[2,220 words, 12 min estimated read time]
Recently I’ve noticed more discussion online around the relationship between artists and their audience. It’s ranged from discussing celebrity culture and parasociality, to talking about whether an artist has an obligation to speak out on political issues, to the unspoken trust and social contract between artist and audience. There’s been a lot of heated debate going on, but it’s an important discussion to have, and I wanted to tie together some insightful videos I watched with some of my own thoughts on the topic as I’ve been learning.
How an Artist Breaks your Trust
[27 min video] On Online Entitlement by CJ The X, 1 August 2024
In the video above CJ The X addresses comments they received after posting about a live, in-person show they would be performing in Toronto. The comments most people left were not reacting to the actual announcement for the show, but instead expressed feeling left out and asking for the show to not be live, and/or not be in Toronto, so they could be part of it too.
CJ The X analyses the reasoning behind these comments and goes into discussing the Performer/Audience relationship. They propose the question; what is the artist’s commitment to their audience?
In the video CJ The X sites the article Trust and Sincerity in Art by C. Thi Nguyen, which identifies three kinds of trust built upon aesthetic commitments:
- Trust in aesthetic competence → trust that the artist will produce good work
- Trust in aesthetic sincerity → trust that the artist will do things they actually believe in, that they are doing their best and won’t be a sellout
- Trust in aesthetic steadfastness → trust the artist will keep doing what they’ve been doing, will keep making the same kind of art
An artist can break one of these kinds of trust without breaking the others. In the example given by CJ The X in their video, a musician that genuinely tries their best and makes a bad song may have broken aesthetic competence, but not aesthetic sincerity or steadfastness.
But should these commitments even be expected by the audience? I began to wonder about a musician I may enjoy- just in the same way tomorrow I may decide to never listen to their music again, the musician may decide to make different music, or never make music again. Just as the musician shouldn’t have an expectation of me to support them forever and take personal offense to me not engaging with their art anymore, I don’t think it’s fair for me to take personal offense to an artist not make the same art you expect them to anymore.
Case Study: Lets have a look at Silksong
A few months ago I made a post on Tumblr talking about my discomfort and frustration at seeing the reaction of a few Hollow Knight fans not receiving updates about the announced sequel game, Silksong.
(If you don’t know what I’m talking about, there’s a game called Hollow Knight. Team Cherry is the indie game studio that made it. They’ve been working on the sequel, called Silksong, for a couple years now. They’ve been radio silent about the sequel for a while now.)
This is what I originally wrote:
I’m definitely late in terms of being a Hollow Knight fan, and maybe that’s why it’s so offputting for me, but seeing how many people seem to feel like they’re owed Silksong and updates about it is really bizarre to me?
At this point I see people complaining about not getting any updates from Team Cherry and I’m like. Man, I wonder why they stopped updating people about the progress of the game. Slowly turning to look at the state of things.
Like I genuinely do understand being disappointed at the lack of news, but Team Cherry already has to live up to the hype of not only matching but exceeding the success of Hollow Knight. People are already going to be that much more critical of it, and you know there will be a flood of people when it does come out saying “oh it’s not worth the hype it wasn’t worth the wait this sucks”, regardless of it’s quality.
Genuinely I don’t care if they take 30 years to make the game. I want them to take their time and make as good of a game as they can, a game that they’re proud of and that’s enjoyable to play. Especially in a time when it feels like a ton of bigger art companies [such as Disney] are just pumping out sequels and remakes and stuff to make a profit like, let Team Cherry take their time man. They don’t owe us art, they don’t owe us a game.
And these were some of the comments I received:
(Quick Note: I don’t want it to come across as me acting as though the post only received negative feedback and that I’m complaining, I’m chosen to purposefully highlight these negative comments to make a point.):
Rereading my post now I can definitely understand how it may have come across as me running to Team Cherry’s defense as a diehard fan, but when I first saw these comments I was confused by the reaction. While I enjoyed playing Hollow Knight, I don’t really have an opinion on the developers. The reason I got defensive wasn’t as a fan of the creators- I was defensive because I was picturing the position artists on their team would be in.
One of my pet peeves growing up was being told my art was a “gift” that I should use. I felt uncomfortable with the idea my creativity was something gifted to me- it didn’t acknowledge the years of work I put into developing that skill, and it often felt implied that if I didn’t create that I would be wasting this gift. It made me feel like I owed the world my art.
And this really bothered me, especially as I got older. I came to the conclusion, maybe at first just out of spite, that I don’t owe anyone art. And that extended to others as well- no one owes me art either. No one should feel forced to create, no matter what they’ve created before or how popular they became. And it’s why I had such a strong reaction to seeing the way people talked about Silksong.
Around the time I first posted my thoughts, I came across these two videos talking about this exact situation:
[6 min video] Silksong Fans Have Gone Too Far by fireb0rn, 11 June 2024
[31 min video] How the Silksong Community Lost Its Mind by ghost limit, 6 September 2024
Overall it came across as if this subset of fans felt they were owed a second game just by being fans of the first. I don’t like to use this term because it has a lot of baggage, but it’s the most fitting one I can think of- it’s come across as entitled. And thankfully I’m not the only one who noticed this.
I think we can apply the same framework discussed by CJ The X to the situation with fans of Hollow Knight feeling owed the sequel game Silksong by Team Cherry. The fans expected a second game, and it has not been delivered, which has led to broken trust in aesthetic steadfastness. This has also seemingly expanded to a break in trust of aesthetic sincerity for some fans as well, claiming the second game hasn’t come out not because video games take a long time to make, but because Team Cherry is greedy and wants to hoard money, apparently.
I appreciated that in his video fireb0rn brought up another point I’d like to expand on:
“Are we really this delusional? It’s… a lot of burden to place on Team Cherry, that they’re the only ones that can make a game that would satisfy us. Like, I never thought we would become codependent with a game developer… We are being silly if we don’t accept the possibility that Silksong could fall short of our insanely high expectations.”
– fireb0rn
This group of fans talks as if this one particular game studio were the only ones who could fulfill this need they had for a videogame of good quality. They both idealize and despise Team Cherry. This goes beyond broken trust between a performer and audience, it’s parasocial.
Another Case Study: Lets talk about Chappell Roan
[48 min video] fame, consent, and the death of public empathy by Rowan Ellis, 3 October 2024
In the video above, Rowan Ellis discusses the social contract that people have come to expect when someone gains fame.
“Chappell Roan’s comments about it being weird to expect things from her when she’s just existing in public goes against some of these unspoken expectations. Professionalism doesn’t just mean doing your job and singing well. For many it involves engaging with fans anywhere at any time. It’s being seen as being gracious and humble to keep up the persona that people expect from you and to not show negative emotions that could cloud someones view of you.”
– Rowan Ellis
The trade-off for these negatives is money and fame. There’s freedom that can come with it, the ability to pursue your dreams and have the monetary security to fix just about any problem you have. And even as distant of a reality as it seems, it’s something that people could dream of achieving- you may not be born into wealth, but you can dream of fame, of gaining the social recognition, power, and tangible rewards that come with it.
And as Rowan continues:
“So the question then becomes; do celebrities agree to the downsides automatically when they gain fame?”
– Rowan Ellis
While at first the obvious answer may seem to be ‘yes, of course’, Rowan challenges this. What about the children of family vloggers? Just because their parents decided to film their daily lives doesn’t mean the children had agency in choosing that lifestyle. And what about reality tv shows, which are known to manipulate and edit footage to portray participants as archetypes, possibly painting them as a villain for the sake of a good story.
And now with the internet and just about every phone having a camera, it’s become even more complicated. Rowan talks about the normalization of filming strangers in public and sharing it online, famous or not, and the dehumanization that comes with it. They don’t get the money, respect, or other positives that should come with the social contract after being thrust into the public eye, there’s a good possibility all they’ll get are the negatives and face harassment and bullying.
While celebrity culture has existed in some form for hundreds of years, the online world has distorted the social contract between the performer and audience.
[28 min video] Parasocial Relationships are getting Toxic & Abusive | Khadija Mbowe, 22 August 2024
In another video discussing Chappell Roan, Khadija Mbowe focuses on parasocial relationships and addresses the fans role in toxicity and abuse who refuse to respect their boundaries.
“There’s…an introspection a lot of us need to have about our relationship not only just to celebrities and people that we look up to whose work we appreciate, but also why we treat them the way we do.”
– Khadija Mbowe
They talk about their own experience with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and how it’s made them aware of how people idealize and devalue others.
Khadija does point out it’s not inherently wrong to admire and respect someone- the problem is when it’s to the extent you idealize them, regard them as perfect and infallible. So when they do fail to meet your expectations, they mess up or do something you disagree with, it shatters the image you had of them. Often the immediate reaction is devaluation- they’re worthless, they were always flawed, because everything you thought they were must be a lie. It’s a defense mechanism as you feel personally betrayed and hurt by the idealized version you had of someone no longer being true to you.
Middle ground is uncomfortable, it’s easier to process and less anxiety inducing to have your view of someone fall on either extreme with black-and-white thinking. But going through this whiplash of idealization and devaluation is a recipe for disaster. It’s exhausting and setting yourself up for disappointment.
Khadija addresses some of the comments they’ve received from their own viewers in the past:
“…I didn’t ask you to worship or idealize me, I didn’t ask you to put me on a pedestal. I asked you to engage with my work, yes, but I didn’t force you to. And you don’t have to. And so you’re not mad at me, you’re mad at yourself for giving me so much power in your life, for giving me all this credit for acting like I’m a person you know…”
– Khadija Mbowe
Changing our Expectations
We’re seeing a shift in the relationship dynamic between the audience and artist, and we should take time to re-evaluate and manage our own expectations of artists, performers, celebrities, creators- anyone we admire. Parasocial relationships feel very personal, but it’s one sided. We have to decide how much power someone we don’t know is going to hold over us.
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