Yeah hey. Don’t do this. Don’t butt into a conversation with advice. And when they tell you it’s covered and they have it under control, don’t keep at it.
And then don’t follow up with a lecture telling them the proper way for them to react to this. Don’t pull the ” i was gonna buy but not now because you didnt put up with me” You want to be a customer? Be a customer. Don’t try to cross into the role of savior or advice giver if you can’t handle someone not taking your advice.
Artists hear “you should….” from strangers almost every day.
Strangers who have no insight into their work methods, what they have and havent tried, etc. We get that people are trying to help but unsolicited advice gets really old, really fast. It starts to make you feel like everyone around you thinks you are incompetent or needs saving. We managed to build a whole business, teach ourselves through trial and error, did research, learned all the skills that come with selling your work and are doing exactly what we want for a living…but somehow we still hear “you should…”
It’s not that we aren’t open to improving or open to new methods- but we have peers we go to for that, we have people that we have that sort of relationship with… it’s like going to get your oil changed and then hanging over the person’s shoulder to tell them how to do it. They got along just fine before you showed up and if they need help , they have people they work with who they’d ask.
Every time i have said “thanks but no thanks” to this sort of advice , it almost always gets met with venom and anger and a need to punish and shame me. So that tells me that advice had much more than simple “advice” behind it. It came from a feeling of superiority and when a lowly person like me did not accept it- well,
It has happened so many times that these days i just try to ignore it to save me from hearing the inevitable abusive response .
So look, if an artist says “thanks but no thanks” just back off. They have heard it from every family member, every person who hears they make art for a living , ..it’s death by a thousand, obtuse, trying to be helpful but sort of insulting cuts.
And if you say “you are being too sensitive” well, fuck you we are artists. What do you expect?
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