It’s Not Who You Know, But Who You Are to Others

Try flipping the script

Illustration by the author

I recently published a video on my YouTube channel in response to a question from a fellow illustrator. It was a fairly long question, but the gist of it was that this person was wondering why, after reaching out to some 120 art directors, she was not getting any call-backs.

To me, the answer was in the question, but you can watch the video for my full response on that. However, in my response I acknowledged that, of course, it would be completely discouraging to go through this experience. Out of that many attempts, if nobody responded to me, I would probably give up, I remarked.

In response to this sentiment, one of my viewers reached out in the comments. “I’ve already given up,” he said. “Even though I spent two degrees in illustration and animation. It’s all who you know… demoralizing. Covid, PTSD, and mental health [issues] don’t help … and I generally find that people aren’t sympathetic to circumstance or willing to pay you what your work is due.”

This got my brain firing in so many different directions. In one way, I felt deeply sorry for this person. I hate reading stories about people who start out so passionately and pour themselves into the hope of a creative career—but in the end call it quits because they couldn’t make it work. It’s…