, and bring them with them into the art world. True, in any case of a growing culture, good or bad, there exists a counter culture, but where do you find it when these Pitchfork babies are leeching on to everything that is interesting, bringing their faux and self-righteous attitudes?
I find myself outside of a DIY (do it yourself) show, and while the bands that just played were great, the noise that is made in the PBR and cigarette stained yard of the humbolt park house is getting to me. Eyes everywhere, these people are like vultures looking for things to give a dirty look at. Why? Why at twenty five, thrity, have they not grown out of the petty high school attitudes. Why can I not come to a show and not feel attacked because I am not as old as them, because I decided to dress with what I think is cool, something that does not fit into the blogosphere. I would think that in this case, everyone of them being artists, for sure, that there would be some acceptance, reaching out, to a new comer. But sadly humans are dismal creatrues who like to stay in the cave for as long as they can. So sure, why even go to these shows if everyone's an asshole and you feel like shit?
Because, and this is the problem, they are the only way to see these bands. For people like me who have real interest in seeing new bands and experiencing live music by the occasional band who is trying to make real art, the only place to go is the basement of some blog loving lady's house.
So there's the conundrum, do I give up, or do I ignore the stares and the petty words, to see the art. Well I have enough conjones to go to these things and ignore those culturally relevant vultures, but what about when I want to make art.
I have a band.
We want to play shows.
But we're teenagers, and we don't wear cool leather jackets and listen to punk cassettes.
Where do we go?
One can only hope that the defeatist minds of these washed out people can open up for a brief second and give us the opportunity. Do they judge? Of course, but the hope is that there is someone there like me who came to see a new band and will leave and tell his friends about us. And so I guess there is hope, hope that there are more people in the same circumstances as me. Maybe one day we'll meet. Maybe one day we'll create things that are new and we'll share them without the culture vultures sucking the life out of it. Maybe one day we'll start a revolution. If there is a god, I'm pleading to you to make this happen, because life ain't no good where it's at bro.
xoxo