When "Success" Comes in Unexpected Packages
Sharing Online and The Creative Process
It’s in our human nature to long and yearn for things. We have desires, wishes, and hopes. Since I’ve begun the process of posting online more, one thing I’ve hoped for is to get more comfortable with being seen, and for people who resonate with the work I produce to find me. Isn’t that how it all starts? You make things, and people find those things. If they like it, they’ll stick around. And if they don’t, you’ll probably never know they were looking in the first place.
As Britney Spears sings in Circus, “There’s only two types of people in the world: the ones that entertain, and the ones that observe.” This is, of course, a very binary way of thinking about life, but you have to admit it’s a banger of a lyric. For much of my life, I’ve wanted to be the one who entertains but, due to fear, have often opted to observe.
When creating work online, if one wants to reach more people, views, likes, feeding the algorithm, and all that other bullshit, matters. Because I’m still early in this journey and haven’t narrowed down my “niche”, I’ve been experimenting. Along the way, I’ve often asked the universe for signs I’m going in the right direction.
For this week’s video, I had quite the journey. I had an initial idea but struggled to tap into the flow while shooting it, so the final product evolved into something else, as art tends to do. It felt fitting to create a video about the actual act of creating and the natural roadblocks that pop up along the way. I thought this was the end, and that I’d figured out where I was going. And then life surprised me again.
After shooting the video, I woke up the next morning and slowly started my day. I turned on my phone, because I’ve been getting in the habit of shutting it off at night, and opened Instagram. I had almost 50 new followers and, as of writing this, have gained over 100 more. This was strange, but I figured that something I made must have been shared because what else could have happened?
I quickly realized that a fetish Instagram account, which shares photos of women who don’t shave their bodies, featured a photo of me that they had screenshotted from my page. This was a fascinating turn of events. A couple of close people in my life were understandably horrified. But, on my end, I couldn’t help but giggle at the timing of it all.
Just a day prior I had been chatting with my sister about a TikTok video I’d seen that made the point that people who achieve fame or acclaim often style themselves in unique and ultimately career-defining ways. Though style is not a predictor of success at all, it certainly helps to have qualities that people remember you for. I told her that my current unshaven appearance, which I’ve been rocking for almost 2 years now, could be one of the things that future fans of my work might associate me with.
I’d been asking the universe to help me become more comfortable with being seen online and to get noticed by people who like what I produce. And it came true in a way. Not in a package I ever expected, but it still happened. It was the universe, playing its little jokes as usual, saying, “You asked, so here you go. Happy now?”
And I am. In this journey, I have strived to make peace with the fact that, in choosing to share myself and my art, I cannot control what strangers will like or not like about me, and this is one way to practice that in real time. I can’t control why a person might want to follow or subscribe to my content. All I can hope for is that what I give will affect people in positive ways.
In 2020, photos of Marissa Malik, who goes by the stage name DJ Manuka Honey, went viral on Twitter after a fan reposted photos of her hairy body from her Instagram account. The user tweeted, “I love body hair on women and those of you that don’t are WEAK.” That tweet got 46,000 likes, and DJ Manuka gained many new fans because of it, including me. I felt so inspired by her image and confidence. It was the first time I had ever seen a femme person online rocking body hair in such a cool and sexy way. Malik owned what made her different, and was celebrated because of it. Manuka Honey primarily markets herself as a DJ, but fans like myself initially learned of her because of her style and presence.
Marissa’s response to the tweet:
“…thank you for celebrating my choices. Being a hairy femme is.. a lot. I stopped fighting my body hair what feels like a long time ago, but really wasn’t….I’ve interrogated, eye-rolled at, and said “fuck you” to whiteness. I’ve realized that the way I want my body to look is an ever-evolving journey. I’m in charge, and I make the decisions…Not removing your body hair isn’t an “answer” to me. It’s a choice, and everyone deserves a choice. If I’ve inspired you to not shave, that’s amazing! As long as you’re happy with your relationship to hair (removal), that’s what’s most important. You’re sexy no matter what. Also, I’m always down to give the gender binary a middle finger, so that’s fun too.”
There are many things I want to do and create in this life, and I’m going to keep doing that. Like DJ Manuka, I can’t control what people will resonate with about me. Whether it’s my writing, videos, or style choices. But I can continue to love what makes me different and embrace the love that comes my way. Ultimately, the form doesn’t matter.