Instagram vs. YouTube
Creating content, coming up with new things, fresh ideas ..
I thought on talking about some of the topics that have been on my mind lately. Creating content, coming up with new things, fresh ideas, passion projects and enjoying calm Netflix evenings. Have a read!
Menu for today:
What’s wrong with Socials, why I’m making vlogs?
Things are slow? Personal projects are the way
Sometimes it’s just Too Much!.
Instagram vs. YouTube
Those of you who follow me on Instagram might have noticed that I’ve been less and less on there, and dedicating more and more time to YouTube. Why?
Because it’s frustrating to be throwing things into the ether and not even hear an echo. And it works both ways - out of 500 artists I follow, the algorithm shows me only 5% of it. Even with all my stubbornness and perseverance and even if I determinedly scroll until the end of the feed, I still miss 95% of the content I willingly signed up for and truly want to see.
Plus, music to add to your photos?? Instagram, is it the early 2000s?? Who else has flashbacks to the first www pages blasting music at you and having to find the culprit among many open tabs, looking for the loudspeaker icon?
I complained, now I feel better. I’ve been extremely grateful to people who have been interacting with my content over there, and I’m not going anywhere - mostly because I feel like I don’t want to leave a place I’ve been working hard on for a couple of years. But, like many of you, I like doing things on my own terms. If I see something is not working, I’m gonna try something new or different.
That’s why on my YouTube, next to my old tutorials and ‘knowledge sharing’ videos, you’ll now find long vlogs - simple bits and pieces of life as a professional illustrator, small business owner, but mostly a creative person. Because that’s what I feel like doing. In my latest one, I share how I’ve been working (for a very long time now) on my first ever written and illustrated book, a project that’s very dear to me and that I simply want to share with you.
Somehow, after all the loud, fighting-for-attention, 30-second, quick-to-consume content, I’m craving something slower, calmer, more thoughtful - and that’s what I want to make.
So, if you wanna hear more about:
the creative process behind an illustrated book
slow and mindful living and creative practices
why I don’t recommend (or do I?) having discovery calls with clients - and about marketing strategies in general
things I love outside of illustration – books, coffee and beautiful places
Go to the video! And let me know what you think in the comments!
Culo Inquieto a.k.a. Restless butt
Being able to communicate with the entire world and talk, argue, listen, sing, read in one language is a beautiful thing that the English language allows us to do.
I always say languages are there for us to communicate and express ourselves, so I’m not the biggest fan of any linguistic barriers people still are trying to enforce or justify.
But from time to time, there are those on-point expressions that simply can’t be translated to another language. ‘Culo inquieto’ is one of them and translated literally it means restless butt*.* In Spanish, it’s a colloquial expression used to describe someone who can't stay still, who is always doing things, moving around, or looking for something to do. And it’s a perfect expression I describe myself with. Constant anxiety to be doing something, and when you do it, wondering if you shouldn’t rather be doing something different… A butt that knows no rest!
And because of being a restless butt, I have a few personal projects in the making. One is my first written book you already heard about in my video above - I can’t wait to see it finished myself and show it to all of you! Alongside that, there’s another project on the pile, and one new social media endeavor I’ve been planning silently in my head and hope to start with pretty soon (for bookworms like me) - when I finally do, I’m gonna report it all over here:)
Putting the restless butt aside, after years of working in the illustration industry, I don’t get tired of it. I love my clients, their projects, and their vision, and I hope to keep on working together as long as it’s possible… but I’d be lying if I said I feel like the phrase “the client is always right” applies to our work. I always believe the best projects come out of a close collaboration, where both sides listen, share their vision, and reach common ground.
I also think that if you work with a professional whose expertise and skills you trust, going in a 180-degree direction contrary to what was recommended by them might not be the best move in the game.
All of that to tell you (once again) that being able to create your own personal projects - where your vision, concepts, and aesthetic can stay faithful to your original idea as the creator, is an amazing thing to have!
This is what motivates me to embark on so many personal initiatives, share my own vision, and remind you that those personal projects ( that sometimes you might be sick of) are an equally important part of your creativity, creative business, and artistic energy as the beautiful client commissions.
Is it Too Much?
I looooove Girls. It was one of my top shows when I was (I almost wrote “a teenager”) a young person transitioning from the teenage to young adult years. It was always mind-blowing to me that Lena Dunham created, wrote, directed and starred in the show being just 25 years old herself!
I always think awkwardness is underrated and majorly underrepresented, but Lena always masters it. The simplicity of how she shows reality, sometimes unfiltered and raw, sometimes intense and exaggerated, is what made me appreciate and love the show so much.
Her characters are strong, flawed, imperfect, weird but somehow totally normal, very memorable. Even the most mundane situations are given a weight that we too often take away from them, making them more beautiful and precious or, on the contrary, more painful and dense. Showing characters as works in progress, finding themselves, often being unlikeable or self-absorbed, simply human, makes the show unique and so different from what’s out there.
This short note was triggered by the recent Netflix premiere of Too Much. (keep on reading, spoilers-free zone!) Instead of binging it, I watched it elegantly - one or two episodes at a time, like a reasonable adult rather than an unhinged teenager vacuuming snacks like a madman, as I always do.
With many of the same actors as in Girls, told in the same narrative and language, this one felt so native to Lena’s voice and storytelling.
I always think the ending is the most difficult part - it can make or break it -and it’s especially true for books, shows and movies. That’s why I never voice my opinion before the curtain is down, deep down on the ground, the lights are out, and the show is over and I have a moment to decompress what I just experienced.
Without a doubt, it’s one of the most unique and original shows out there. But in this one, the ending didn’t work for me. The last episode was a bit hard to swallow, reminding me how I also tend to ignore the last season of Girls every time I rewatch it (and I do it roughly once a year :))
I’m not sure which one of us, whether it’s Lena or myself, is being too naive about how we want things, relationships and situations to turn out, but in the case of Too Much, I was hoping for things to end differently.
I’m happy to have watched another one of Lena’s creations, but it won’t be my comfort or rewatch show.
Who else is streaming?
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