Here's my internet blog where I make a blog for me because it's my blog. THAT'S IT.
I am obsessed with the idea of the Culture Industry. Everyone has to hear me talk about it I'm sorry. I actually also wrote about neocities in our final response essay about the Culture Industry. It's a super casual response so DON'T EXPECT MUCH lol. All my school reports are unbetaed oneshots. AKA I turn it in the second I hit word count because idk how to write. But anyways I think it's been great to empower my philosophy around art through theory and lowkey we just all need more woke. (p.s. sorry audrey for this surely bastardized retelling of your thoughts)
------------------------------------------The culture industry has reign over high and low art, but the theoretical distinction between low art and high art is important to the debate over 'real' art. Though I oppose the culture capitalism associated with fine art, I believe in it in theory- exploration of an individual's emotion for the sake of expression. Fine art does not include anything passed through a pipeline of artists with different specialties, anything designed for function, or designed for entertainment. I believe sublimation is key in when creating art that is purely made for our expression. Art is the most successful at "being art" when it synthesizes the human condition. The more specific and strange art is, the more viscerally we react to it. To achieve intensely deep and strange art to reflect the strange human condition, one must sublimate their worst, antisocial feelings through creating art. Everyone feels the pain of living, but only some have the intellect and skill to turn it into art. This is why art has always been so important.
[My school] has the problem of escapist art hegemony within its teaching philosophy and student body. It's a worrying reflection of the next generation of artists. I've been an entertainment design major for 3.5 years, and spent the first two trying to network and get my foot into the industry. I never felt like I belonged in it. Everyone around me is indoctrinated by the culture industry. They only judge the worth of art by commercial success (virality), industry-level style (homogeneity), and name (Disney, Art Center, etc.). Most of my peers would say that they want to make art that makes people happy or that creates escapism. They want to work at major companies like Disney or Riot Games (League of Legends). The two who have pivoted to illustration with me still idealize popular art, now just sold to a new industry and new clients. I was talking to one about our future desires as professional artists. She wanted to move to a small town to be able to directly uplift a community with her art. To do so, she would sell art at art markets. Personally, this just sounds like a meaningless gesture. While I can't blame anyone for making money, her art won't be any more authentic by changing markets. How is selling prints and stickers of your popular culture art (art sans expression) to your neighbors going to uplift them? What does uplifting a community even mean in this situation?
Artists are taught at school and by society that success is a full time art practice with big clients like Disney, Meta, or the New York Times. Why would I aim to work with the same companies I hate? I was questioning how a career in the arts can still be authentic to my beliefs, and a visiting artist at LCAD saved me from turmoil. Kate Laster is an "artist, educator & critical historian" who focuses on human connection and "the people we carry with us". She's not an example of mainstream success, and that's why she's my favorite artist. They aren't a full-time artist and consider education a core part of their personal art practice. They focus "on accessibility and dismantling structural inequity in the arts" through donation-based history classes and studio facilitation at progressive art studios for the disadvantaged and disabled. Their artwork is radically political, explores personal loss and human connection, and creates community spaces. By letting her values guide her, Kate doesn't need to compromise authentic art for money. Although I'm sure her job not as simple as she made it seem, Kate is still my biggest inspiration.
Once you have authentic art, finding avenues that feel authentic to share it through is the next problem. How do you get your work out there in a way that doesn't compromise your values, but earns you the money needed to support yourself and your practice? Kate displays her art in galleries, is awarded grants to create projects, and tables at their local book/comic fairs, which is not as applicable to me (for now). Talking to Kate, my friends, and community members who only look to share their art privately or to their community has helped me rethink traditional expectations. These capitalistic expectations want you to aim to reach as much of the population as possible and, ultimately, reach for fame and glory. Playing into this doesn't make you a good artist, it makes you a good businessman. I want to choose personal expression and values over business.
My friend and I have created HTML sites to escape social media and the culture industry's commodification of our attention and joy. We read each others blogs when we remember to, send paper mail, and exchange recent photos via text. I joined in after her and made an anonymous HTML site modeled after ones teens would make in the early oughts to share with their friends in hopes they'd be on it at the same time. Within the internet's privacy issues, meaningless celebrity news, and trendy capitalist propaganda, it gives me a space that feels quiet and mine. There's no ads and no distractions. I'm no longer worrying how impressive an Instagram story is or debating if emojis are professional or not. I code in as many gifs, ugly photos, and crazy blog entries as I want, I have no way of telling which of my friends check my site anyways.
At a mutual aid organization I frequent, someone always has their stack of zines ready to pass out to newcomers. In contrast to professional settings, the zine sharing is not transactional because the zines are shared for mutual empowerment and it creates community. We all sit in a circle of camping chairs and discuss our different zines, music, and crafts we're working on. Political stickers get slapped high on traffic signs and chalk art drawn on the sidewalk. Art is created as personal catharsis. When shared with community, a second catharsis is experienced in the giving and receiving of our art.
I just read Audrey's devlogs yay so fun!! And forgot to post an update on being so depressed a week ago. My portfolio review went rly well- like 2 minutes in I was already convinced to give up working in animation and my depression was gone LOL. She also reaffirmed that planning is only counter-productive- the only thing you can plan to do is to draw. WOW. And so for now I'm aiming for picture book and maybe editorial illustration but at the same time IDGAF which is probably perfect. I bought tickets home for winter and I'm so ready to actually be at home and able to chill. I've been staying up to work on my thesis and the sun sets so early so I'm tired but at least not depressed.
Nothing has been going to plan lowkey. I have 4 studios and a capstone class next semester. My phone got stolen by poser white rich kids in newport. I am lowkey depressed and pre-mourning the future (which you shouldn't do but I can't help it). I have a portfolio review and a workshop I'm hosting tomorrow. On the bright side my website is less ugly now. I actually am prepared for the portfolio review to depress me more just because I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING AND IF YOU CAN'T HELP DON'T GIVE ME ADVICE... but I signed up for it anyways. I'm gonna try to make it to mutual aid this week and see if it can give me a little bit of perspective back.
Also I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND THE PLACE OF ART IN A CAPITALIST SOCIETY. ART AS A COMMODITY INSTANTLY KILLS THE SOUL OF ART. CAPITALISM KILLS US ALL.
Stopped writing my midterm to write this. I went to LA and ate food and went to a flea market and went to an emo night with Ariel. DJ was lowkey balls but it's ok it was so much fun. This must be what people feel like at the club listening to normie music. We also got to see MCR burlesque drag #brag af. And then I went to my thesis prof's gallery show on Sunset and felt soooo awkward that I cried driving home a little bit. I think my mental points are dipping to the level where I can't not be awkward when having convos. I lowkey am also sooo anxious about doing anything by myself out in the world again lol. I'm trying to balance living life and also not having to freak out lol. The next day I went to the print fair with Mayuna and it was supa cool. So many printers. Today/yesterday we went to get ramen and dessert for Mayuna's birthday it was supa fun. Also we live in a post-phan announcement society now WTF!!! 
Can't believe gay people can have a beautiful life sometimes. Wow. I wasn't even a shipper I had accepted that they were QPP representation LMAOOOOO. But wow how beautiful. Man. Wow. Anyways I think my brain's weird and I will be speaking to my therapist about it tmr bc I'm lowkey chronically freaked.
Some good things that happened this month.
I don't even know what to say but I am just so angry (everyone is though). Every headline I see is just war crimes and censorship and the stripping of rights and wealth gap stats and protestor arrests and FOX news spewing facist bullshit and racial violence and fucking government officials sucking off Israel and also spewing facist bullshit. We're living in Nazi world right now and its hard to stay optimistic. BUT I want to keep focus instead of fucking ragequitting like they want us to. We're seriously all that we've got. Everybody anarchist everybody transgender. This is the future we need but instead we have to defend Jimmy Kimmel. what the hell. I'm giving myself the space to rant and feel helpless and pessimistic ONLY RIGHT NOW. Fuck this bullshit mannn.
You will spend your whole life trying to be something else. You'll never succeed. And when you die, you'll have only ever been what your mother made you. You wear her clothes and her hair. The words you speak every day come straight from her mouth. And when you die, you will never know the person you should've been.
-------------------------------I'm tired of feeling weak. My whole life I've been scared of being who I want to be. I want to be strong enough to be myself now, even if it means pissing people off. At this point, I'd rather be a jerk than pretending to be anything else. I just want to feel like myself so bad.
Today I picked Mayuna up from the airport. We talked about graduation and she said she's looking forward to returning to Japan. After five years of challenging herself studying abroad, she was ready for it to end. The phrase she used was: jyuubun ganbatta (too lazy to get japanese font), which means "I've done my best" but I guess it can also be taken the way I took it- "I've fought enough". (Translation is never 1 to 1... but I 
that.)
I've been having trouble figuring out the new personality I've ended up with in the past month. I'm slipping away from the person I used to be way too quickly for comfort. I know that I can't ignore the direction I'm going in but the end goal is too far away to be seen right now, which makes moving forward terrifying. Being inbetween points of clarity is KILLING ME. Thinking rationally, all the changes I'm experiencing are just the shedding of coping mechanisms that no longer serve me. So I'm trying to tell myself that No One Stays the Same and that I don't need to keep up old fights anymore. It's time for me to move forward and accept that I am just different now. No matter what the end of this new fight is, I'll be more me than I was before.
I'm ngl I need to scoop my brain out. I bought a book my therapist recommended secondhand and I hope it helps. I've been thinking about how to write this for a bit but I rewatched this Gerard Way NME interview clip about wanting to make something of himself when he was a really angry kid (he's super successful though, so the end is not helpful LOL) and was bored of drawing a fucking toothbrush for work so here we go.
Ever since sixth grade, spite was the only thing keeping me afloat. The only solution to the worthlessness I felt was to get revenge; everyone needed to regret what they did to me. I wanted a "that'll show them" moment soooo badly that I could've died for it. INSTEAD, the other option I thought of was to become so successful and enviable they'd finally see that I was better than them. I don't know if I ever really believed it- I was just coping via overcompensation for my fears. ANYWAYS. I wanted to be so good at art and get a huge art job so I could ditch my family and all the other assholes. Keep in mind that I was 12 LOL. This crazy mindset lasted until mid-college. It's what fueled my sophomore speedrun of any art position I could get. Maybe it was delusion but during that speedrun period, I genuinely enjoyed loving art and chasing an art career. I thought that I had found what I was meant to do with my life and I just didn't need to have depression and anxiety anymore. And then I fell into a deep depression and decided that maybe I hate art.
Okay I don't hate ALLLLL art. But what do you do with a dream you can't keep fueled anymore? Sometimes I think that without that spite, I just don't have it in me to be creative anymore. I've grown up. Larry from My American Heart recently said that he didn't/doesn't pursue music after MAH fell through in 2009 because his desire to create was just suddenly switched off. I totally felt that. Now Larry works in the beer industry and plays COD and has kids. Totally sweet and mundane. Part of me thinks that's still more boring than working in art so I can't be THAT grown up yet LMAO. I'm still in the trenches of being an adult teenger with inconsistent desires and opinions. I'm the one killing my dreams off and also the one desperately trying to resuscitate it... When I want to be optimistic, I tell myself that maybe this hardship will deepen my artistic experience somewhere in the future. But I only believe that a little bit. So whatever I guess. Who knows what any of this means.
Staying on theme, all these bands fizzled out in different ways soon after their spite-fueled debuts. hooray.
-------------------------------I'm home from visiting home. I saw my friends and nature and MCR and ate food yum. Ariel and I are playing Date Everything because we are IRL Dan and Phil. I actually feel less dead inside which proves that taking breaks is actually real. Here's some pics from home now that I'm back home.
Now, back to real life...
-------------------------------MCR PLAYED BULLET WITH BUTTERFLY WINGS WHICH IS PROB MY FAV SMASHING PUMPKINS SONG YAYYYY!!!! KILLING MYSELF = POSTPONED!!!!! I was kind of scared it was going to be a nostalgia cash grab BUT THEN I was reminded why Gerard Way is such an art role model. The concept and execution was soooo funnnnnnnnnn. It's the first time I've felt actually inspired by entertainment in a long time. I might base one of my... themed entertainment(barf) class projects on the concert. I know I like MCR but it was such a reminder of why I like them when I was screaming lyrics that were simultaneously impacting me again in real time. 2000s alt rock mutated into something crazy (emo subculture) but the real root of it was just kids who had anger towards the world because of how they were treated. I'm not an emo but I AM angsty and some MCR lyrics just make you feel seen...After the Black Parade album (I love listening to albums top to bottom so this was so good), they played stuff off Three Cheers, Danger Days, and also played Boy Division(!) I think they were really engaged in the tour as a whole and they sounded so good. ALSO I saw franks PANSY guitar. I'm not a parasocial fan I just think its COOL. I'll prob have post-concert depression tomorrow.... atp listening to music is my only creative outlet (outlet for rage) and after shows my life is so obviously creatively empty. ANYWAYS tickets are so fucking expensive but I HAD FUN. I am a new person that allows myself to have fun and enjoy things without too much social anxiety. WOOHOOO!
-------------------------------A father whose only emotion is anger creates a world where all men are dangerous. A mother who is only self-absorbed means that women, however safer, only have selfish interests and also cannot be trusted. I actually have nothing else to say so here's the current (emo) playlist for pregaming another disastrous trip home:
The only thing stopping me from canceling my flight home is the MCR CONCERT 
I've outgrown trips home at this point and I definitely don't care that it makes me feel like an evil movie supervillain to say so to people who won't get it. ANYWAYS here's another rec for non trauma suffering folk: "The Muffs" album by The Muffs. See u guys on the flip...
I stayed up until 1PM figuring out the music player... I want to test this out more, so I think I'll do a mini June report. June was a long month where at first I thought I was coming into adulthood after May's family induced depression cleared, WeHo, drinking, going to a rock show (yay), 1st tattoo, & getting my sister's car. But now I actually still feel 14; I don't know WHO I am or WTF I'm doing. I've loved being involved in the community and its making working in the entertainment industry feel increasingly meaningless. That's prob why I am back on anxiety meds lol. Also I plan to have a big therapy discussion tomorrow/today wish me luck. Hopefully we find out eveything that is wrong with me.
hi internet welcome to my first internet blog. im on facetime with namrata because idk how to code.