How did I become a successful artist?
How does lightning find a bottle? How does destiny unfold? Not all extraordinary achievements—like my own—can be attributed to any one cause.
But I would say anyone can make it as a creative if you just do what I did: work hard, be kind, and have access to a reservoir of unlimited time and money, courtesy of your unconditionally supportive and financially prosperous parents.
Other than that? It just, kind of… happened!
When it came to getting my prestigious staff position at a highly competitive organization, I suppose my application managed to stick out. Literally—my dad’s buddy who works there flagged my application and physically stuck it out of the pile.
But my application never would have been considered at all if I hadn’t spent years racking up relevant experience! You think someone just handed me those unpaid internships because I was available to provide free labor, could pay my university to give me college credit for them, and went to summer camp with all of my eventual supervisors?
It just goes to show: if you keep applying, and have the time to write unique cover letters to dozens of organizations because you’re not responsible for any urgent expenses in your life at least until your mid-20s, anything is possible!
And of course, you have to give some credit to the #grind, as well as the #hustle.
While my peers distracted themselves by working 9-5 jobs which had nothing to do with their creative ambitions, I had the foresight to wake up at noon, stroll into a coffee shop at 1 p.m., zone out while scrolling through Pinterest until 2 p.m., and still get a daily three-hour headstart on everyone in my generation without expending a remotely comparable amount of energy.
My body is my instrument, and my instrument needs at least ten hours of sleep or I will feel vaguely inconvenienced and unable to create. Book me on your shows!!!
How did I get representation? I was really lucky to have been discovered.
It was pure chance that put me on an unpaid show on one of the few stages that industry is known to frequent. It was fate that motivated me to spend thousands upon thousands of my parents’ dollars on an arts education, granting me access to powerful individuals with connections to that stage. Call it kismet that I just so happened to perform consistently and repeatedly, knowing that doing so would never hinder me from living a comfortable lifestyle—until my now manager showed up and plucked me from obscurity.
And of course, even in obscurity, my website still came up first when you googled my name because I was forward-thinking enough to work with an SEO consultant until my metadata was optimized. But then again, maybe I just have “it!” (“It” is one of my tags.)
Get your tix for my $23 one-person show before it’s too late!
Oh! And also The Secret. I visualized my dream, said it out loud, and made sure my industry connections were within earshot so they could get me the email belonging to my dream’s executive assistant.
Listen, I know you might be feeling discouraged if you’re an aspiring artist who is facing hardship. Believe me, I get it—when I was born, my parents weren’t even famous yet. But the great thing is that now, more than ever, there’s an even playing field.
Anyone can go out and create content with their $1000 iPhone. Adobe Creative Cloud is only $20 a month for students who are already paying for a college degree. From there, all you need to do is set aside several hours a day to keep up with the daily upload schedule of the fourteen-year-olds whose parents have allowed them to quit school to pursue lifestyle vlogging full-time—and voila! You’ve got your chance at stardom, which will still be entirely determined by corporate algorithms and the number of influencers merciful enough to share your work!
So, what are you waiting for? Get creating!
Oh, you’re waiting for your grandmother to fall asleep? You’re her primary caretaker? Might I suggest putting some sunglasses on her and making her say the phrase “dank memes?” That is usually a winning strategy.