I've been thinking lately that man.. with my insecurities, moderate skill levels, and lack of inclination towards pursuing a specialty, I'm really glad that I was born into the generation that I was—to have been part of the pioneers of the developing era of internet-based hobbies. Specifically in the area of creating covers and the audio/video production involved in it!
People argue that those starting out now have it easier due to the accessibility of resources and tutorials that didn't exist when we were first learning everything on our own—but let's be real, it's really rough to be a newbie posting any sort of content online in a landscape that's already fairly developed and where people are trained to look at numbers..... It takes thick skin that I don't know if I would have but I respect others for having. x__x
It was such a drastically different time when I was first posting covers back in middle school and high school... Admittedly I never look at analytics because 🤢 but I just peeked at the view history for one of my covers from 2010—and it had 8k views in its first year and 6k in its second year!! That's a LOT considering it's not a good cover by any means LOL. It's very telling of how much I benefited back then purely from the novelty of not many covers existing at the time (and especially those that were somewhat mixed; I did earn myself that advantage at least!).
So much has changed.. Back then, online "fandom" hubs were much smaller and also younger in average, standards were low because this stuff hadn't been done for very long yet, and DIY production wasn't nearly as accessible or an object of most people's interest. Nowadays the entire internet is pushing the unhealthy stigma that if you're not a content creator yourself, you're falling behind 💀
It makes sense that with so many things being created and available, everyone's expectations raised exponentially. Song covers, I think, were particularly hit hard by the loss of novelty—and I'm sure all youtaite will attest to this TT... It was a hot topic for a while and it led to many people sharing threads and playlists of covers they liked, which was awesome! Personally I especially enjoyed this playlist by AKA which is full of underrated gems 😭 I don't understand how so many of these talented, charming singers haven't gotten the attention they definitely deserve...
I often hear and even catch myself thinking, "I miss the times when we could quickly throw together covers and upload often and just enjoy the simplicity of it all!"
The counter: "Well you can just stop caring about others' opinions/views/engagement and just do it anyway!"
And I'd say that for others but ahh.... The problem for me then becomes that my own justification isn't about validation and more that it's hard for me to let go of my self-inflicted expectations of what I want to create 😔 Especially since I've been doing this for so long, I'm less forgiving on myself than towards those less experienced and I would hate for anyone or for myself to think, "After all this time this is the best you can do?" ;; (I know it was a compliment but I was a little embarrassed when someone said that I deserved more subs for someone who's been at it for this many years..) And for me in particular, I was able to skirt by without being necessarily a good singer when standards were lower—though it was always the case that I made up for it by doing a lot of other things like rapping, mixing, animating, filming/editing videos—but now I don't know if I can go back to just singing and uploading it because it wouldn't be anything interesting ksdjfkfdsj Whenever I upload, I keep thinking that I want to show something near the best that my abilities have to offer and I do lament that it takes me so long to finish anything, especially big projects that I really want to put my all into and end up intimidating myself with. There are some ambitious [scary] things I still want to do... This mindset of chasing novelty and personal perfection is admittedly unhealthy hh.
Still I'm in a position where even if I'm not polished at any of them, at least I've learned the elementary basics of many skills—though I actually do want to venture into more dancing and try drawing again!—and have built a great network/community that would probably support me. 😭
I imagine that for those just starting out in singing/mixing/animating/etc it can be easily discouraging, especially when comparing themselves to those who are more experienced, and especially especially if they're young and impressionable and only know the current competitive climate of content creation (the CCC of CC!! goodbye)—they may likely end up dropping their pursuits before even getting a chance to grow which takes time.
The internet is full of more than a decades' worth of my scrappy, cringy, developing, budding attempts at doing Stuff and I think without them I wouldn't have made it to where I am on my path now! :>
Yet I wonder what would've happened if I were my younger self in the present timeline just learning things and if I would've been discouraged by own utter mediocrity..? I guess if I do go forward with trying to learn digital art as a complete newbie, we'll find out what happens there (I am very intimidated by this lolol and don't look forward to finding out how shitty I am at it and reconfirming what I already know about how I have no aptitude for artistry or aesthetics and how much effort it'll take for me to improve and whether I can expend that effort ☠️) ..
There's one more thing that I feel like I unfortunately have an advantage in, which is having grown up without caring about views or subs/followers—before the internet started preying this hard on creators who now can't help but measure their success in numbers. Especially when I look over into the vtubing sphere, I think it's amazing that a whole new hobby grew up out of the ground and is blooming and now this whole new generation gets to grow and learn with it! They get to be surrounded by everyone else who is also scuffing which is a natural thing! But oh man I do be concerned seeing how much the numbers game is affecting a lot of people and how much they take it personally TT I hope they can see that there's more to it than numbers imply.
The bottom line I guess is just that everyone regardless of experience could use more encouragement + patience and the reminder that growth takes time. Recently people's kind words gave me the courage to look back at some of my covers and it made me think: you know what, even if I don't bring the greatest skill or quality, I'm really really glad that I've made everything that I've made and that I try all the things that I try 💙
