The Means to Being Original
I’ll be straight-forward with you (and myself): being original is hard.
We live in the age of the internet, where we’re exposed to so many things. We strive to be like that girl we follow on Instagram; her taste in fashion, her face, her body, her hair, her feed, her aesthetic, her sense of humour…
It’s so easy to imitate and emulate others: brands, people, movies, you name it; and I’m not gonna lie, I’ve caught myself copying before — trying to mimic something I’m simply not. It was always obvious to me that that was a bad habit of mine. My awareness was somewhat fixed on that bad habit, but it wasn’t so big of a deal… until just recently when I really started to wake up on the subject. I pondered on it for quite some time: What is originality? How do I put imagery and verbiage on social media that is original to myself?
Firstly, I made the decision to respect others’ creative / social output. Because these individuals — they work hard on their craft — and who knows, it can be deeply personal to them. So, no more copying. I don’t want to strive to be like that one Instagram account — rather, I want to simply be inspired by it and see what I can do to incorporate a little of its essence into my work.
The great Picasso once said good artists copy, great artists steal.
Reflecting on this quote, for me, it means something along the lines of implicitly including the qualities that I love from different people and accounts that I find inspiring, putting them together, building upon them with my own perspectives, and making something beautiful out of it. Something new. Something unique to me. Something quite original — because we can’t always be 100% original. Even the best ideas flourish upon previous ones already put out into the world
What we expose ourselves to shape our identities — so have your own inspirations. Come with your own voice, your own opinion, your own point of view on things. What speaks to you, aesthetically, creatively, and so on, may be entirely different to the next. Think about what things mean to you personally.
Practices and prompts for you to consider:
Scrolling through Instagram or Pinterest, use the save tool to keep pictures that you find sparks an aesthetic connection or inspires you in some way. At the end of each week, look through this collection of yours and reflect on a reoccurring theme that the images revolve around.
Create a mood board: put together clippings from an old magazine, textures / colours that you like, anything, really that shouts out ________ (insert your name)!
Who are the people that you most look up to on social media? Why do you look up to them?
— Solaia