Why We Need Bad Fan-fiction
It’s not for the reason you think
We need more bad fan-fiction.
While we’re at it, we need more bad art in general.
More bad paintings, more bad game graphics, more bad wood carvings, and more bad poetry.
If you’re scratching your head at this, don’t worry. I’ll tell you why.
We need more bad art because there is too much pressure on ‘good’ output.
I’m sure as kids we all doodled. We all made chicken wire scribbles and thought of our favourite characters from TV shows and games in our own stories. Some of us wanted to sew our own stuffed animals (guilty as charged), and some of us just wanted to create something.
When we grew up, everything changed.
Many kids seemingly shed their creativity as they grew. Meanwhile, us ‘current’ creatives are wielding double edged swords. If our creative output is not good, it isn’t deserving of respect.
It isn’t even hard to see nowadays. From people scoffing at abstract art to countless reviews where the critic purposely underplays what they liked about the book they read, they all unanimously send one message.
And that message is clear. Unless it is mindblowingly beautiful, neat, and given a thin, sparkling coat of polish, it is not worthy of being deemed good.
I can’t tell you how many of my artist friends continuously hit rough patches. They just don’t want to draw anymore, their art is ‘bad’. They don’t say it, but they feel ashamed of their work.
I tell them that isn’t true, their work is good — meanwhile I’m not immune to the pressure either.
And to that I say to hell with it all, we need ‘bad’ creative output.
We creatives (and non creatives!) need it because whether or not what we make is ‘good’, we deserve to make ‘bad’ things without fear of snobbery or being deemed undeserving.
To weigh your creations against others’ opinions all the time, every time is not healthy.
So from artist to viewer, writer to reader, you have my blessing.
Open up a notebook and just start drawing stick figures.
Take those two characters from that cartoon you like and write a soap opera with them.
Crack open Blender and start making a rudimentary sculpt. Or better yet, buy yourself some cheap clay and make your own action figure.
Make it happen. So what if it’s ‘bad’? So what if it’s ‘cringy’? So what if it’s ‘unoriginal’?
It’s one of the most pure, natural forms of self-entertainment, it’s you expressing yourself.
So again, to hell with them. Click that pen, and get to creating.
