dear creator:
on growing up with creators, to becoming one now
which artists inspire you?
i always pause when i get that question.
i immediately drift to the edit of kariza’s world. soft vignette, cool green in the shadows, warm gold in the highlights, light grain making her room hum with warm light.
i think about the ergonomics of casey's studio setup—the pegboard grids, taxonomied compartments, prototypes waiting on a workbench. when projects sit out in the light, the work feels lighter too.
i recall the moment in two sleepy people that showed me my own love was ending.
i imagine the way gawx cuts into a drawing timelapse, snapping it on like a punchline.
i name the members of offlinetv, who filled my room at 5am in a hong kong apartment while insomnia folded the night in on itself.
i remember where the music swells in kelly wakasa’s launch video (at 6:30).
i think about how natalie lets a shot linger two seconds longer than the algorithm recommends, to let a moment breathe.
i remember how the youtube new wave reverberated quietly around the internet margins, until those collisions became creator camps.
so when people ask me which artists i study, i say:
creators.
this year, i realized i became someone i could have grown up watching, between all the internet meetups and the comstant rotation of camera batteries charging on floors.
the label is young, imprecise, broad—after all, the internet was invented barely three decades ago—so when i introduce myself as a creator, i get alternatives back.
artist. creative technologist. you’re more than a creator.
but creator fills me with something i can’t completely explain.
maybe it’s because it feels like something i’ve been growing into all along, a hyphen i’ve navigated while learning to move from being shaped by culture to shaping it. and i feel the lineage continue every time someone says my story inspire them share their own.
we are the first generation to inherit creativity in a different way. it used to flow vertically, through masters, movements, manifestos.
now, the lineage is passed on across friends. across strangers.
our generation didn’t grow up on the greats. we grew up on creators.
the details are different. different bedrooms, different cities, different people we choose to give our attention to. and somehow the upbringing feels exactly the same.
we all learned to be creators without noticing it happen—not apprenticed to a single mentor, but to an accidental generation of storytellers. people filming in cramped rooms, editing on glitchy laptops, talking to cameras like friends.
we are all part of that pedagogy.
maybe it didn’t feel special while it was happening. if anything, it felt like sneaking small, stolen pockets of time inside other people’s stories.
yet somewhere along the way, the thing that felt small and forbidden became the truest part of me.
so, on being a creator:
the label feels unfinished. somewhere in mid-sentence, still defining itself.
but the becoming feels infinite