The Many Joys of Cancellation Part X: Art and Artists

Despite what Plato seems to feel no society is likely to exist when the art and creations of a segment of its creators are invalidated for their views, thoughts, or beliefs even when none of those things make it into the art.

That is: You might keep the society, but you will lose the culture. As when you contrict your artists and creators, their work gets smaller, their worlds get smaller, and your mental reach, your creativity as a society, gets smaller.

Why are the current generation of artists taking breaks, retiring after two or three years of fame, vanishing?

Why not?

I’m several generations older. I was building an art world, and I kept reinvesting in that world. I never had a ton of money, but the things I was creating kept getting bigger.

Then I got falsely accused and canceled, and literally thousands of people got hurt as The Steampunk World’s Fair was destroyed by the people who were supposedly its caretakers.

Everybody lost. Except, I guess, whoever disliked me enough to start putting the mob together.

And having looked at that mob, I can tell you:

If I were 23 and just had my first hit, I would absolutely retire.

If I were a new artist faced with sudden success, I would absolutely retreat from it.

If I were an artist still performing, I would prepare to hate on a percentage of my audience for the sake of another percentage of my audience…or I’d presume my audience was a monolith, and join them in mourning the death of…whatever is dying here.

But I wouldn’t be creating, no.

I create because I truly see building new things as essential to the world, and (even without that) it’s pretty essential to me.

But I’m from a different generation. Most people my age get past the idea of cancellation by being oblivious; I get past it by simply knowing how insane my own cancellation was, and how much my cancelers are willing to harm quite a lot of people in order to get at me.

If I were young and could either go on tour, or could go incognito and go skiing in France for a few years…there’s no way I’d tour.

If I were vengeful, this would be my vengeance: cancellation, you make the art world so much worse.

But there’s so much left to create. I feel bad, but I’m not going to get stuck ther