I remember some time a few years ago, I heard part of an interview with Coldplay in which one of the band members was asked if bad reviews and the vicious comments that are made about them hurt. He said yes, and I was both impressed with his vulnerable honesty and saddened in how much I related to where the guy was coming from.
I’m not sure who this kid is, but I was very touched by this video.
I’ve tried to google hate on myself during low points in my life. I think I might have even done it using AltaVista once. Honestly, if ever there was a time that the rare unsolicited comment was made about me online, it’s certainly long over. Which is just as well, being that I too am a person who has always wished to be the type who doesn’t care what people think of them, and who probably just isn’t.
[singlepic id=2506 w=320 h=240 float=right]I never did find what I was looking for when I’d search for “courtnee papastathis sucks” and various other versions of the same sentiment — and honestly, I’m glad. During depressions, I am bulldog enough about insisting I’m a total waste of mucous without the confirmation of random people who don’t actually know the first thing about me or the real reasons I might suck. Though I can scrap on EFnet with the best of them, the irrational wave of hatred that inevitably ends up directed at the people who ‘make it’ as a performer is, I’m certain, one of the founding reasons I struggle with the prospect of any reasonably inarguable amount of success.
I think about places to contact about showing my art and then never call them. I think about press package designs and never print them. I think about going to open mic’s and I don’t go. I rarely practice, and when I do it helps to have a drink or three in me. I don’t take classes. I walk away from disciplines for months, sometimes years, before picking them up again. I have to re-learn my own songs every time I perform.
I don’t want to even imagine how hard it could become to maneuver my emotional landscape — my stage fright, my writers blocks, my mediocrity — if more people with less investment were paying attention. I cringe at the thought of engaging in conversations with every person who leaves a comment on my Model Mayhem and Deviant Art accounts, let alone being under the scrutiny of a typical celebrity fan base.
I’ve improved greatly at recognizing when I’m in my own way, and pushing through when I feel down about my work: And still, I think I might die before I figure out how to truly stop hiding from it.
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I don’t want to be famous. I just want to be loved.