To the Parents of Creative Kids

Creative careers like visual arts, music, sculpting, content creation in general, have surely changed the last couple of years, but there’s one thing that remains - the stigma. The stigma and the everlasting “A musician/artist isn’t a good career choice“. Many parents would try to discourage their children from pursuing a creative interest as something more than a hobby simply because other options are deemed more “stable“ or “trustworthy“. However, there are many ways in which a creative job can be a great choice, and especially in the digital age, becoming well-known and getting a good income is definitely far from impossible.

Here are my thoughts on the topic.

First of all, the argument that a creative career is not for everyone, and is hard to acquire, becomes less and less realistic with each passing day in the modern age. With so so many different types of art, and so many different stories you can tell with your art, there is literally a niche for everyone, and via the Internet, you can reach more and more people who can appreciate what you do. Yes, a creative career, that of a content creator, for example, is not standard at all, as it doesn’t fit the 9-to-5 routine that most other jobs put you in. However, not really having a fixed schedule, a boss, colleagues, and all those job-related stuff, does not undermine the value and quality of your work. And honestly, if you ask me, being able to choose your own schedule to a large extent is a blessing, and not enough people get to experience the joy not waking up to catch the bus brings you.

Another related point is job stability across different careers overall. People often have the default belief that a medical professionalist, or an architect, may have higher chances of being or staying employed in the long run. While these are not “bad“ professions to begin with, they cannot be deemed bulletproof either, as many people in the medical field are routinely underpaid and they risk other aspects of their life, such as their health, even though they are high in demand. What is more, having a university diploma is no longer the only prerequisite to having a good-paying job. Markets change, technological booms await at every corner, and the fluidity of your skills becomes your most valuable asset - the ability to adapt to the changing situations and stay on top of things becomes more and more crucial. And in this aspect, content creation and art careers overall are no different. Creative careers don’t even need to follow a traditional route to begin with, a person with better content production skills and better marketing will in most cases outperform the person who relies too much on their diploma or title.

Now, this is not to say that all careers are made equal, this is not my point. A digital illustrator faces a very different set of issues when compared to a doctor, and honestly, they can be very much less troublesome issues. However, this shouldn’t be a setback, as many doctors report that they would love to have their working conditions become less harsh, and for you to wish to have a hard job for the sake of having a hard job is pure masochism. We all steer towards the path of least resistance, and this is not a bad thing - after all, if your career makes you too tired and bothered to enjoy the rest of your life, what’s the point?

Another thing I need to mention in relation to creative careers not being made of the same material as other more traditional careers is the opportunity for growth. With other traditional jobs where you have a boss, there is an overall ceiling to your salary, and you need to be exceptionally skillful at what you do, maybe you’ll need to do a lot of extra work to get to a higher salary. So purely from a financial standpoint, believing that a traditional career is bound to be a huge profit, in the long run, is not too wise. There is some sort of stability, but as we saw when the pandemic hit, that can get thrown out of the window pretty fast as well.

Now consider a freelance career, in particular, one where you create a personal brand and gradually build up an audience. This growth is likely to become exponential over time, and every next day is likely to bring more and more eyeballs towards your work. Once you have set up the correct measures so you can profit off this growth, such as selling merch, using advertisements, monetizing your content, the rest you should do is simply monitor this system and maintain it. Such growth can lead to an unstable income at first, but with enough maintenance, and as long as you keep on honing your skills, the return on this initial investment can far outweigh the uncertainty in the beginning. Just keep on aiming and the rest is up to time and luck (and being graced by the god of social media algorithms).

And one last parting line from me - think about the joy one can get from living life doing what you like. Why would you wish for a close one, especially a kid with glowing eyes, to lose that spark and requalify as something they do not see as their number 1 option? The world will never have too many artists, or too much content created, and you should try your best to support the people around you who wish to follow this road.