im 24 and old and the one thing i wanna tell young artists is that producing art for the sake of popularity or hyperfixating on what your followers want will give you absolute brain rot

i understand wanting to be recognized for your work and i def do that too but when you sit down at the table and start drawing only so that you’ll get a lot of likes or retweets it will drain you in ways that you won’t recognize until you’re older

i was 18 when i got on tumblr and started uploading my art and while i appreciate the platform it gave me, i started getting literal anxiety if i didnt upload a drawing so that i would get likes and stuff. and i wasnt even popular i had like 100-200 followere

but tying validation and artistic gratification to how many likes/replies/shares i got really impacted my mental health and my work ethic and it affects me even to this day. if im drawing something and it starts to get too late to post i will literally get anxiety and go too fast

my wrist hurts because im trying to rush and my head gets really unfocused and its all because i wanna get it done before it gets too late so people will see it. to this day that still happens to me. and thats only one symptom of the problem

young artists please don’t focus on likes and retweets right now. its okay to want to be popular and to get recognition for your work but hyperfixating on popularity and drawing for the sake of it can really harm you, dont be like me