is pinterest killing your creativity?
Inspiration beyond the algorithm and embracing boredom in the face of burnout
I am currently in the ebb of my creative process. Ideas that once flowed freely have turned into a trickle. The seemingly endless supply of drawings and doodles has become a void. In other words, I’m in a bit of a rut.
I’ve been feeling like this for a while now, but I can’t really blame myself. It’s hard coming off of the highs of college and all of a sudden being back in your childhood bedroom, devoid of motivation and energy, as all you seem to do every day is apply to jobs just to find yourself seriously discouraged at the end of it. Facing rejection after rejection, it feels nearly impossible to not let it get to you, and yet you can’t find the energy to make anything new. I haven’t been doing well, and that’s a hard thing to admit.
It’s not supposed to be like this. As I’ve been in the process of redoing my room, I have been uncovering old artworks and sketchbooks, and the ones from high school and early college catch my eye the most. I was always sketching. Always. My first professional tattoo was born from mindless sketching, and I seemed to be able to generate ideas like it was nothing. Even the margins of my class notes were completely covered in doodles and concept sketches, which begs the question: how did I even end up like this?
My best guess is burnout. Or maybe the burnout combined with the increasing pressure I put on myself to excel in everything that I did. Or maybe it was the burnout and the pressure compounded by the decline in my mental health, both during and after the pandemic. Maybe it has to do with the loss of identity I’ve felt as I grappled with what to do with my life and who I was, when I was faced with coming up with a senior thesis topic.
Perhaps it’s something else. Tied with the burnout, maybe it’s the crushing feeling of being overwhelmed by the sheer amount of creative content that already exists and is available to us at a split second. All I know for sure is that somewhere between my award-winning AP Art portfolio and my senior thesis 5 years later, something began to fizzle out.
Flash forward to now, and I can’t help but think about how spectacular that feeling was, to just be able to draw and feel and express without fear. I’m now on a mission to get back there, though the “how” remains unknown.
That being said, I do have random bursts of creativity, an idea here and there that seemingly comes out of thin air and threatens to disappear just as quickly if I don’t grasp on to the tail end of it before it floats away. This Substack for example, as well as a zine, a couple personal projects, and even an experimental fashion and design project with a close friend.
Yet, it’s what to do with these ideas where I find myself feeling stuck. A sketchbook bought with the promise of new ideas still remains blank as of now. Along with the emptiness in the pages there is this tension swirling around the knots in my chest whenever I think about making something. Why does it feel so hard? This is supposed to be something that I love, something that I want to do with the rest of my life and yet I feel so stuck.
I wish I could say it’s just with my design work that I feel like this, but it’s not. My style has been suffering in its own way, too, which feels somewhat substantial. My style has been a key part of my sense of self— people wear their hearts on their sleeve, I wear mine on my bedazzled Crocs and all of the pieces I searched the depths of the Internet for. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve just looked at my wardrobe and sighed, having the inevitable thoughts that I have nothing to wear.
The reality is far from the truth. I have a lot to wear. Fall is my favorite styling season, after all. Yet, I’ve just been feeling so uninspired and flat, like my identity as a creative person has been draining from my essence in every part that counts. And the thing is, when you’re already feeling low, there is nothing that makes you feel quite as bad as losing the love you have for your passions.
Since beginning this Substack I’ve taken some time to reflect on all of this. I’m a creative problem solver at heart, after all. Here is what I have found comparing my creative process now, as a 23 year old, unemployed, recent post-grad who is desperately searching for her creative spark, to myself at age 16, a chronically stressed, overworked, overachieving, high functioning high school student.
1. Pinterest is ruining your creativity. So is Instagram, TikTok, Reels, and so on and so forth.
In other words, constant visual stimulation creates a lack of focused inspiration. It’s ridiculously hard to create anything when you are spending the majority of your time being influenced and “inspired” by everyone and their mother on social media. What used to be my main sources of inspiration have turned into a circular rotation of the same ideas, concepts, and pairings, making it seemingly impossible to come up with anything new amidst the homogeneity. Or, on the opposite end, I find that I’m collecting so much inspiration that when I sit down to begin my creative process, I feel overwhelmed by all of the content I have collected and I have a hard time finding a launching point for my ideas.
Furthermore, comparison really is the thief of joy. You can’t help but feel like absolute crap about yourself when you are constantly seeing cooler, more talented, more fashionable, more successful people on your timeline. Is it all in our heads? Possibly, but that doesn’t make it any easier to cope with. It doesn’t help that constant comparison is a one way ticket to burnout, as you’re fighting with your ego to reinvent the wheel.
Sure, when I was in high school I had Pinterest and Instagram, but it felt like a completely different social media experience than it is now. There was this noticeable lack of content for strictly consumer purposes. You weren’t trying to sell yourself, or your work, to anyone. People were just existing on the internet and sharing cool stuff and photos from whatever random thing they did. It felt quieter, and in a way, and significantly more authentic than it does now.
In relation to style:
Everything is starting to feel derivative when it comes to fashion right now, especially if you are active on TikTok and Pinterest, specifically within “mainstream” style.
I don’t know about you guys, but when I go on Pinterest, my home feed is all the same outfit in different fonts. And not in the cool way, circa Wisdom Kaye.
TikTok on the other hand has been completely overrun by TikTok Shop ads, advertising the same items over and over until it feels like they’re beating a dead horse. Styling videos revolve around the same three trends, and oftentimes, the same “viral” items. (I swear if I see one more video about the “viral” Zara jeans, I may lose it.)
Developing your own sense of style and creativity becomes nearly impossible when you are being force fed other people’s opinions, outfits, and creative work 24/7.
The Solution:
A social media detox. I never thought that I would be the one to say this, but I have been staying as far as I can from all my social platforms for the past week, and it has been such a weight off my shoulders. Yes, I do check the platforms occasionally each day, to check in with friends, or post content, or reference something, but surprisingly, I don’t feel the need to be on social media all that much.
A semi-related, alternate solution is to find other sources of inspiration beyond social media. Day-to-day life poses many opportunities for sparks of inspiration, and oftentimes in the most unlikely places.
For example the other night, I was catching up with a close friend while we watched Scary Movie, and she said something that I found so profound I immediately wrote it down in my notes app as a potential creative idea:
How do you come up with an identity for yourself when you don’t have
an inherent culture to connect to? You get to choose what aspects of your
identity to build upon, via clothes, or food, or traditions.
(stay posted for the Substack expanding on this idea…)
Today, I stumbled across a 1968 edition of Commentary Magazine, and found myself enamored with the full color half-spreads advertising different kinds of alcohol.
Browsing random shelves in libraries and shops, architecture, even the changing colors of the trees out your window can all be great places of inspiration.
If you’re insistent on using social media for inspiration (God knows I still do and will in the future) I recommend intentionally searching for niche creators, studios, and brands. Oftentimes, these are the people who are innovating and experimenting the most on their little corners of the Internet.
Some of my other favorite online platforms right now for inspo-hunting include cosmos.so (like Pinterest, but better, and without the “social” part of many inspiration sites) and are.na (another Pinterest alternative popular with many creatives). These spaces allow for you to go down rabbit holes that feel authentic, without the imposition of the algorithm.
2. Allow yourself to be bored and welcome in mental silence
Piggy-backing off of my point on social media, boredom is the place in which ideas thrive. Now, you don’t have to meditate to find that mental silence and space, (though honestly that is something I should do more often.) but you do need to give yourself permission to experience that boredom in fullness.
Normally when I’m bored I put on whatever show I’m binging, open TikTok or the NYT Games, and sometimes all three (which is as unproductive as it sounds). This behavior, however, is rather mind numbing. You don’t have to think or problem solve (unless it’s the NYT Games in which case all you are doing is problem solving…) and sometimes, that’s exactly what you need. If you are like me and trying to get out of a creative rut, it is not.
I remember being back in high school and reveling in my boredom. I was constantly busy between homework and extracurriculars, so when I had time to just sit with myself and my thoughts, it was more than welcome. More often than not, that time would result in me writing ideas down or pulling out the sketchbook. When I got more into style, I would spend hours trying to figure out all of the ways I could wear certain items, while listening to music or podcasts in the background.
3. Take the low-stakes approach to creativity
This is one of those instances in which I REALLY need to learn to take my own advice. Over the past month or so, I have been going back and forth about being creative for the sake of creativity— not for my portfolio or for content or for potential monetization. Honestly, considering how consumer focused everything has become, it’s hard to take yourself out of that purpose heavy mentality, though taking the pressure off of creative expression gives you the freedom that you need to step back into a flow. Doing something for yourself is just as much a purpose as anything else, and from what I’ve been finding, it’s the best purpose you can have if you’re in this rut.
Everyday I keep telling myself that I can make work and show it to no one. I can make outfits in the privacy of my room that are just the most heinous, but I don’t have to document them for TikTok. It’s hard. As someone who is a recovering chronic perfectionist, let me tell you it is a difficult mindset shift to make, and I’m not even fully there yet.
The only solution, however, is to just get back into making things. Start up a daily doodle practice or jot down random flecks of ideas that come across your mind from day to day. I’ve started to take scans of pieces of media that I come across and find inspiring, including referring back to my own ideas that were never fully fleshed out. And for the record, I do suggest that everyone put on their favorite background music and make bad outfits just for fun, because that is where your personal style inspiration will spark up again.
The journey back to the creative spark is one of patience and self compassion. Emphasis on the journey. I know I have ways to go, but I hope to get on my feet again and start channeling my creative energy away from the knots in my chest. My plan as of now is to continue with the social media detox, and to slowly work back to my creative roots, through keeping a sketchbook handy, and experimenting with both mixed media and unexpected outfit combinations. Not everything is going to be a success, and that’s okay (or so I’m told). Remember, the wheel doesn’t need to be reinvented, it just needs to be spun a different way.
If you resonate with this, I hope you find creative peace, passion, and flow. If you need me, I’ll be sitting in the sun, sketchbook in hand, chasing the joy of creativity and embracing the mess along the way.
