The Audience Doesn't Know What It Wants

People always know if they like something or not. They don't know what about it they like or why they like it. That's all well and good. These people are the audience. They want to be entertained. If they wanted to create, they would be creators. The relationship between creator and audience is simple and it works: the creator finds what the audience likes and the audience enjoys it when the creator gets it right.

But this isn't the dynamic anymore. Ever since American Idol, people in power have decided that the audience should make the calls (or at least make it look like that). And now the audience feels entitled to have their opinions heard and followed. The problem with this new relationship is that it makes for a good business model, but terrible art. Of course, it isn't quite new in a certain sense. Focus groups have existed for a very long time and they basically do the same thing.

Paul Graham makes an interesting point on this matter, though: "I just got an iPod, and it's not just nice. It's surprisingly nice. For it to surprise me, it must be satisfying expectations I didn't know I had. No focus group is going to discover those. Only a great designer can."

Anybody can take advice and give people what they are told to give, but that can only go so far. A great creator knows great work and will create it when allowed to. I wish the masses could understand that and trust creators to make great work. Of course, I also understand why they don't want to. Too many creators just don't produce. Anybody can create and share it with the world. There are no filters to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Look at the world of fan fiction. The amount of writing in that field that is about random gay sex or Mary Sue characters is a percentage well above 99. However, that percentage is not 100. Amazing, beautifully-written, well-thought-out fan fiction that has no plot holes and doesn't contradict the canon exists. It is rare, but I have seen it with my own eyes. But as an audience member, how can I trust a person who even says that they write fan fiction?

Word of mouth helps, but that is a chain reaction that is not easy to start. Good advertising can get people to look at it, which is the first step, (the quality of the work itself should do the job of keeping an audience). But how do we get those initial people interested? What does good advertising do that draws those first people to even give it a shot?

From what I hear of the real world, it's not what you know, but who you know that matters. Depressing though it is, there is something to be said for it. Who am I? Right now, I am any random nobody who thinks they have the next great comic. Why should you trust me? Because I say so? Does anybody whose opinion matters say so? Maybe if I got an endorsement by some famous people, you would trust that my work is good, or at least try it out. What if I belonged to a production company? Then it would mean I'm good enough to pass that company's quality standards, which is a level you can set your watch to. Unfortunately, those don't really exist, at least not in any particularly functional level in the field of webcomics.

Unfortunately, I am currently left with an uphill battle. I know it is difficult, stressful, and time consuming just to do the work needed for a moderate readership, but it's just another one of those tests of passion. The fact that I am willing to charge into this difficulty head on shows that I care about this enough to deal with whatever gets thrown my way.