When 'Creative Content' kills creativity
And how consuming less art allowed me to create more again.
As of late, I’ve found myself dissatisfied creatively. I know I’m not alone, and I’ve noticed a growing trend of people expressing this dissatisfaction in recognition of the same cause, the creativity killer: endless content.
Like tar, this content has overflown and stuck to all areas of my daily life, black and viscous, polluting the presence of each task or moment. Its ooze is my inability to complete chores without listening to a podcast or walking without music playing. It is my inability to spend small moments in silence, the two minutes waiting for my tea to brew or (god forbid) trips to the toilet.
Content grips me and makes itself relevant all day, and each day after.
I would class myself as a ‘creative’ (with little merit, perhaps an aspirer!) or at the very least recognise the same force in myself as I see in creatives around me, this is wanting to output myself into something physical. To transform the internal to external and contribute my little beating heart into the world… by any means possible.
Only recently have I humbled myself with the realisation that aspiration alone does not create something physical.
To be clear, I spent more time consuming content about ‘creating’ than I did creating anything myself. I can’t imagine the hours wasted watching TikToks about creative writing, zine making or [ fill in the blank ], with no output of doing these things myself. I saved countless videos to folders “Want to do!”, never to be seen or implemented again.
I romanticised the idea of creating and continued to consume, solidifying my place as an observer.
My curiosity was how I allowed this to happen for so long, why so many of us do without intention and why it was so hard to work the muscle of ‘creating’. I feel the answer to be an imbalance of input and output, of consumption and creation.
We absorb so much more content and noise than we can digest, and in the case of TikTok… this content isn’t even being finished. It is a day lost to the first 5 seconds of 500 videos we won’t remember. In the case of creativity, it is an infinite amount of inspiration at our fingertips, so much noise that our own inspiration lies dormant.
There is simply not enough time to digest this amount of information, let alone expect our own thoughts and creative urges to be born in times of constant stimulation.
A solution to this problem is still in progress. I can’t leave social media in its entirety, and recognise the very real dependence on my smartphone for modern conveniences. That being said, I have made a few changes in my focus which have given me more clarity, purpose and overall deliciousness.
Seeking Analog alternatives
I sought to make my phone as irrelevant as possible by replacing its uses with physical/analog alternatives. The immense joy in my return to these physical items has been a welcomed surprise, we gain such personalisation and beauty in selecting the tools we want to use daily.
For me, it has been a wristwatch, a commonplace journal, my digital camera etc., all of which have replaced (and outshone) their iPhone app counterparts. My wristwatch quashes the urge to check the time on my iPhone, with the following temptation of a 10-second turned hour-long scroll session. But of the same importance, it is an extension of myself.
These treasures, these small subconscious signals of what I love, are beautiful. I believe that more surrounding beauty trains our eyes to seek beauty in everything, cultivating a more inspired and ultimately creative mindset. Small wins!
Social Media Detox
As expected, and as so many others have been, I temporarily deleted my social media. Still classified as social media, I downloaded Substack for the purpose of writing for pleasure and falling in love with longer-form content again.
Yes, Substack still contributes to the noise of content I am grappled by. But I don’t see reason in going ‘cold turkey’ when reading is such a source of joy for me. With its community of New Romantics (and no ads), it invites me to engage with intention and purpose, and to create not for interactions/profit… but from desire.
Will I redownload Instagram again? Maybe. But for now, I’m content without it, and have found so much more time in my days to spend actioning my creative urges. I move more slowly, and yet never seem to run out of time. I’m writing again, scrapbooking and dancing again, walking with no headphones and breathing full breaths again, Ava is human again!
Not only am I creating again, but with less content to compare my standard to I feel free to explore. I am less concerned with the quality of my work, something which so often deterred me from starting new projects. I was afraid to be seen and perceived by those around me or to put something out into the world to be criticised for fear of it failing.
This is a Social Media mindset, the desire for acclaim for your content outgrowing the desire of creating it. I feel at peace in my current corner of the world. I am creating for myself, and its purpose is soul food, feeding that little heart.
I have not beaten consuming vs creating, but I feel satisfaction in having switched teams.
How delightful to play for the other side, creating something myself over consuming the works of others. Much of it arguably better than my own, but at least this is mine to keep. I believe our shitty art still outlives us, at least longer than our TikTok saved folders will.
Yes! Absolutely resonate - creating is a muscle and you gotta train it regularly :)