Why Society Hates Creative People (And What To Do About It)

Why do companies hate creativity? They might say they value innovative or divergent thinking, but realistically, most businesses rely on repeatable, formulaic results. Society also places an emphasis on convenience over craftsmanship. As if it wasn't hard enough, creatives, designers, and artists are their own worst enemy. So what can be done? Design and creative professionals are some of the most celebrated and underappreciated people, all at the same time. Our life would be far more boring without creative masterpieces, but society totally takes our contribution for granted. Why is that? On another note, why does society fear creative people so much? This video hopes to uncover some of these deeper questions.

big shout out to my wife Atena for slapping the crap out of me...for art.

00:00-01:17 Intro
01:18-04:08 Convenience Over Craftsmanship
04:09-05:01 Scale Over Quality
05:02-07:49 New=Bad
07:50-09:44 Creative Or Cautious. Pick ONE.
09:45-10:49 The Bottom Line Is All That Matters
10:50-13:13 Success Destroys Creativity
13:14-14:14 Milanote
14:15-16:21 Poor Business Skills
16:22-16:54 Creatives Are Jerks
16:55-18:19 We Don't Fit In
18:20-19:52 Prince Didn't Fit In
19:53-20:53 Lack Of Talent
20:54-21:43 Creativity Is EXHAUSTING
21:44-26:23 What Should I DO!?

All content directed and written by John Mauriello. John Mauriello has been working professionally as an industrial designer since 2010. He is an Adjunct Professor of industrial design at California College of the Arts.

[Hozagen]

As a professional video editor, my first big lesson was "When clients tell me to use my creativity, what they really mean is for me to read their minds." Every time I really used my creativity, my clients demand to change everything I added. So, the way I approach those clients is by doing just what they tell me, and then, according to their style, I add small details that I believe will fit well in their video. It works 99% of the time and get way less revisions that way

[stevevitka]

I knew an artist in the late 90's named Josh Loring. He would sit, barely speaking, all day in the cyber-cafe doing 11x 17 Escher meets Edward Gorey black pen surreal montages. His black pen was iridescent purple from some angles and you could only then make out the lines of his strokes. One day I saw that within the pure black of a woman's dress there was a whole scene drawn that could only be seen when the ink reflected iridescence. Then I looked at the other black spaces and saw they were the same. When I remarked on this, he meekly replied "You're the first one who ever noticed."

[muenchhausenmusic]

When I was around ten years old, I was in the cinema with my dad, and he stayed to read the ending credits and said that he finds it the respectful thing to do, to honour the efforts of all the people who contributed. I have done the same ever since

[GensHaze]

"Never forget that your work matters, even if it matters only to you"
This is so powerful. Made me tear up honestly.

[LadyLuize]

"Your work matters even if it's just for you" is such an inspiring quote. Create even if you're the only viewer. Create.

[hansonel]

"Most people want you to be a good little worker bee for the system and creatives don't fit into the system." So true.

[valtiel]

In my country, people love when somebody successful fails. Or when covid hit and many people in the entertainment industry lost their jobs, I read a lot of comments on different social media platforms about how people are laughing at us, because now we will learn what a real job is, for example manual labor. My mind was absolutely blown away by the brutal amount of hostility and the fact, a lot of people think that working in the entertainment industry, or being an artist, creative person is like sitting, swinging your legs, while money falls into your lap... Or that we never had a 9 to 5 job, or that we never did anything that requires physical strength. And the fact that in their opinion "real job" can only be something where you are sweating out in the field is just clearly stupid.

[IOverlord]

"Failure is a huge part of creativity"

Then my life is a piece of art at this point now.

[sodvar]

One thing I've always noticed is that although people make fun or look down on individuals who choose creative professions, a huge chunk of the leisure time they have is spent consuming things made by creatives: movies, music, games, books... So there's this funny paradox going where the people who make things enjoyed by everybody are also kind of shunned and not treated seriously.

[chilledoutgamer]

I think the biggest issue, that wasn't mentioned, is time. If you're a talented creative with business focus, but you have to pay your ever increasing rent, then you're going to have to get money from somewhere. Enid Blyton wrote over 600 childrens books - you're not going to be doing that if you don't have a ton of free time. Nobody pays you to write a book, or a symphony, or code software, and there might be a paycheck at the end of it, but while you're making it, and it could take years, you're not getting a penny. So, society actively works against the creative process.

[HazardTactical]

Every elementary school should teach all this so people are so aware of this considering how much everybody values design, products, movies, music etc. but school does everything to crush them and not even give them proper courses prior to college at which point most people are unable to get in there with no training- filtration by lack of choice in the first place

[williansnobre]

I remember at school how I was always drawing things and people would ask "where did you copy it from" and when I said that it was from my head people would just ignore it, both the other kids and teachers. They wanted people to learn and copy but not create or transform.
It made me not want to invest my time in improving my talent at all because people would either not be interested or like it but not be able to give any feedback as to why which left me without any idea of how they saw it.

[mrfarenheit]

I came up with something I call the Creator/fan duality: Be your own biggest fan. Make art to please yourself above all others, only aim to impress yourself. That way you’ll never feel unappreciated

[jerichosamurai]

Never be afraid to shun society to do what you want. Society is not your friend. It's not gonna care whether you succeed or fail. The people who make up society can't even think for themselves, they just follow the narrative. So why would you ever let society make a decision for you?

[tysonbwalker]

Omg you hit the nail on the head. The thing about new designs is that you have to be willing to endure ridicule/have everyone hate you for months or years. This is unbearable for most unless you have ironclad vision. Excellent video

[fulicious]

Being a creative is both really rewarding and extremely exhausting in this world

[daveking-sandbox]

One point that you didn’t mention: in my 50 years experience as a musician, composer and now also a filmmaker, the client always wants to have something to complain about so it is a good idea when you offer your product to overdo it a little bit so if you’re lucky, the client will say “oh I don’t like that” “can you remove that, and that… Then at the end you both will be happy because you have gotten the original version that you wanted and the client had the satisfaction of removing something from the work, so he also feels like he contributed to the work. This has often worked for me, especially when dealing with big record companies that don’t really know what they’re talking about. They just want to feel important.

[BellaRigelOrion]

Art school sucked the creativity out of me. By the end I produced bland works to please my professors and get my A's and diploma. I stopped painting for decades. Only now in my retirement am I actively working on breaking down that mental block to paint again.

[yurifornow]

I know I’m late to the video, but I want to say this.

Once, for a competition in school, I drew a drawing for it so my class could win. The thing is, the people in my class were grossed out by the art.

Even once I finished it, people were trying to steal credit for it, and once I got mad they told me to calm down because “It’s just a joke”. I almost cried. Not to mention these kids kept making fun of me because I refuse to draw them for free, yet I spent 10 hours drawing this for class.

It wasn’t even when I finished the project that they enjoyed it. People can be horrible just because they don’t understand.

[ericmc]

being misunderstood is soul crushing. its the closed ive felt to being clinicly insane even if ideas are seen in a good light