On Dating an Orgy (Patreon)

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Ok, so there’s this bit in Zoolander 2 where Hansel is in a committed, long-term relationship with his orgy and I can’t stop thinking about what a great analogy that is for being an independent artist with an audience. (Also, before anyone yells at me for having seen it, yes, Zoolander 2 has #Problematic elements. I just wanna talk about this one running gag in it, though.) <— Actually, including this disclaimer ties in directly with my thoughts on the parallels between a guy having a committed, complicated relationship with his orgy and an artist having a committed, complicated relationship with their audience! I didn’t even intend that when I wrote it. I’ll elaborate below. 

Here’s how I see it: You have one flawed human (Hansel/The Artist) with their personal wants and needs who is in a relationship with a group of fellow flawed humans (The Orgy/The Audience) with their own varied, conflicting wants and needs and, dang dude, if that ain’t a complicated landscape to navigate. 

What can we reasonable expect from each other? How much is acceptable to share of ourselves with each other? What happens when we disappoint each other? What happens when we hurt each other? I don’t have the answers. All I know is that if I don’t add a disclaimer acknowledging that a movie I’m referencing has jokes that will hurt some of my audience (and that hurt is legitimate!), I’ll be scolded and will get the “I’m very disappointed in you” and the “I can no longer support you” break-up letters from a number of the folks out of this group of people that I am in an artist-audience relationship with. And now, having shared this fact publicly, another number of people from the group will get defensive on my behalf and preemptively denigrate the potentially hurt people. And then there’s another section who will think I’m exaggerating and how melodramatic is this self-absorbed, silly woman being? And then there’s yet another faction who will not care at all about any of this, they probably won’t even read this update, because all they wanna see are the comics. Sharing one sentence of information about my life or thoughts will illicit a variety of conflicting responses, including positive, neutral, and negative, from the audience I share it with.

THIS SHIT IS A LAND MINE FOR ME. 

This is the kind of stuff I think about before I post every tweet, blog, tumble (is that what a post on Tumblr is called?), Facebook, and Patreon update. Every word has to be carefully considered and preemptively looked at from every angle to see where it could possibly be interpreted negatively. And even with that vigilance, people are still upset, still hurt, still offended (Feelings to which they are fully entitled to feel!). 

As someone who WANTS to make everyone happy, writing anything on the internet is just… exhausting. It’s like dancing on the head of a pin. But it’s also a necessity of having this kind of job in this era. 

What do I owe my audience? I think about it a lot. A lot.

Here is what my audience shares with me: Readership of my work, sharing my work with others, financial support, sending me personal messages, following and engaging with my social media accounts. They give me acknowledgement, interaction, and validation.

Here is what I am currently capable of providing: Comics, updates on social media, genuine consideration of the messages sent to me that I am able to read. 

And here is what I don’t give back: Personal acknowledgement, interaction, validation with the people reaching out to me and engaging with the content I produce. I rarely have the time or emotional energy to reply to emails and for self-protection I’ve made a policy of not reading nor responding to social media messages (Too many threats, too many messages that fuck me up for a week at a time. I’ve hired someone to screen them for me, just passing along info that I Really Should Know, but I rarely engage because my responses/lack of responses are recorded on blogs that exist solely to document all my failings as a human, whether real or invented). 

I’m one person in a relationship with a diverse group of individuals with many different wants and needs and expectations of me and I constantly feel like I’m failing to live up to my end of the deal; to equally repay the generosity and emotions and trust that are shared with me. It’s so one-sided and I hate myself for not reciprocating what my audience shares with me. 

I shouldn’t talk about this publicly. It won’t do me any favors. But… well, here I am. 

I know some of this reads a bit paranoid, and some of it probably is, objectively, an exaggeration; but it’s all been born from the real life experiences and consequences I’ve amassed from being in an artist-audience relationship for the last 18 years.  

18 years, jesus christ. 

“Most people don’t start their career when they’re 15,” my friend told me when I was having one of my periodic break-downs about the path I’ve chosen and the consequences its brought to me. 

18 years of publicly messing up, of offending, of hurting the feelings of people I’ll never meet. 18 years of making art, of connecting, of letting people I’ll never meet feel like they’re not alone. 

18 years of being a flawed human with my own personal wants and needs who is in a relationship with a group of fellow flawed humans with their own varied, conflicting wants and needs.

JUST LIKE HANSEL AND HIS ORGY IN THE FUNNY-BUT-DISCLAIMER-PROBLEMATIC MOVIE ZOOLANDER 2. 

See what I did there? Boom, baby.