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Comment by sakopov | Hacker News Reader

I really think that just like everything else in modern times, drawing or the act of actually doing something that requires talent or skill is too laborious to get monetized for. The other day on YouTube, I saw a guy swinging an upside-down bucket of paint over canvas while standing next to it with another person and discussing the entire thing like they were watching Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel. He has hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Later, came across another artist who makes hyper-realistic pencil drawings of people where each picture takes 2 to 3 months to make and looks literally like a photo-copy. He has a couple of thousand subs and barely gets any views.

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The reason for this is that content creation is no longer about the content per se, and I say this as a content creator myself. Content created today serves two functions beyond actually producing something that another person will appreciate for its artistic beauty:

(1) It serves as a place where other people gather to interact. People gather in such ways now more than ever because of the loneliness created by advanced technology. Therefore, being trendy is more important than being artistic. That's why total garbage like the Avengers movies is so successful: it's because it panders to the lowest common denominator and therefore is an ideal gathering place for the lost souls stranded by technology.

(2) If content is not a place for people to gather, then it is simply content that teaches other people to produce more content. In fact, some of the most successful content on YouTube is simply content designed to help people produce other content that no one will watch most of the time.

While both these functions were active to some extent in humanity's past, it is only now that they function to their full extent. They are magnified by modern technology and other reasons for art are being minimized.

Sounds like you’re mostly describing streamers? There’s a lot of educational and news content on YouTube as well.

I meant mainly artistic creators.

Honestly this is more the difference between putting your personality to your art vs just your art - I also post my paintings online but I hardly get the views of people making shorts with their face and revealing the artwork, usually no matter how mediocre it will have a lot of followers.

artist who makes hyper-realistic pencil drawings of people where each picture takes 2 to 3 months to make and looks literally like a photo-copy.

To you that is art. To me it is kitsch.

I don`t care if it took 3 months to make something that makes me want to strangle the artist at birth or if it took 10 minutes to produce something that makes me feel there are other humans in the world.

That`s the problem with art: there are no mensurables, it is completely subjective. Probably that is what makes it art.

Knowing how to make a photocopy by hand with drawing implements isn't knowing how to draw— it's knowing how to make a photocopy. People who think this makes them competent artists are always bewildered when their portfolio gets them rejected from c-list art schools. So many in tech also failing to understand why that is will get a lot of worthless whiz bang generative image products funded only to flop when the vc runs out.

I wouldn’t call photo-copying an art. Art is creative. Copying isn’t.

Why isnt copying creative? Isn't it fairly well understood that a lot of creativity is derivative anyway? That in the act of being artistic, artists borrow and are influenced by other works?

People who use computers are giving the computer instructions. All people who use computers are software developers.

Agreed. It's an impressive and practiced talent.

Art comes from another place.

For so many in tech, not understanding art had little consequence beyond shitty power points. Now it's going to waste a lot of money on worthless art products.

Can you please share the channel with hyperrealistic paintings?

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