Artists vs. Content Creators
Understanding the difference in texture between the two.
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"Find what works and double down! And then double down again!"
This is a common adage in growth marketing.
And now that we live in the age of the creator economy with so many people publishing, I feel like I see it everywhere.
Maybe it’s due to who I follow, but it seems like everywhere I go someone is sharing ideas on how to grow something or content that has been created to drive engagement.
A LinkedIn post with three words on how someone failed and then a…
Tweet threads with dramatic hooks
YouTube videos with bombastic thumbnails (I made a few of these!)
Since coming back online with publishing and social media 8 months ago, one distinction that has emerged for me is the difference between a content entrepreneur and/or content marketer VS. an artist. For the sake of ease, I will aggregate the first group of people as “content creators.”
My Experience Of Doing Creator Stuff
Content creators focus on building their own or growing a business from creating content. Because they are dependent on their content performance to fund their lifestyle, there’s a strong pull to do things that will make it grow. The more followers, clicks, and engagements, the more money they will make 🤑
I have lived this life when I was selling courses and growing a SaaS business. In this paradigm, your consciousness feels like an interpretive layer where everything revolves around "growing." You move through the world thinking about how you can convert clever things you hear and life's moments to get reactions on the internet.
This isn't just limited to Instagram influencers who take pictures of every meal, but many VCs, entrepreneurs, and internet personalities whose inner landscape is overly consumed with how to leverage experiences or fleeting thoughts to grow their brand.
What you create and focus on can begin to orient towards what you know will get a response in your niche, rather than your innate interests that are constantly evolving.
Ideally, these continuously overlap, but often they diverge over time. I call this niche fatigue.
When this happens you get burned out. You somehow found yourself running on a treadmill that you no longer want to be on. But because the money is too good or the business needs, you’re forced to continue discussing topics that no longer resonate. This thing you once loved has become hollow and draining.
Juxtaposed to an artist, there’s often more pressure to conform to formulaic creative structures that are tried and true - A.K.A. imitation. This doesn’t mean you can’t flex spontaneity in the creative process. There’s often just a tendency to conform to certain formats or use components that drive better engagement.
As a result, you often find yourself feeling pressure to fit what you want to say to into an existing model. For example, keeping podcasts under 30 minutes to drive downloads or keeping blog posts short because they are written for busy executives.
There is a reluctance to express what you want to express, when and how you want to express it.
The Artist Vibe
Artists create things based on what they want to see in the world and/or for the joy they experience during the creation process. These people can also make a living from their work, but there is a stronger allegiance to creating authentically than to maximizing their income.
The primary difference in texture is the spontaneity and lack of restriction of the creative process and outputs. You’re not bound to creating something as a means to an end, whether it be for money or influence - although it’s cool if those things come. If you write a blog on consciousness and wake up feeling like writing something about the creator economy, you do it!
Positive reactions to your work in the form of money, likes, follows, etc. are appreciated, but that is not why you do it. You do it because you can’t not do it; the process is too enjoyable. It often begins with a spark of an idea that motivates you to sit in front of your easel, keyboard, or microphone. From there, things just start to flow. It's unclear where things will end up, but the unknown journey is part of the excitement. And despite this seeming tenuous direction, somehow things always come together which brings wonder and joy. P.S. if you work on expanding your consciousness, this is what your entire life can feel like!
The risk is that artists become starving artists. I guess clichés exist for a reason.
One reason why is that many believe overly commercializing, optimizing, or promoting their work is a deviation from the purity of their artistic expression. Paradoxically, these behaviors can enhance their ability to support themselves which enables them to create art full-time.
Like most things, there is a continuum from content creator to artist. You may love the thrill of being a content creator, but you will not go full artist and begin creating things that do not match your niche.
Neither is better or worse; the continuum just is what it is and all comes down to personal preference. All along the continuum, there are risks and pitfalls that ultimately prevent one from creating over the long haul while feeling good about it.
Creating High Integrity Art While Making a Living
Many people do not have the luxury of creating art for art's sake, including content creators. This is either because our existing or aspirational lifestyles cost too much, or because we are not yet creating something at a skill level that the market rewards handsomely.
This leaves you with a few options.
You keep your job and treat your art as a hobby
Reduce your lifestyle expenditure
Improve your creative skill
If you have an existing audience, you gradually start transitioning them to topics that you find more in alignment
In my experience, inner alignment and congruence have a higher long-term payoff than luxuries such as a nice car or a more expensive mortgage.
Tim Ferriss is a great example of someone who built an audience on productivity and now mostly talks about psychedelics, consciousness, and the nature of reality. I'm sure when he began talking about these things, he experienced some anxiety about disinter-mediating his productivity and startup loyalists.
You tend to fight this until you the fatigue of staying in your lane becomes too great or someone smart forces you to take a big leap. Once you move back into alignment, peace and excitement often returns to the creative process.
Looking at myself as a mini case study, I definitely lost a lot of people after taking a 7 year vow of SaaS silence and then coming out guns blazing about consciousness.
But it also turned out that many people who followed me for productivity and sales also became interested in consciousness. Moreover, I began to connect with new people that resonate with what’s important to me. The tradeoff is a no brainer.
If Your Afraid To Commercialize or Promote Your Work This May Help
If you are an artist who loves what they are doing, but struggles to commercialize their work, there are a few things you can do.
Again it seems like many artists view promoting, marketing, or optimizing their work for consumption as dirty. I can't help but think this is a misguided notion that prevents many people from earning a better living, which would allow them to create art for longer.
The key is to separate the marketing and optimization (packaging) from the creative process of the original work. I prefer to treat them as two distinct creative activities.
Imagine there was a brilliant painter. The painter was given the choice to either paint all day in the attic or to put his work on display in a showroom on the main street. Within the showroom, he could choose to display his work in the front window or just lay them on the floor in the back of the room. It might take a little extra work to lift things into the window, but the upside is that now all these people from the street who have no idea about his inspiring creations have a chance to see them. If he sells a few paintings, he won't have to worry about money for a while, which means he can just keep painting.
I think most people who read this story would say that the guy should take the time to carry his paintings from the attic to the store window. It's just the smart thing to do and says nothing about who he is as a painter.
Yet, when it comes to the internet and spending a little extra time when sharing something, people seem to think it's a dirty act.
If you believe in what you're doing and want to help people, you must realize that you are handicapping yourself for no reason. You're either protecting your ego, haven't spent time learning how to spread your work, or just telling yourself a very illogical story.
I have found that all these elements described to get people to come into the store can feel like spontaneous creative processes in themselves. Marketing can be fun and can become just another form of creative spontaneity. In fact, I have been enjoying it so much that I created another Substack on marketing called Creator Experiments.
As you become more comfortable with this game, you will notice that certain pieces of art draw more attention than others.
For example, every single time I tweet or post on LinkedIn about selling a startup or some growth hack, the engagement is 5-10 times higher than anything I write about restoring profound levels of peace, joy, and creativity. It is quite funny, but this is the world we live in.
In these moments, the artist is always faced with the temptation of doing more of what will draw people into the store or staying true to what makes them feel alive. Even if the artist is a very mindful person, the ego that loves attention does not completely go away. With increased awareness, there is just a greater ability to recognize those impulses for what they are and make a conscious decision about where they want to put their energy.
So, should one be more of an artist or content creator?
Everyone has the opportunity to be whatever they want; one is not better than the other. They are just what they are and we are all creating from our own subjective level of experience.
I am finding that there is more enjoyment in being in the flow than anything else, which makes focusing on the artist perspective more compelling to me. Despite having some success as a SaaS founder, I am still a young artist. It is humbling, but very rewarding.
Perhaps at some point I won't want to create art. I'm not sure. But for now, it is very enjoyable and I am open and trusting of wherever the energy leads me.
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Thank you for the insightful reflections on a perceived dichotomy that affects so many of us.
Was it John Updike who famously maintained two -- or even three -- desks? One for writing/creating, a second for editing, and a third for conducting submissions, correspondence, and the general business side of the writing career. Whether that was Updike or someone else, it was genius.
Wow. It's great to know that I'm not alone in feeling this way. I often don't want to write what it takes to get paid, which is why my blog is not filled with posts like, "How to write a great blog post in 5 steps." Instead, I write about things like abundance, how to discover your calling, and how to wield the energetic force of influence. I need to find a way to let THAT content pay the bills!