A Year Of Bad Art: Review

Background

On May 23rd, 2020, I made a promise to myself that for the next year I would spend my free time focusing on creative projects and putting them out on the internet for people to see.

I did this because I had been ruminating on a bunch of creative ideas for a while, while doing absolutely nothing to actually make them come to life. 

I declared it ‘A Year Of Bad Art’ - AYOBA - for two reasons. Firstly as I tend to be a perfectionist, and secondly, because putting anything out on the internet at all terrifies me. 
This fear is mostly irrational - it’s not like I had a big audience or anything, and the ideas I had weren’t controversial, it was more the fear of being seen. Anything you put on the internet can, in principle, go viral, and that’s something worth bearing in mind, however unlikely. 

So what did I end up doing?

Well, in total I published 34 videos on Youtube, plus a few other short bits for Instagram here and there.

I tried sketches, time-travel comedy, video essays on films, journaling, and creators who inspired me. I did vlogs, an anime opening for my life, a shitpost and more. 

With each of those videos I wrote a blog post - sometimes they were really long and detailed, other times just a behind-the-scenes.

I put out one essay on dating.

I made some Tiktoks as well. But more on that in a bit. 

In the sense that it got me actually making things - the AYOBA  experiment worked. Compared to previous years, my output was off the charts (see posts sorted by time at the top of my website for evidence of this). While some of the videos I look back on and cringe a bit, many of them I’m still quite proud of. 

Some were even early on trends which other much bigger Youtubers did their own riffs on later. 

In other ways, I didn’t stick to it as well as I might have done. I definitely procrastinated, and for every video that I made, there was at least another script that never got filmed. And there were even videos I did make, and sometimes rewrote and reshot entirely which I still didn’t publish because I just hated what I produced. 

If anything, as more people paid attention to what I was doing - even though it was mostly meagre - my anxiety only grew. 

And hilariously, in the very last week of this experiment, I made a Tiktok which went viral, and then subsequently two more TikToks I made went viral. In the span of a week, videos I made got over a million views, and I went from 100 followers to over 15,000.

I probably spent less than 5 minutes total on that video, the least amount of any video I made in the year. And that’s the one that most people saw. Classic.

What now?

This year - in the creative sense - has been great. I’m going to continue making things.

I’ll continue making science/philosophy based TikToks for as long as there’s interest - I certainly enjoy making them!

I’ll still make the odd YouTube video, I’ve got a few ideas half filmed already anyway.

But I think I’m going to really prioritise writing - I started doing so at the beginning of this year. Of all the things I want to be, a good writer is the most prominent.

Next theme?

After AYOBA, I’m not sure what the next theme will be. I’ll give myself a week to think on it. Currently I’m thinking something like ‘routine’ or ‘play and practice’ - just focusing on the process, and allocating certain hours that were scheduled, really helped me in the end.

Would recommend?

I would! If you’re in a creative rut, there’s nothing quite like a public declaration that you’re going to make things to get you going. It doesn’t have to be A Year Of Bad Art - do your own thing if need be. The whole thing certainly has improved my life.

So that was AYOBA. Perhaps I’ll make some good art next.