Welcome to A New Series: Bad Art, Modernity, & Me

Part One: Overtly-Emotional is Just As Bad As Overtly-Intellectual

In recent weeks it’s become incredibly clear that maintaining a full-time job, studying for the LSAT, finding time to write passion projects, submitting articles for consistent publishing through credible publications, seeking peace in writing poetry, reading good books, and sending out weekly Substacks might cause a brief yet passionate crashout. This on top of meal prepping, getting hot at the gym, cleaning, finding time for friendships and helping my sister plan her wedding, unfortunately has caused an inability for me to write a thoughtful essay for you guys this week. (No tears, please.)

BUT. I have an idea. And honestly, I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, so I’m actually excited life’s cruel talons entrapped me enough to finally announce this passion project. However, I did complete the first draft of a short story this week so that’s exciting!

This series is called Bad Art, Modernity, & Me in which I take a piece of modern art ranging from TikToks to prestigious museum galleries and discuss what I like or don’t like about it. Here’s the point of this series:

No one denies modern art in America sucks. But, rarely are people able to articulate why. If I firmly believe art holds the capacity to shift cultures, change minds, and open hearts (which I do), then encouraging good art to be created is essential to the well-being of our culture.

Why is it necessary to point out the reasons why specific art is bad, won’t that hurt people’s feelings?

I am not in the business of hurting people’s feelings, but I am in the business of sharing truth. If this cause— changing art in America— is something I’m passionate about then someone needs to share the truth.

I don’t want to come off as mean-spirited, and I will take careful steps to share the truth in love, the last thing I would ever want is to discourage a person from continuing to create beauty, but I do firmly believe good art has the power to inspire others to better life, show the beauty of this world, and—most importantly— be emblematic of our inherent Imago Dei. God wants His children to utilize our Imago Dei and I don’t want to make a person feel like they shouldn’t exercise this.

Art is Subjective

I firmly detest the idea that good art is subjective. Art in itself is subjective, but good art is good art for a reason and therefore it cannot be subjective. For the purposes of this series I will illustrate this point via tiers:

This is all part of a greater purpose called curating your own taste in art which I shall discuss in greater detail at a later date.

Without further adieu, here’s an artist that came across my FYP this morning from @melina.kb on Instagram:

melina.kb

A post shared by @melina.kb

What I like:

• No doubt she has talent for singing! The vocal control on some verses is admirable.

• Visuals in the lyrics really pop-off. Here a few of my favorites: “crying at my coffee-shop,” “filled with Plan-B, books, and mace,” “wipe you record clean.”

• The rawness in her voice.

What I don’t like:

• The lack of truth and in the lyrics.

• The sensationalized dramaticism

• Lady Justice? What in the DC comic…

• The rhyme scheme is a bit off (just a tad though)

What Makes This Objectively Bad

Ultimately, what makes this objectively bad is the lack of truth in the lyrics and the overly-emotional presentation of the song. This isn’t to say emotions are bad. All art should elicit some type of emotion, or at least, deep appreciation in some way, but presentations which become overly-emotional takes away from the talent and drowns out the truth aspect of the art (if there is a truth aspect to be found).

Again, I respect her right to feel this way, I appreciate her talent and the rawness in her voice, but it’s too much and makes me question if she’s being authentic in her actions.

For the reasons above, this video will be placed in the bottom tier: overly-intellectualized/emotional art.

Again, this series is only here on the weeks I cannot complete a full piece of writing by Friday afternoon, but I hope it’s just as meaningful and fun.

I also want to open this series up to you!

If you see a piece of modern art that is objectively bad, send it in! I already take submissions for essays on my Instagram (@softly.shespeaks), I’ll take your suggestions for this series there of via direct message on Substack.

The next couple essays on here are actually suggested from Instagram! Here they are:

1. Why is everyone on social media saying 23 is the worst year of a woman’s life? (Why Christian circles need to stop idealizing marriage).

2. Commercialization of literature (is the publishing industry selling out good stories for a quick buck?) (The answer is yes btw. They are a business money is priority #1).

3. I Just Read Fiction For Fun For the First Time in Five Years: Here’s What I Learned

4. First Poem Published in a Publication!!! (I’ll share on here too once it comes out!).

Do you agree with the placement of her song on the tier? Do you think this will be a fun series? Let me know in the comments!