[zeruch]

"I could have made this"

That is a common trope but it misses the immediate counter...."but you didn't".

Many can code, not all come up with something that takes off, regardless of talent or skill. Any number of things can go into that. Art is very similar in that regard.

I say this as someone with a bias; I've worked in tech for the last 20 years and I've been a paid illustrator and painter since high school (Art and Commerce isn't alien to me).

[powersnail]

I remember I talked to a writer friend, and said to her how I had a lot of great ideas of stories, and I'd perhaps one day quit my job and become a novelist. Back in high school, I wrote quite a bit of short stories and thought myself as pretty okay. I was encouraged to actually write something about it, a scene, an outline, a beginning, anything.

I tried for a weekend, scratched my head through it, and came up with an embarrassing draft for a chapter. As I tried to translate the ideas in my mind to actual words, all the flaws, holes, and awkward characters suddenly showed up. My ingenious ideas were not a blueprint of grand palaces, but a pile of ugly rocks scattered all over the place. I barely managed to connect them in a circle.

She told me, that the fact that I had a scene written was already better than most people who regarded themselves as "wanting to write".

There is a mismatch in people's expectations. Without going through the actual work, many people regarded their vague concepts in their imagination as genius. They are often not.

That's why I've stopped listening to people who say "I've never done XXX, but how hard can it be".

[tigertigertiger]

Well I did it. I made art myself, even special one. I made one of the biggest perler bead art in europe with about 70.000 beads (maybe even the world?). Would I appreciate my artwork? As some kind of skill - yes (having immense duration and boredom), as something that has a special intrinsic variable beside being bigger than other pieces - no.

I'm aware that every skill and talent takes some kind of luck to "make it". I just say that art lacks any objective qualities and is just based on choices of some elite circle that don't even match public opinion.