RE: The State of the @NoNamesLeftToUse Address: Still Willing to Work for Your Support
I have a hard time talking about myself these days. After being an artist for over 5 years on social media, I don't feel like letting every Tom Dick and Harry into my personal space anymore. I try to create beauty and music where people can escape to for a few minutes, but, I'm not a therapist or an addictions counselor.
I found when I was super open, a lot of people felt more comfortable approaching me for "personal" reasons, not art reasons. Then, they'd get all pissy and write me nasty messages if I didn't have time to be their new best friend and counselor. Some even went so far as to blast me publicly for being "fake" because I didn't reply to their 5th message to me about how they can't stop drinking (after I already replied to the other 4 messages they sent, saying the same thing each time about how I quit drinking, that they ignored)... I ain't got time for that.
Now, it's more about my art. And you know what? I'm selling a lot more big ticket paintings, getting more serious fans of my art (as opposed to fans of how nice I am to strangers on Facebook and how cool it is that I take time to reply to everyone) and spending a lot less time being a counselor and friend to people who will forget I exist if I stop posting for 2-3 days. Wow that felt really good to say. Maybe I am being more open... lol
I have a 'no drama' rule I strictly enforce with people. They learn fast that I'm not here to waste time with that stuff. I'm not sharing every little bit about my life here. That's not what I really meant by being yourself. I just add my personality to each post rather than following some kind of template. A picture with a few of the same details for every single blog post means people will know what to expect before looking. Some will lose interest. If people can't be serious fans of my work because of the way I am and if they'd prefer I act in a way that suits their own personal standards of how someone should act... that might not be someone I'd want to business with so I guess it's better that way.
For me the start of my journey into art as a career and my sobriety went hand in hand. I guess that's part of why I got a lot of "personal"messages. Now I focus more on the art and much less on the sobriety. I suppose that's where I'm going - towards people who know what to expect, and hopefully what they expect is why they follow me.
In my last blog post I acted like my name is Ricardo. Some people don't read those tags you know... and they don't get humor. For me, I think I owe to everyone to show who I really am from time to time. Many other posts I'll pick the most mundane things from my day and talk about that. "I ate a banana today." In reality, my life isn't it that boring, but it keeps people(and myself) entertained. We all have our ways though. I certainly wouldn't force anyone to change.
That did crack me up. There's a famous Quebec chef named Ricardo, and his flagship store and studio where he films his show is right down the street from my parents lol I did eat a banana today though... Hmm...
That frickin' post bombed hard. Most folks didn't realize it's a parody of that one dude on the trending page... I didn't want to give it away though. Everyone got so quiet. I think they thought I was on drugs. I'm afraid to go back to that post now... It's not the first time I bombed. Won't be the last!
LOL I didn't realize. Of course I generally purposely try to avoid anything that's trending if I can lol I read your post in a sort of Razor Ramon accent to go with the name Ricardo so it added a whole other element of funny to it even though I was laughing at a joke I didn't actually get - at least I was laughing lol
Yeah, it's best read in an accent. I had fun putting it together. I did tag it as satire. If you read his posts and then my parody, you'll see how it's spot on. I honestly thought more people were familiar with that character. He spends enough to be famous, < sarcasm > I'm not sure why it didn't work. </ sarcasm >