A recent article's provocative title on PSFK recently caught my attention. After I read it, it unraveled something in me. Are We Becoming Inspiration Fetishists? was written in response to a blog post by Stephan Boubil at The Apartment. The original article talks about how the creative industry and the internet has in a sense has turned us into 'inspiration fetishists' that are more concerned about inspiration behind creative work rather than actually creating the work. I stumbled upon the quote above on The Mavenist and I felt it truly captured this whole line of thought.
As a creative person and a blogger, I feel that I'm always working. My blog does help me document my creative experience and my point of view. Although my blog started out purely as a documentation of my design and aesthetic preferences, I realized over the past couple of years that this isn't really what makes it interesting to read or follow in the long run. Considering the name of my blog, I was forced to question whether or not I have turned into an 'inspiration fetishist.' The answer is 'no.' Well, maybe a little. It's been great learning over the past couple of years through blogging – and discovery of other blogs – that what's most compelling is actually writing about and photographing my own life experience as a creative person. I have noticed that 'blogging' has become increasingly part of everyone's vocabulary. People are spending more and more time curating and maintaining their Tumblr or Pinterest accounts. Our Twitter streams feed us endless links to more inspiring visuals, topics and work. Sure, these sites can/do provide a great deal of inspiration (visual and otherwise) when needed. Some of it can be very seductive. But don't you get exhausted? I know I am. The point we're starting to miss through all of the bombardment is this: when are we/people actually CREATING when we spend so much time collecting and glorifying someone else's work? So much so that it's become so commonplace to appropriate someone else's images and/or text without the courtesy of crediting the author. Perhaps, to some, it has become a fetish. Consider this for a moment. It's something that has stuck with me this week. To rephrase Stephan Boubil's point about how he's tired of the word inspiration... what happened to action, awakening, motivation, ambition and influence? At the end of the day, what's more interesting to me is original content, real stories. As a blogger, it's certainly more interesting for me to share my own experience and my own work. It's about creating original content as opposed to only reposting someone else's. Good questions to ask might be: What's the ratio of time spent this week on collecting inspiration vs actual creation? At what point do you feel compelled to originate work? There isn't anything wrong with curating/collecting existing content and sharing it. I just believe that it shouldn't be taking away ALL our creative energy. What do you think?
