I swear art is one of the most bittersweet toxic hobbies someone can have, I haven't met an artist yet that didn't genuinely despise their own work, or doubt themselves about their purpose when working.
I've always wondered why that is? Maybe it's because when you create something drawn/written/spoken it's usually got quite a lot of yourself put into it? Carving a wooden statuette or playing an instrument isn't always so personally intertwined with your mood or emotions, maybe that's why? A very large generalisation I know, but I'm not qualified to talk about this in a more specific way. I'd hardly describe myself as a writer given I don't write often, nor publish a lot, but then again I guess that feeds into the whole "self doubt" thing.
Social media makes it infinitely worse too, everyone's obsessed with numbers and status and that constant rush then crash of "Number go up, me happy! Number go down, life over" that social media's designed everyone to do. It's so consumerist, you want the numbers so bad because they're literally force-fed to you in a way that "This means you did good! If this ain't here, you suck and should quit!" It's such a toxic environment it continues to baffle me, it pains me to see genuinely beautiful and creative people wither and die under the unforgiving sun of literally sharing their own stuff for other people to see and enjoy because they've been conditioned to think "If people don't see this, it was a waste of time."
I really hope someday I wake up in a world where people have collectively un-learned that reliance on numbers. It fucking blows ass and crushes literally everyone involved when the Mighty Algorithm™ doesn't push someone's post enough. It crushes me even seeing the effects, in friends and strangers both.
And yes, I do in fact know how fucking HARD it is to unlearn that mentality. It's designed to be a struggle, because if you unlearn it then the big CEOs lose money because you're not filling up their little piggy troughs every day. But fuck them, and fuck being a slave in the 21st century to same faceless wanker you can't even fistfight when he beats you. Fight to unlearn those algorithms and inferences that have driven you to madness. Please. I beg of you, remember what you do is what YOU do for YOU, not for them. If it's your job I understand it's different, and the world we live in SUCKS BUTTS for artists, but a dead man paints no pictures, and a dead man speaks no poetry.
Please, for the love of whichever God you believe in or force of good you follow, be it man or myth, do NOT create for the fucking internet. You're going to be miserable. You're being DESIGNED to be miserable. You're not a content farm, you're a human, try to remember that and make shit for YOU. The numbers don't matter, they're meaningless and 90% of them are bots anyway.
Make shit for you. You have to. WE have to.