Some Reflections on "Creator" and Writers I've Been Appreciating

from an issue of Playboy 1972

I.

I admit it: I’m an overconfident writer—arrogant, even. I revel in experimenting with my prose, convinced there’s a unique style that defines my voice. Yet, this audacity comes with a cost in the digital creator space. Experimentation in writing is about chasing the unproven, often veering away from the trendy and the safe. Recently, I created a chapter for my “Red Book” that transforms a dream or “vision” into a narrative—a reflective dive into my thoughts, emotions, and research from that moment in time. It’s an exercise in introspection, a playground for my experimental style and performative writing. Or so I hope.

I love sharing my work, but I’m acutely aware of the backlash. The digital artist space is harsh, unforgiving.

“Oh, you think you’re Carl Jung? You’re not that smart.”

Well, of course I’m not Jung—I’m not trying to be. I’m trying to explore myself and the relationship of self with the external. I’m not trying to be anybody. I’m just trying to be-.

“Your writing is bad.” (post this reddit comment was referencing: Sublime)

Maybe it is. But I’m here to improve, to push beyond my limitations, and to carve out a space for my own originality. A quote popped into my head after reading that reddit comment, like a voice from the ether: “And so it goes.” Kurt Vonnegut wrote that in Slaughterhouse-Five…many times. It’s a meditation on death, a nod to finality. But there’s another line from the same book that speaks to me even more: “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”

These lines together capture why I don’t mind harsh criticism or comments. It’s not that I’m immune—that would make me delu-lu. I’ve just developed a mental armor, a kind of cognitive deflection. Critical comments serve as a small death of the ego, a necessary blow that forces me to question how much weight I give them and how much I let slide off. There’s a microcosm of reflection, pain, death, and beauty in that process—a creator’s cycle of death and rebirth. Small steps—over and over, again. It’s a process that fuels my evolution and keeps my motivation alive.

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II.

One of the glaring flaws in the digital and creator spaces is the relentless pressure to conform to one of two molds:

• A: Amass a large enough audience so that even mediocre work gets celebrated (see the influencer space for endless examples).

• B: Have no audience, and feel compelled to create something flawless to avoid being labeled a "try-hard" or "cringe" (which often leads to creating much, much less).

But here’s the thing: We need to be better at rejecting these conditions, resisting these pressures. Art and writing aren’t about neatly fitting into a box for mass consumption or chasing instant validation. They’re about the struggle, the discomfort, the relentless push against boundaries. I aim to challenge the status quo, to provoke thought, and yes, to provoke anger or criticism at times. Because it’s in that friction that real change and evolution happen.

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The video below dives into some of the issues I’m discussing. In today’s creator space, there’s an insidious pressure to conform, to “sell out” for profit and virality. There’s a relentless drive for trends that pushes creators to abandon experimentation in favor of playing it safe. It’s something we need to be mindful of and deeply concerned by, as it stifles genuine creativity and originality. I think this trend sacrifices the artist mystic in favor of the predictable.

This is where we see a troubling trend: the modern writer feels pressured to be vulnerable because vulnerability sells. It gets people to invest in you as an artist, builds your brand, and markets your identity. But this focus on marketable authenticity pulls us away from the true experiment of being an artist. Ironically, here I am, writing a vulnerable essay about the struggle to be a writer, all while critiquing the very act of marketing oneself in this way. The demand for authenticity has become just another market pressure—perpetuating the cycle of performative, easily digestible content.

I’m a contradiction.

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III.

Anyway, since this is a post about the trials of being a writer, I want to share some writers who have inspired me to rethink how I spend my time and who I want to become as an “artist.”

“A world exists where none of this matters, I think. Outside my mind, distractions influence me into believing all this shit is important when anybody with half a finger crammed inside a nostril can see how performative and nonsensical this whole newsletter business is. Every Note’s feed is a lunchroom table in a high-school cafeteria. We seek allies with a veneer similar to ours and accept their impersonations if they validate our bullshit or share our wares. Some take the game further and block anybody who seems incongruous with their imagined reality. They train algorithms to close their minds.” — Piecemeal People, Secondhand Attributes

Corey Smith

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I've been appreciating Corey’s writing, especially lately. This quote made me pause and reflect: “They train algorithms to close their minds.” It's painfully true—algorithms don’t just shape our choices; they mold our unconscious desires. They act like digital parasites, burrowing into the crevices of our minds, feeding on the pressures and cravings we don’t even recognize in ourselves. And once they latch on, they make it harder to turn away, trapping us in a cycle of superficial engagement and shallow affirmation.

This is the predictability I’m speaking on! We become pressured, in every aspect of the digital space, to either be a consumer or become a product. Perform or bear witness!

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I’ve also been reading

.,¤°✿princess babygirl

….Wonderful writer. I want to share a quote from one of her essays, it’s the first one I stumbled upon from her, and I’ve been reading her stuff ever sense.

“This Baudrillardian hyperreality, or what I refer to as hyperreal individualism, is driven by platform capitalism and an unprecedented level of social connectivity, fostering meta-communication—how information is interpreted— that's increasingly intuitive, mimetic, and vibe-oriented. There's no universally agreed-upon reality to anchor truth; instead, there's an endless stream of cultic milieus, entropy. Hyperreal individualism, then, becomes a performance of identity-as-capital amid the absence of a shared reality and cultural centrality, embracing identity performances, aesthetics, affects, symbols, signals and gestures over tangible facts.

Influencer-messiahs such as Russell Brand, Jordan Peterson, and Joe Rogan — with Marrianne Williamson trailing softly from a certain feminine remove — capitalize on our energy-sensitive contemporary landscape. They navigate the vast sea of self-help, spirituality, and identity politics to market interpretations of "truth" reorganized around new words, often with a repackaging of traditional notions of femininity and masculinity, neoliberalism, and American exceptionalism.” — Hyperreal Individualism

This quote cuts to the core of how creators—be they artists, writers, or influencers—become nothing more than products for consumption, each rebranded with a different hue but fundamentally the same. It’s not just about sharing ideas or creating art anymore; it’s about packaging oneself into a marketable commodity, neatly fitting into the algorithms of relevance. Hyperreal individualism isn’t just a theoretical concept; it’s a daily performance of identity where the truth is sacrificed at the altar of aesthetics and trend. We’re all trapped in this endless loop of repackaging, where originality is merely another shade in the vast palette of marketable personas.

And your book deal gets offered based on your performance of said persona. So perform! Unless-.

So, we have a cycle, where each creator, no mater how unique they seem, becomes another iteration of the same formula: authenticity repackaged as content, vulnerability commodified into followers, and rebellion reduced to an aesthetic. This is where we find artists and writers caught in a relentless cycle of creating not for expression but for engagement, reshaping themselves to fit the ever-shifting desires of their audience.

I’m guilty—more guilty depending on the time and day, but guilty nonetheless.

The result is a series of performative acts—identity as spectacle—where depth is flattened into surface, and substance is lost in the churn of perpetual consumption.

Influencer-messiahs (they are the priests that I’ve written extensively about) know this game all too well. They don't just sell ideas; they sell versions of themselves tailored to whatever the current cultural wind dictates. They repackage old ideologies with fresh language and branded aesthetics, creating a simulacrum of wisdom that feels deep but floats on the surface. This is how they thrive: by being everything and nothing at once, adapting their personas to the trends, and in doing so, becoming exactly what hyperreal individualism demands—consumed products with ever-changing labels.

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Anyway, I’m sure I’ll have more to say on this soon. Another performance is always on my horizon, my psyche demands it! But for now, I should probably return to writing that novel so I can cling to the notion that I’m a “real” writer. So I’ll see you during my next mini-performance as ‘writer’ in the form of a Substack essay.

Stay curious.