Everyone's Creative
and there's nothing you can do about it
Hi,
This newsletter used to be called Robot Fan Club, and like I explained in my last post, that name had some issues — most importantly, it didn't really mean anything. I want to say things I mean, so I changed the name, and I'm refocusing what I do here.
Everyone's Creative
The idea that some people are creative and some aren't is not an uncommon thought, but you don't usually hear it put quite so bluntly. People will use it to both minimize themselves and uplift others ("oh, I'm not creative like you") or they'll imply it through categorization ("we can leave that work to the creatives"), but rarely do we say it outright: some people are creative, and some people are not creative.
We don't say it outright like that because, when you do, it clearly doesn't make any sense. "some people are not creative?" How could that be? What would that even mean?
I hear people whispering that idea in the subtext of comments about "not being very creative" and I feel like I'm losing my mind. So I figured I should challenge them. I'll say it outright, no mincing words: Everyone is creative. Full stop.
And that's where we'll begin.
Throw open the gates
I don't blame anyone for feeling alienated by creativity and the arts. Artists have a deep tradition of putting other people down in an attempt to legitimize what they do. Gatekeeping isn't exclusive to the arts, but the gates we've built are tall and humiliating to try to climb. No wonder people feel like they aren't part of the club -- would you even want to be?
In my experience, it only takes a small connection to someone on the inside to create a gap in the gates and start letting people in. Once you're in, you usually realize it was all a facade -- you could have just walked around the gates and found yourself exactly where you are now. But from the outside, it can feel impossible to break through -- to belong -- unless you know someone on the inside.
If Everyone's Creative, but we've arrived at a place where people think they're not part of the club, I feel like the simplest thing I can do is be that insider letting people through. If you need to know a "real" creative person, to hear it from them before you can believe that you're also in the club, that can be me. I'll be your creative on the inside. I'll be Everyone's Creative.
Saying something I believe
When I say my work used to hide behind a self-conscious "meaninglessness," I'm trying to express the idea that it feels vulnerable to say what you believe. In the name of avoiding vulnerability, you can instead say something that is, in a lot of ways, as good as saying nothing at all. I see that feeling manifest in the world in a lot of ways — people want to watch shows that "don't get all political" as though the politics of entertainment aren't woven deeply into the fact of its existence. People want to say things are "just jokes" as though the reality of humour isn't tied directly to what we think is good and right in our society. We want to have our cake and eat it too — to make great things, have a meaningful life, enjoy the fruits of art and indulge in the depths of our experience... ...just as long as it doesn't get too serious.
I don't mean to say everything has to be severe and depressing all the time — I'd argue that nihilism and despair are similarly an attempt to simplify the mess of our existence. These hopeless feelings are a way to reduce life down to misery so we don't have to confront the fact that life is horrible and tragic and painful and wonderful and magical and funny and absurd. Simplifying yourself to being apolitical and apathetic or doomed and despairing are both ways of allowing yourself to step outside of believing anything complex or real.
I want to say what I believe. I want to encourage other people to do the same thing: to create more and to use their voice to say something with meaning instead of just adding in more shallow, self-conscious, empty noise. If the word "content" applies to anything accurately, I think it’s that: filler material that simply takes up space and has little to say for itself. I don't want to make "content." I don't think anybody actually does.
A Manifesto for Everyone's Creative
Everyone's Creative is a big idea, and big ideas need some guidance to keep them on track. This manifesto is where I'm articulating what all of this is about. These are the core values of this endeavour -- the things I believe deep down to be true and good and right. This will help me explain to you what I really mean by "Everyone's Creative."
🛑 Everyone is Creative
You're a human. You can't opt out of this. You can't take it away from others.
🙅♀️ Reject Dogma
Recognize that rules can provide structure, but that authority can snuff out creativity.
🚀 Challenge Systems
There's no "one right way" to do anything. Nothing is impossible to try. There's always another way to do it.
🔨 Embrace Luddism
Technology should empower creativity, not compel it. Nobody should have power over what and how you create. We need to protect that power for each other at all costs.
🧬 Demystify the Process
Remember that how you work is not what gives you value - your value is inherent to your being. Secrecy leads us into obscurity and isolation. When we're separated, we're vulnerable.
Seeing how things are done lowers barriers and opens doors - that's the life cycle of art. Creativity isn't magic, so don't treat it that way. Let others in.
🎁 Share as Much as You Can
Don't hoard ideas or resources. Make things other people can use.
🎈 Empower Each Other
Working alone can be wonderful. Existing alone is a nightmare. Empower, teach, uplift - whatever you have to provide, someone else likely needs. We're all stronger when we all help in our way.
🧠 Create with Care
Recognize that creativity is neither good nor evil - but that it is powerful. You are responsible for your ideas and for what you create. Remember that you can cause great harm -- by accident or by choice. You need to choose not to and make sure that you don't.
🐒 Have Fun
We have an incredible capacity to remove joy from the most important things in our lives. Never forget that, as important as it might be, it can also be fun.
Welcome to this new thing. I feel very good about where I've ended up with it. In reality, what I do here will likely feel very similar to what I was doing before, but the wrapper is more accurate now and it will help me show up meaningfully for you.
Looking forward to next time. Be kind to yourself.
Love,
Simon 🐒
🔗 Links & Thinks 🧠
I usually share links to topical or interesting things I've found at the end of these newsletters. For today, I'll share some links to a few of the people who inspired me in one way or another to make this change to my work here:
Phoebe Taylor and the Weird Girl newsletter are my backup engine that gets me moving again whenever I stall out. There's no better force of honesty, vulnerability and truth to make me want to do more and share everything.
David Farrier's Webworm is the most consistently genuine news source I know of. In a world of "both-sides-ism" and a lack of follow-up questions, his work feels so refreshingly sane, even when he's covering some of the most insane stories I've ever heard in my life. He's so committed to doing good that it makes me feel like I need to do the same.
Local to my fellow Hamiltonians, Joey Coleman's work is of immense value -- does anyone else even attempt to be as committed to ideals and principles as he does? If filtering through endless zoning disputes and painstakingly tracking city council attendance and transparency isn't dedication, I don't know what is. In some other fantasy universe, all journalists have the same integrity as he does and all our problems are probably solved.
The podcast This Machine Kills is an oasis in a sea of technology misinformation and hype. If you care about how technology impacts your life (you should) then you owe it to yourself to listen and hear how wrong most of us are about what's going on. Similar shout-out to another luddite, Brian Merchant, for his book on the Luddites and newsletter continuing the battle. Stop taking what CEOs say at face value, for god's sake.
Finally, to move over into YouTube land for a moment, Angela Collier's channel became my obsession right around the same time that I was thinking about killing Robot Fan Club -- her immense scientific knowledge is amazing and super fun to learn from, but I really value how much she considers the way that she communicates and how people think. I hope more people become as introspective and thoughtful about their own work, too. Her video on her other video that everyone misunderstood is such a masterpiece of humility and it's basically why I finally pulled the trigger with this change.
Last thing -- I don't like the idea that changing the name of this newsletter is in some way hiding the past of what Robot Fan Club was. I feel like I'm owning the change, but to be sure I made sure there was an archive of Robot Fan Club on Archive.org before I made any changes. As long as those lunatics are still storing petabytes of data, Robot Fan Club will live on.
This old robot heart is warmed by this manifesto! Count me in.
YOU are my backup engine that gets me moving again whenever I stall out. Looking forward to what happens next!