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This is a rather shallow statement. I’ve found that being a decent human being has made me a better artist. It’s mainly an ego problem. We excuse our bad behaviour with our brilliance when in fact it’s just the person inability to do both good.

@alicewhite_1818

2 жыл бұрын

I thought this to be an odd take too. I see his points yet the biggest problem with these "asshat but brilliant" people is generally a lack of being treated nicely or taken care of in a way that actually nutured them to trust that the world is a safe place + cultivated their talents to become all they could be. The ego is always a problem when you get famous, but knowing how to tame it is truly the most important ground-level lesson you can get in life

@origins9550

2 жыл бұрын

@@alicewhite_1818 absolutely agree

@EllieOrion

Жыл бұрын

if you look back in the history most of great architects and painters would be labeled as unmoral or bad people according to our moral values. i feel that is what robin was aiming at in this video.

@musashi542

11 ай бұрын

You're not in the same level as those artists lil bro

@AureliusStudios

7 ай бұрын

There are always exceptions to the rule.

I don’t think artists are any worse than the average person. When someone becomes famous, the public pays more attention to their flaws. Of course, when it comes to separating the art from the artist, there are definitely shades of gray. I don’t think someone should abandon an artist simply because they disagree with their political or religious opinions. If you only consume the art of people who agree with you, then you might as well never pick up a book again. If an artist has done something really evil, such as murder or rape, I can understand why it would be difficult for some people to consume their art on an emotional level. Intellectually, terrible people can still make great art, but emotionally, I can understand why it might be difficult for some people to consume such art, especially in the case of actors, who have to show their faces to perform.

@webmasterultra3487

2 жыл бұрын

This

@ZenosConscience

2 жыл бұрын

totally agree with you my man.

@kafkasbugmusic

10 ай бұрын

Correct, someone with a brain.

This was really interesting man. I've been discussing a lot lately about if we should separate the art from the artist and its such an interesting question.

You are absolutely correct, it is absolutely necessary to separate the Art from the Artist.

In my opinion, creativity also needs empathy. Art needs to be somewhat relatable, even if it is radical or offers completely different viewpoint to a problem. Empathy is needed to see "what could be interesting" and your own take to it when not caring about anyones opinion comes into play.

These feel more like overgeneralizations than co-relations. Personality development is complex. Firstly, there has to be a baseline of "what makes someone a jerk." Some people may think lying is always bad while others may think lying is amoral. It's impossible to make that presumption about a person. Someone can be a jerk to you, but a complete angel to someone else-- whose description of that person would be accurate then, the person with the bad experience or the person with the good experience? Perhaps this person was a jerk to you for a reason and you are unaware of it, if that was so... are they still a jerk, are you the jerk now or is everyone off the hook? I doubt there are more jerks than nice people in creative fields as opposed to something like business or sales-- and even still I think that says more about the general population of a given culture than "these specific traits work well with this particular field THEREFORE everyone (or most) people in this field have these traits." It's too much of a blanket statement to be remotely accurate. It entirely cuts out how individual each person's life experience is, which science has proven weighs a lot on personality trait development even amongst identical twins. How do we possibly measure to which degree someone is a jerk, and how much is okay?; furthermore, how do we even measure creativity since art creation isn't the only way to be creative? I would suggest that if you create, you are creative. Everyone creates, now not everyone creates the same types of things in the same areas but everyone DOES create. Or maybe creative means imaginative, the act of thinking is imaginative by definition. If you've ever had a thought, you are imaginative. So, if everyone is creative or imaginative then are most people jerks? In my version of reality, I like to think most people mean well, so I think most people are not jerks. How someone describes us is not who we are, and we are not responsible for others' perceptions of us. I don't think it's a reasonable conjecture to say that creative people are predisposed to being jerks simply because they are creative. The human mind is too complex to make judgments like that.

@fennefoxx

2 жыл бұрын

You put this into words perfectly, thank you

@stroomop4858

2 жыл бұрын

Being a jerk is in other words being unfair in an action or being rude verbally and is not to be measured subjectively to two different people but to be measured in expected standards and reactions across multiple people in multiple cultures. It is still very complicated because of the abundance of ignorance and ability to interpret situations. You are right it is a very complicated problem but the fact is we can't not draw lines between rudeness and ignorance and we have developed a level of human reciprocity where it can be learnt if something is rude or unethical by being attentive to responses from others, not just one person, not just persons from one culture, but several people from several backgrounds and opinions. That is partly how we can and have determined rude behavior. And saying that lying is amoral instead of just wrong is so unjust, because being amoral of whether you should speak the truth or not shows that you have not put enough thought into it and you would lie to yourself if you think you did. Lying always finds it way to bite you one way or another, whether it be the situation(s) that manifested because of the lie or whether it be the lying part of your conscience that you are developing and giving more fire to, which will ultimately lead to your suffering and likely the suffering others as well. Lying is very commonly used to the detriment of others and unawares yourself. When you lie, and someone discovers that you lied which always happens, because you will know when you lie, it creates uncertainty and distrust from others which affect you in so many ways and lying to yourself is addictive, because one lie leads to another and bigger and bigger sacrifices are made along the line and if you have ever seen a person that has lied a lot to themselves, they are full of delusion which has also innumerable consequences. A very interesting topic we can bring into this is the following situation :'You are held captive by people from another religion, and they ask whether you believe in their religion or in the christian god and they promise torture and death if it is not their god you believe in.' Now, is lying here wrong or amoral? Where do we draw the line between being afraid of dying and being committed to your religion? Is lying in this situation wrong and amoral or is it right and moral to care for your well being and say for example be able to return to your family and friends and take care of them despite lying about which religion you are committed to. And you can not be creative when you create something, for if you create something and it has already been created, then it is original not creative. I agree with your final statement though, I think it is only just a common trait that is seen in artists that they are jerks and perhaps what makes them able to be so critical of their artwork and to better it. It is also said in the Big 5 personality traits that creative people are less orderly and industrious, which correlates to higher neuroticism and can make that artists are more volatile because of how critical they are not only to themselves and their work but also to others. I have met and sold with an artist once his artwork and I learned that he is very aware of the aesthetics of how his paintings are positioned and spaced between another and which paintings comes where. Same with his clothing style, very specific and critical, especially of mine at the time since I had not the financial security to buy nice clothes. This is just my two cents :)

@AHHscarynoises

2 жыл бұрын

@@stroomop4858 Deciding what is rude is dependent on things like culture. We see this in even the simplest of forms of socializing like making certain hand gestures. What is rude is dependent on an individual’s emotional response to it. If you feel someone has been rude to you, that feeling is valid but it doesn’t make it wholly true- which is why it’s actually impossible to measure since we all have different internal scales of it. We all have personalized social conduct rules and while many major ones overlap (for example killing people generally is seen as wrong) the smaller ones like rudeness are much harder to standardize. There are sometimes exceptions to those rules (even the major ones like killing a person, though I am not advocating that at all). Who decides the exceptions…. By your standard the majority does but that still doesn’t make it right. Just because there are negative consequences to lying doesn’t make it inherently BAD. Everyone lies, probably even on a weekly basis; we exaggerate true stories to make them funny or entertaining, we lie to protect our ego, to protect someone elses’ ego and we even lie sometimes to protect our privacy. These are incredibly personal judgments to make, not empirical facts. Creativity does not HAVE to be an original idea. If you can paint a replica of the Mona Lisa you are still creative. There are many definitions for that word and if originality is the main difference for you personally, that’s great, but it only further proves my point that even language is such a personal experience that it’s impossible to say what is absolutely, without a doubt, correct. Creativity does not predispose you to being rude and just because we can list off a few or many well known examples doesn’t make it true either. Again, my whole point is that these are all generalizations and not actual co-relations since life and the individual experience are so unique to each person. Hopefully, that clears up some of what I said, or rather we can agree to disagree

@ZenosConscience

2 жыл бұрын

ditto well said

Yeah, no. To be a creative you don't need to be an asshole, actually, you can only be an asshole if you can afford it, which is to say that those assholes that get projection either could afford it, or had someone give them that pass. In the world of music you get the biggest assholes in the world, and even some downright wicked people, however you also get some of the kindest souls ever, some of the most tortured and some of the least tortured. It's mostly a matter of power and projection, not really temperament and creativity

Looking at the comments, I just wanted to say I actually agree with what Waldun is trying to say. That great artists are usually terrible people because they put all their effort into their creative visions. And that because of this, they're often lacking in areas where that effort hasn't gone, such as that mentioned social aspect of their lives. Some form of sacrifice is necessary to achieve competency in creative subjects, whether that be in the form of many things such as sleep, time, social relationships, etc. And whilst I understand that there are other influences that make up what even defines a 'terrible' or 'good' artist, to try and take all those into account is a gross overestimation on anyone's part. The video's fairly logical, and following that logic has led to, well, a reasonable generalization. I for one can personally relate to what he's describing, being someone who's very passionate about art and writing. Getting stuck in ones head, struggling to keep up relationships, being in piss poor moods and avoiding people when I'm stuck on something. Not good things, definitely need to work on that aspect of my life, but my point in sharing all this is to show that most definitely, in people who are great artists and people who strive to become top of their field, what Waldun describes makes perfect sense, generally. ANyways yeh. Just wanted to show some support for ma boy :)

I've observed this too. I find it best to isolate myself when I'm trying to get into the creative process. And once I'm done creating whatever it is, I turn on the social knob in me and come out from under the rock. It helps keep me sane and at the same moment, I get my "alone" time when I'm creating. So I not only protect the people around me from the arrogant artist in me but I also get to indulge that artist and allow her to be whatever she wants and to flourish in a protected space. They both get their own time. And sometimes, I feel like it's two different personalities co-habiting my mind. I've had people tell me that they find it difficult to believe that I think/write/act a certain way coz they're so used to the "social" me that the "artist" me is a stranger to them and they think I'm pretending to be something I'm not. It's interesting for me to play these dual roles but society will always find a way to point a finger at an artist coz like you said, society prefers order, normalcy and things that fit an easy surface level theory of why things exist or are done a certain way. That's why "tortured artists" makes sense. It's not easy to exist in a world that's built to tear you down just coz they don't understand you. And when they do, it's most likely in a posthumous sense and artist may possibly never live to feel that relief of being understood or accepted.

Keep an eye on the ego. You need it to get you out of bed in the morning, but if you Let it drive the bus, you'll go Over a cliff sooner or later. Finding a balance takes effort and experience.

I've always disliked that general view of accomplishment excusing wrong, even when on the receiving end of it. It encourages those "brilliant creatives" to maintain their immature mindset instead of helping them grow out of it. Disdain for said asshole-ery is easily dismissed for naysaying and praise is more fuel to the fire. That said, it can be an absolute pain trying to reconcile and balance emotional maturity with creative development. The achievement of both results in a more rounded creative process though, I think. Romanticising creative assholes may just be a kind of collective yearning to break out of conformity. Perhaps those who find themselves dreaming of the detached and selfish artist need to do some self-reflecting of their own as well. Thanks for the insightful thought-took me out of the busy day to reflect.

Coming from a creative (digital artist). Understanding that most artist create pieces as a way to express themselves and escape the harsh truth of the society they are in. Even though they are not what a person may have thought of them to be. There is something that cannot be denied and it is the fact that without creatives...society would not have gotten to see many of these unique works come to existence.

Well not always. Many are quite ordinary in their normal lives. And many intellectuals, if you’ll consider philosophers and writers as artists, like Spinoza, Marcus Aurelius, George Orwell, seems pretty decent people.

I think i needed this video. Great one! Thank you 😄

I disagree with what you said here, although I often agree with your points, and even in this video I was not fully in discord with everything you said; I believe this is one of those instances where your mind's eye sees, or perhaps creates, patterns where there are none. I do realize this in other people as I, too, have a tendency to overinterpret certain pictures of reality in my head. Yet I think with this, we have to try to be as skeptical and empirical as we can, for the subject is quite psychological in nature, and thus, the scientific aspect of the discussion must not be forgotten. To dispense with any potential misunderstandings, I must say that I do believe there exists this group of individuals to whom one could, perhaps for lack of a better term, refer to as "asshole" artists, yet there is no strong correlation between their douchy and prickly attitude and their artistic temperament. At any rate, there is certainly no causal factor involved. The lines of description you used to paint a mental picture of what an asshole, or an asshole artist to be more precise, would look like, are mostly captured by low scores in "agreeableness" which is a trait in the Big Five Model of personality. And what is of particular interest in this conversation is that "agreeablensss" has no correlation with "openness to experience" (the proclivity to be artistically and/or intellectually oriented, have a strong imagination, etc. This is the most important trait for artists) or "conscientiousness" (the trait associated with being orderly, hard-working and productive, among other things, which would potentially result in someone's generating a large body of work). In other words, while some artists may be pricks, and they certainly exist, there is no a rule that in order to be a good one, or even a great one, you have to be a prick.

Finally wrestled out the courage to comment. Always a pleasure to watch your videos. I've continued the staring competition with the single eye behind you and at this point it feels as if the eye is narrating insightful essays with interesting thought process dubbed in your voice...pretty wonderful! I agree with you on creating a balance between overly focusing to the point of isolating obsession leading to a nasty personality and letting one's social life encroach so much on their creativity that the end product becomes so dictated by different people, the creator's own self in the output ends up as a very diluted version of "what it could've been if I did as I thought of it". Thank You for building up on your thoughts to the point of possible discussions in these videos! I'm sorry if couldn't put it clearly, I struggle with english.

Isn’t gender also a factor that should be taken into account in this topic? We have a tendency to overlook terrible men (who sometimes carries a lot of power like Picasso) more often than women as long as they are deemed a “genius.”

@sabinpyakurel

2 жыл бұрын

But why is it that the painting sort of artists all hate Picasso? I don't get it. Isn't it a signal that it is a community's thought rather than personal one? Out of topic but it's bugging me since while.

@liopergonsd58

2 жыл бұрын

This is sexist

@liopergonsd58

2 жыл бұрын

Gender is on a spectrum

@liopergonsd58

2 жыл бұрын

@@bbilal111 you are problematic

@liopergonsd58

2 жыл бұрын

we do not overlook terrible men, cisgender women receive way lover prison sentences than men, so your hateful rhetoric is false. Delete your comment, now!

I think you eloquently paraphrase the Dionysian-Apollonian dichotomy. Well done!

another file to be added in the folder titled 'balance' Thanks for this another awesome video!

I am an artist and I believe I am very mediocre at the moment and the thought of getting further and becoming brilliant has made me totally obsessed and my health is falling apart because of it and I totally relate to that thing he is saying at letting your whole life fall apart for the sake of obsession and attempting to create something amazing and getting completely stuck in my own head, and the fight between normal life and being this incredible artist. Very eye opening post

this is a great topic!

oh god this explains everything, great insight!

Did you get to see the film "T'ar", yet? This is right there with that subject.

Whenever I hear someone lionizing artists as a category-and this is not at all uncommon if the subject of artists is raised-I always point out that the man typically regarded as the worst human being in history was an artist. You wouldn't want your son or daughter to become involved with one.

You just became my number 1 subscribed. Oh! Johann Voltz, Waltz Disney OMG. I really am a nice person but everyone sticks knife's in me.

i have an exam tom but i saw the notif and i was "oh yeah physics who let's talk about this instead"

Great video.

Creativity , in my opinion , is a process that inherently goes against the idea of conformity. This may come across to other people as being hard to get to know , as controlling , as stubborn as narcissicistic. I feel that , as you said , people have an expectation that artists are nice people , are easy to talk to. I think these are two different ideas altogether. The question I pose is : What draws a person to a good work of art? How does it speak to them? I would be willing to bet that putting the artist on a pedestal is not the first thing , but rather the beauty , innovation , or message the viewer experiences.

@TopperPenquin

Жыл бұрын

Thank you

R.C is definitely pushing P

I dont agree to what Bacon said about prejudice but I believe learning the life of an artist is essential to form a judgement or interpretation from prejudice.

@lm2668

2 жыл бұрын

He was telling the truth when he said you have to destroy something to learn new things. Sometimes redestroying your vew is difficult for both the artist and the normal person

Im currently in fascination phase to Harlan Ellison and faund this topic very true

I love their "terriblness."

The more important question is: Why does anyone think someone is a horrible person because they don’t completely align with all their ideals? Literally no one will ever do that and if they do, being around said person would be like hanging out with a narcissistic robot. If you like something created by someone who has gained some form of celebrity or recognition, it means you like what they brought into the world. Cherish that joy you get from that created work and leave it at that. The world would be unbearable if everyone was a cookie cutter postmodern consumer zombie. But I’m a conservative, so what do I know?

Tnx for New video

2:22 of course that phrase doesn't apply to DanTDM

Miles is the one I think about, on this ...A real "piece-of-work"

I actually met my hero

I understand what you are say it so true 👍

All entertainers are stupid in that they think/assume everyone else thinks only in terms of stupid symbolic gestures rather than in terms of choices among quantifiable physical actions. Everybody else - i.e. non-entertainers - do NOT think in terms of stupid unnecessary useless entertainment (songs, theater) or symbolic gestures.

I think a bit part of it is the culture we've created around artists. Look at for example old school rock stars. They tend to behave pretty terribly and selfishly. I don't think they're inherently like that, I think we as a society have created the role of a rock star, so people who are in that position will gravitate towards those kinds of behaviors.

@TopperPenquin

Жыл бұрын

Exactly

There's no balance

So, have you guys watched Stranger than Fiction?

Genius is correlated with being an “arsehole” because it involves thinking “outside of the box”; that is non-cooperatively. Cooperative and agreeable people will follow the mainstream opinion or way of doing things, where the genius is relatively low in agreeableness. It’s the exact same reason for their brilliance - they see things in a way that might upset people and crucially they put their art or work above the received opinion of others.

@thoughtfox12

2 жыл бұрын

Think of it - scientific discoveries go against established ideas and challenge vested interests.

Could it be that being brilliant takes up a lot of energy of an individual, being stuck in ones head could just be the result of not relating to people. Maybe it’s the idea of these brilliant people who cannot think like regular people…mmmm in other words they don’t care about fitting in social norms, It’s an interesting concept.

@TopperPenquin

Жыл бұрын

Or being wrecked by your jealous family or siblings eternally forever.

Were you born and raised in Australia?

You don't have to be an asshole to make great art, but it helps.

Dont fall into the trap of retro-canceling.

It's because the most spoiled, privileged people often have the resources to become great at something and the resources to be remembered for them. It's correlation, not causation.

@aaronholiday3514

2 жыл бұрын

And some might not be good, compelling artists.

@shethewriter

2 жыл бұрын

@@aaronholiday3514 Good point tbh. Not all remembered artists are as good as we're taught to think.

@juand1rection

2 жыл бұрын

@@shethewriter Not to discredit Kubrick’s actual talent as a director, but a good example is how he basically gets praised for mistreating Shelley Duval on the set of The Shining as part of his “genius” while she basically gets no credit for her performance.

@shethewriter

2 жыл бұрын

@@juand1rection Good example--especially when you think about all the art we might be missing out on from her. We'll never know for sure, but had things been different and she had more support, I wonder where her career would have gone. Directing is key, but actors sometimes don't get enough credit for their part

@serenityjewel

Жыл бұрын

Nope. Most spoiled, privileged people do not become great artists. Most great artists were not privileged.

Okay but majority of people I know are some form of a creative... this whole discussion is off. It generalise such a large group of people is really basic and not really thought out. The most humble people I have come across are from creative backgrounds, this video seems more like venting personal issues

Who’s the guy in the thumbnail

hello!

James Joyce is my hero, but he was an excessive brat in his 20s. Living in Paris, he wrote home to his family describing how painful his life had become. He whined about making so little money and starving (a starving writer, if you may). The money his family generously sent over, for they were not so wealthy, was largely spent on his bar hopping adventures, as well as local Parisian ladies offering their... services. Most people make mistakes in their youth, but Joyce appears to me to be an egotistical genius and a rude individual. Still, I love him and admire his ability to play with language.

I find the presenter here to be uncommonly well-spoken, quite insightful, and excellent at communicating his central thesis. However, as a lifelong artist, I cannot really agree with the main point about creative artists necessarily being so unsavory, rude, self-centered, and obnoxious. Yes, I have witnessed some artists who are like that, but quite often I may not particularly value them or their art, so it becomes immaterial what I think of them as people. As an example of this dialectic, my policy has mostly been to keep a lot of my thoughts to myself and not go out of my way to gratuitously antagonize people, even if they clearly hold views that I consider "artistically anathema". I leave them to their ignorance, knowing they can never be corrected anyway. I go silently about my business creating art and, for instance, am presently making an effort to present works to more museums for their permanent collections. Yes, I have been in situations such as being forced back in grad school to attend symposiums by certain known artists who I thought quite little of, where now I look back and wish that I had been more demonstrative and brazenly walked out. So there has been a certain price for my public reticence. But the bottom line is to continue the art.

Gotta keep it balanced, I especially agree with that. Hey, where's Pablo... I was waiting for that one. JK.

If great artists were normal people, then why f wouldn't they get a job and live a normal life instead of creating stuff they know won't get a lot of appreciation in their time? Great artists aren't mad intentionally, they can't help themselves. And the only thing they can do is communicate their madness through a medium.

Also, I believe the artistic canon was selected for a social political agenda.

You look and sound like the personification of Reddit.

@EMPANAO321

2 жыл бұрын

lol

bruh

Conclusion of this session = amazing fact

I immediately thought of Exurb1a

@ajiththomas2465

2 жыл бұрын

Same. He's like a modern day but not-nearly-as-bad Roman Polanski. Running from the law really gets the creative juices flowing. Great art, terrible person.

@daedricdragon5976

2 жыл бұрын

Why, is he a prick?😂😅

First we shouldn't judge these historical figures based solely on anecdotes. Second people change. Third chill.

I think everyone is Terrible, we just know it when we know someone.

If you never do or say something that could offend anyone, you, and by extension, your art are going to be very boring. Lots of people might take it too far and don't care or even go out of their way to offend people, but someone like that will always be more interesting than someone who is completely agreeable.

Being normal doesn't enable the power of extraordinary.

@daedricdragon5976

2 жыл бұрын

But there is nowhere written that being extraordinary is synonimous with being bad.

Second!

Bullshit clickbait video title.

Also, women don’t get criticized for there moral failures, they just get praised for their success. It’s crazy. I also think it is sexist and objectifying, and usually self interested.

@juand1rection

2 жыл бұрын

What alternate universe have you been living in

@bethromelus6172

2 жыл бұрын

Women get criticized often. This happens so much that they get opportunities taken away from them.

@webmasterultra3487

2 жыл бұрын

You’re funny, I myself would prefer a woman if all things where the same, but undoubtedly this will cause you to team up and favor other women. It’s just natural, like a damsel in distress. I guess the alternative would be reassurance that a competent man is in charge, which sounds ridiculous even to me, and if that’s what you have in mind, that most people would think this this, well that’s self defeating too. Nope, women are favored by both sexes, in politeness, and this is only compounded by feminism.

@rosar.4293

2 жыл бұрын

@@juand1rection forreal 😂

@pipersolanas3322

2 жыл бұрын

I want to live in whatever world you're living in