A short YouTube monologue (by Lennon Bone) arguing that social media encourages imitation and a "culture of sameness" among artists. The speaker criticizes advice to copy others, calls for originality rooted in personal ideas, empathy, and real conversation, and urges artists to avoid surface-level trends and online antagonism.
It's no wonder that most artists can't stand working on social media. Everybody's saying, go out there and see what other people are doing and copy them. How is that exciting for a creative? We're already out here freaking scared to death that our work isn't original enough, isn't cool enough. There's a thousand fears that already exist, and then people are coming at you saying, just go see what other people are doing and copy them. And I would argue that if you're taking that mindset, you're perpetuating a culture of sameness online. I'm guilty of this too. New and unique is not fancy edits and flashy whatevers. New and unique is your ideas, the things that you care about, your passion, your empathy, having real conversations with one another. New and unique is not being a dickhead on the Internet. And that's what I believe more artists should be doing online.
