“Technology acts as a salve on our communal doubt. ‘Will they like me?’ ‘Will I be accepted?’ ‘Are my teeth white enough?’ ‘Buy this and you’re OK!’ Can you imagine Picasso asking, ‘Will they like this painting?’ Or Van Gogh saying, ‘Will they understand what I’m doing?’ Those guys were like, ‘Fuck you, I got something to do. I have an idea. I don’t care what you think. Thick paint, you don’t like it? Then get the fuck out of here!’”
—Melvin Sokolsky, Wraparound Magazine 1.4 (2004): 16.
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Technology also acts as a neutralizer for the Picasso/Van Gogh sentiment. If you bring that kind of vehemence online, you are sure to be tapped down, commented down, and buzzed down from that kind of bold decisiveness. This comes from both friends on and off line. Online, people seem want it all to feel “white” and “neutral” and “fit in somewhere” like high school all over again. It can sort of leave you spinning on your now tattered sentiment, your energy somehow zapped. As open-minded and global as the world is becoming, on some sort of basic level people just don’t like anything too far out there.
Excellent point, Laura. I’ve experienced what you’re talking about.
I don’t doubt you have! Most bold and innovative minds must’ve by now…unless they just choose to move to Montana and live in a van down by the river writing in journals or something