You should care where art comes from
A collection of loosely tied together thoughts, none of which are particularly original, all of which I feel strongly about.
I was going to have the cover image of this post be some sort of sketch of a music idea from one of my old sheet music notebooks, but then I found this page of doodles instead. And honestly? I love them. AI could never make art this good.
On AI art
I hate genAI slop.
Every piece of music I create is a little piece of myself, painstakingly and lovingly crafted and presented to anyone who wants to experience it. I would guess this is true for the vast majority of artists. An AI canât lovingly craft something, because it is incapable of love. It canât put out music and hope that youâll connect with it, that itâll make you feel something, because itâs incapable of hoping for anything.
And before you come at me with, âthe AI canât feel or intend anything, but the person prompting it can,â that argument doesnât matter when the tool being used is trained off the work of millions of artists without their consent. It doesnât matter how much you love the work you create if you create it by stealing othersâ work.
Plus, you know what real love is? Itâs putting thousands of hours into building skills in a craft that means the world to you. As the excellent point Iâve often seen quoted but donât know the original source of says: âif you couldnât be bothered to write it, I canât be bothered to read it.â
I'm not even getting into the environmental concerns or the fact that paid work is getting taken away from artists, which are also both incredibly concerning points! I don't know. I just don't see the point of the existence of art that's created in such a soulless way. It's truly baffling to me.
On art created for mass consumption
Yes, but also no.
Let me tell you about my music taste journey. As as awkward little tween, I was obsessed with NSYNC and Britney Spears. Then high school rolled around, and I got into emo music and decided I was too cool to listen to anything mainstream. This continued through my hipster phase in college. Then in my twenties I did a heel turn and decided that actually, people should be able to listen to whatever music they want, even the most mainstream of mainstream pop, and anyone who didn't like it was a horrible snob.
Then I entered my thirties and figured out how to do nuance.
The thing is, when you listen to Taylor Swift, watch a Marvel movie, or pick up the latest Call of Duty, you are buying something that some executives at a company worth billions of dollars decided would make them the most money. That's just a fact. And when we spend all our entertainment budgets on these super popular products, we're encouraging hegemony and playing it safe, and discouraging taking risks and lifting up unique voices.
I'm not saying that you should never watch or listen to anything mainstream, or even that things made by huge companies can't be good. I mean, Severance is made by Apple. I'm just saying, if you buy a Sabrina Carpenter record or watch yet another reboot of a beloved 90s classic, maybe also consider buying a record from a local indie band or getting a ticket to see a film with a very limited theatrical release.
If you like music or art or stories (I bet you do!), then you should care to support the people who create them. And indies are the ones who really need your support. Plus, if you take the time to search for things by small creators, I bet you're going to find some really, really cool stuff. Some of it might even be cooler than whatever the marketing team at that huge studio is telling you that you should like.
On (not) separating the art from the artist
It's wild to me that in the year of our lord 2025, people are still buying Harry Potter shit.
I really liked Harry Potter as a kid. One of my core (and extremely 2000s) memories from my childhood was going to a Britney Spears concert and then going to a bookstore for the midnight release of a Harry Potter book afterwards. I read the entire thing the next day. But I find it pretty easy to accept that the context surrounding something that 11-year-old Megan loved has drastically changed. Nostalgia doesn't override harm, especially harm that's happening currently.
When you buy something that someone like JK Rowling or Neil Gaiman profits off of, you are directly helping them do terrible things. You could argue that it's a drop in the bucket, but what do you think it says to trans people, or to sexual assault survivors like myself, that you're willing to continue monetarily support the people who directly make the world less safe for them?
On a similar note, Microsoft is part of the BDS boycott. This includes game pass subscriptions and the Oblivion remaster I keep seeing you all posting about. BDS isn't a random consumer boycott; it's a highly organized and targeted one led by a coalition of Palestinian organizations. I canceled my game pass subscription, and guess what! Turns out there are a ton of games in my backlog that I can still play.
Overall
I think the main thing I'm getting at here is that we should all be mindful of our consumption, and that includes media and art. I might be biased as an artist myself, but I believe it would make the world a much better place if more people used their money to support good people instead of companies or people who make their art using plagiarism machines and/or use the profits to do terrible things.
Nobody can be perfect. But we can all try to be more mindful.