Art is one of the most unique, yet broad topics I know. There are so many sub-groups of art that it truly becomes fascinating. There’s illustration, writing, theatre, critique, and so much more. Yet I feel as if people don’t really respect art in its entirety. So many people on the internet dismiss certain forms of art in ways that come off as incredibly disingenuous. This can come in the form of cyberbullying, trolling, or just hounding.

Take video essays of children’s media for instance. A lot of them get responses that amount to ‘Well, it’s for kids so it’s not worth getting upset over’ which is nothing short of dismissive. Don’t kids deserve good products too? And even if you argue that kids aren’t as critical as adults, then you should remember that kids have preferences, too. They still like what they like and they’re more likely to like good shows than bad shows. Keep that in mind.

There’s also the debate about simplistic art being inherently bad when in reality, that’s not true. Just because art has detail doesn’t mean that the detail is well-implemented. This mentality is best shown in the Calarts debate. It was inflated when Thundercats Roar was first revealed to the masses, and was poorly received because it looked inferior in comparison to the Thundercats media that came before. Ever since, there have been people targeting shows that looked remotely similar, sometimes even not that, as some will just point to a show they don’t like the look of, or anything that isn’t ‘anime’. And this has sadly drowned out what makes art good. What makes art good is a lot of things, actually, and one of those things is proper form. Just because something isn’t in a more realistic style doesn’t mean it’s bad, and vice versa. It’s important to know that there is a certain skill to art and capturing a mood. But if I did become an artist, then I shouldn’t expect to become famous right off the bat. It takes a lot of marketing to get off the ground, and to assume that people will divide their attention to anyone is absurd, especially if said someone is unknown.

People nowadays aren’t known for having long attention spans, after all. Especially for books and other written media. But what can art do? Art can convey a number of ideas, like morals and emotions. And there are many techniques used to do so that I may or may not know about. There’s outlining your creations or making it up as you go along,but those are the main two. But more importantly, art represents how evolved we humans are compared to our fellow animals. Most of them are only concerned with surviving while we’re more concerned with enlightening our lives, and that isn’t really capitalized on as much as it should. Hopefully, we can come back from this and be the best versions of ourselves we can be.