I didn't make it for you
I've got a document where I organise all my stories, researches, craft advice, and so on, and on this page I have two important quotes I try to bear in mind regarding writing. I have a separate document of inspirations and many for advice but these two on the main page are ones I deemed to be most helpful and worth seeing every day.
I threatened to discuss this in a previous post, so the one I would like to discuss today is:
If you don't like it, I didn't make it for you.
It's from T-Pain, in the Netflix documentary This Is Pop. Years ago, I paused that show and I wrote that down and I think about it a lot.
Another, related thing, is the director Steve McQueen saying he doesn't make films for white people. An untrue related thing is Lauryn Hill, who did not say something along the lines of "If I'd known white people were going to buy my last album, I never would have recorded it." Thing is, if she had? Fair. Both of these sentiments I respect. They make sense to me.
It does not escape my notice that all three of these people are black. I am not. T-Pain doesn't address race in the quote but there must be something very specific about making stuff outside of and against the dominant social forces.
What the gamergate type bros don't appreciate is that not everything is made for them. Most stuff is! And they still complain. Not just complain but enact violence, even, when they do not get their way. Growing up in the nineties as a girl with an interest in kissing girls I was fully conditioned to pick up the crumbs (and corpses) off the table of media. I was sixteen before I experienced a piece of media made for me - and even then, it was made by a man.
Rolling back around to T-Pain. It's sad that I have to acknowledge this, but I do, that there is media made nowadays that is not intended to be liked. Ragebait, and such. 'Like' is also tricky because do I 'like' in the sense of 'enjoy' a very tragic book? No, 'like' is not the correct word. It's nebulous and not a synonym for 'found provocative' or 'appreciated' or 'thought was excellently done'. Also, I would think it was obvious, I'm not saying people should not object to obviously objectionable stuff.
What we are talking about is the realm of taste. Subjective, personal opinion. There is lots of music I don't like. I don't even really know why I don't like it, I just don't. That doesn't make it bad. If I find such a piece of music? I simply move on. Do I read certain types of book? No. They are not for me. And that is okay.
Will everyone like my story? Absolutely not! But I write for the people who will like it. Who will enjoy or appreciate or find something interesting in it. I don't need to worry about the people who are never going to like it. I didn't make it for them.