Good morrow. Ready for some more snark? Here we go.
There’s a big difference between wanting people to worship you and in having something to say as well as the courage to put your actual face on it.
I’ve built a platform for myself before and had enough shallow bozos mistake me for the former that I basically burned the whole thing down. (My middle name isn’t Blaze for no reason.)
Fewer people listen to me now, because it would appear the market has a much higher demand for ego coddling than unflinching truth.
That’s fine—hollow people can have weak taste. Their desire to waste their lives on pageantry doesn’t have to distract me just because they’re all swimming in their circular ecosystem of flattery and heart reacts and coin.
The idea that wealth and power is owned by the least sincere hacks among us, and that those are the ones we need to make sure we appeal to, is a concept I fundamentally challenge.
Does that make me rebellious? A lot of people seem to think so.
Honestly, the truth is, I’m just too bored of their empty nonsense to be capable of giving a shit anymore.
Anyone else?
They don’t have the answers. They don’t have authority outside of the archaic systems that they backstab to gain a seat in. Their “art” and their “accomplishments” are just desperate pleas for the validation and attention their shitty parents failed to give them as toddlers. They don’t have anything going on that I want to be part of. It’s all smoke and mirrors on a hamster wheel.
Maybe what they’re doing looks impressive and shiny, but it all lacks substance. And it all is built on a foundation of abuse and disregard for the kindness and generosity of the unassuming real ones they gruesomely take for granted.
Dreams built on stolen energy are not visionary. They are destined for collapse. (Hopefully BEFORE they destroy too much in the process.)
A world that makes these folks the centerpiece is just not a world I care to live in.
So, I don’t live in that world. Nobody really does if you think about it.
I’m an artist. It’s in my bones. So what does that mean?
People have generally gotten my role as an artist very confused. They sit on the sidelines and poke and prod me like some kind of specimen. They mistake my courage to be real as an invitation to meddle, define, claim, and judge.
An artist isn’t a pet or a prop.
An artist is someone who stands at the edge of the void and reaches in and pulls something out that never existed before.
That’s not decoration or entertainment. That’s leadership.
I’m not some kind of case study for somebody’s agenda to get a gold star on their “savior,” “helper,” or “mentor” report card.
I’m not a goddamn token.
Get it now?
From here on out, I won’t be getting any less clear.
If that bums you out, go find someone with less conviction to entertain you. :)
—Adrien