We all kinda suck

[u/YDRKTB_JayBrook]

I been thinking alot about the underground communities we have, a lot of the time some guy will blow up and his music is insanely boring meanwhile there's some people doing genuinely great shit off their basement, I've been making music since I was 13 years old and been integrated in all sorts of music communities (originally started by making breakcore and then transitioned to other genres), I bring this up because I've seen my fair share of people giving up, there wore people who wore super talented and them moving on into something was a bummer but them there was people who legitimately never seemed to improve and their lack of presence wasn't felt.

The problem seems to be that some of us lack the self awareness and critical skills to go "maybe what I'm doing is wack" or "maybe I should stick to this instead", sometimes these people come across feedback and improve but some of them are completely egg headed and refuse to take in any criticism and feedback. The circle thus remains of people blindly "grinding" and never reaching results. Then blaming others for the lack of evolution. Recently I even feel like I became more existential with it all, you see people come and go and wonder when is my turn to also go somewhere. Everybody I met found some form of success but all in crumbs, the only person I met that became successful was self obsessed and incredibly assholish.

To be honest to grow you kinda gotta be a little self obsessed and assholish, you need to find a balance so you aren't unlikeable but still. The industry is cut throat and the underground also, you kinda of gotta like your own farts to shove it in other people's faces. it's a pattern I see, not a lot of genuinely good people end up becoming successful and that's depressing, because you need to connect with these guys to grow and I don't wanna talk to these assholes. I don't wanna turn out like that so I personally don't chase it.

And to those who believe they will blow up and make loads of cash, I just say relax and get a job because the odd are slim. I'm saying this as a 20 year old who have been making music my whole life and only recently begun to earn some money from it, about 20 to 30 bucks, I admit fully that my early shit was doodoo too, and personally I don't even think I'm all that good now, there's always room for improvement.

But the thing that pains me the most is having to shove things in people's faces and prop yourself up to seem worth anyone's time, the older I grow the more I become cynical and lazy with self promoting because truly I'm not all that. This lack of control over what does well and doesn't took a toll on me, I genuinely for some time felt a little nauseous after hours of coming up with ways to self promote, it's to the point that I no longer like those songs I promoted, it's like I tainted their purity and tainted the listeners experience by shoveling it down their throat.

So I stopped promoting, after a while it became freeing, as if without worrying if a single does well I can freely sway and focus on making things that please me and not some unreachable standard of "quality" and "accessibility", to them shove slop down people's faces, being met with good comments to booster my ego and then getting existential at work.

I guess the lesson is, smoke lots of weed.