To Be or Not to Be: Starving Artists

It takes work to starve

Last week, I finally posted a video that I'd been "perfecting" about losing my SSD. I used every special effect I could think of - AI voiceovers, AfterEffects 3D mapping, an elaborate opening sequence that took longer to render than the actual content.

I didn't think I'd go viral, but I still held my breath every time I refreshed the view count for the next week.

80 views.

The thing is, no matter how much work I'd put in, I couldn't be mad. I wasn't putting in extra hours or posting every day. I wasn't building an audience or engaging with other creators. Of course, it would be nice to have people who actually cared about my work. But I wasn't putting in the time to make that happen.

It made me feel guilty in that specific way that only self-awareness can. I claimed to love filmmaking so much. So why wasn't I willing to do the unglamorous work that comes with actually pursuing it?

I found myself confessing this to my friend Jesslyn over coffee the next day. She produces music and has a naturally strong vocal range. Despite being genuinely talented, she didn't want to make her hobby "real" either.

"Everyone expects you to be obsessed, you know?" she said, avoiding eye contact. "Like if I really loved this, I'd be willing to quit my job and live off ramen. But I'm not, so maybe I don't actually love it?"

Looking at her felt like looking in a mirror. But why did we feel guilty in the first place? Where does this pressure come from - this idea that if you truly love something creative, you must be willing to sacrifice everything for it?

It made me wonder about the mythology we've built around creative passion. There's this idea that to create real art, there must be a necessary struggle. That's where we get the concept of a “starving artist.” Someone who has enough conviction to actually harm themselves for their craft. But it still didn't answer why Jesslyn and I weren’t willing to sacrifice in a similar way.

That night, I couldn't stop thinking about this line from Only Murders in the Building where Oliver reflects on his mediocre theater career:

"The people I went to university with - half of them became starving artists, the other half became sellouts... and I respect both those groups more than I respect myself."

If you aren't willing to starve for your art or sell out for success, what are you? Just someone who learned a few Premiere Pro shortcuts and calls it passion?

Sitting there with my laptop still open to that pathetic view count, I realized: if you don't even try to eat, and I mean really try to eat, then you ever get the chance to starve.

Most of us - me, Jesslyn, Oliver - we're not starving artists because we're not actually trying to feast. We claim to love the food but we never try to order anything.

The starving artist doesn't earn our respect because they're hungry. They earn it because they were brave enough to want something so badly that they gave themselves permission to fail at it. They posted the bad stuff, made mistakes where people could see, and built something that could actually be rejected.

The real question isn't whether you're willing to struggle for your art. It's whether you're willing to want it badly enough that the struggle becomes inevitable.

So here I am, laptop still open, 80 views staring back at me, wondering if I'm finally ready to actually want this thing I claim to love.