The Most Demotivating thing you have ever been told

[DaphnePanda]

That sounds awful! Wtf. Your art is amazing! That's really messed up.

Are all art teachers like this?

Definitely not. I had an art teacher that was super supportive of his students in all of their art endeavours and went out of his way to help them with what they wanted to do. Llyrel's was just an asshole.

[Crusoe]

That's good to hear! Because honestly all of my artteachers except like one who was decent have been kinda awful in that regard.

[NickRowler]

"You can't be a writer." -parents and teachers

I had really by dyslexia as a kid, couldn't spell, was a very slow reader. People enjoyed my doodles from a young age and they said that I should find someone to write to pair my drawings with. They would word it in a way that people with dyslexia shouldn't be writers, that should only be more the kids who get A's on their spelling tests. However just because you can spell well doesn't mean you know how to write or construct a story.

[DaphnePanda]

What?! Maybe I just got really lucky then

[Crusoe]

I agree! I have two dyslexic friends who are both brilliant writers! They just need more time to figure out how to edit their work.

[Macarenaoftime]

I don't know if to find this thread encouraging or aniexy inducing. How can people be so insensible

[derekh95]

Insert "Road to El Dorado" meme
Both?
Both.
Both is good.

[Llyrel]

Are all art teachers like this?

Thankfully not, lol! I had a whole bunch of really good teachers, but yep, there were also a couple of buttholes like the one I mentioned, unfortunately D: Mine in particular wasn't particulary obsessed with realistic or abstract art, though... she was a children's illustrator and apparently thought that ALL drawings had to be for children. If you dared to do anything that wasn't suited for a five years old, your stuff was automatically bad and you were a failure as an artist ._.

If there's one thing I learned from this whole experience as I recently got into the world of teaching myself, though, is to never, EVER treat my students like that.

And aaaaw, thank you so much, @DaphnePanda! O <3

[DiscountedArtist]

Well, about two months ago I made a comic. I was making comics under a different name and stuff. I shared one of my comics here, and someone told me "where's the dislike button?" and "quit please." I took a two week break, and to this day it still makes me sad even though I don't make comics like that anymore.

[HGohwell]

Not quite demotivating but in the same way but I once shared a design with a friend, just a single character design with a name and no other information, for a potential new project just as a "hey what do you think of this design?" and the first thing they said was "no one wants another story about some cishet white dude". I left the conversation right there and was pretty angry for a while and then hit a big slump.

In a more conventionally demotivating sense, someone I very much trusted and admired as a fellow writer, I was bouncing some new plot ideas off of them, just tossing out ideas, and out of nowhere they told me "wow you really do just write the same story over and over and think you're being creative, don't you?" and I honestly had no idea what to say to that. To be honest, I'm still not entirely sure how to. I don't think I write the same story over and over, but what if I am and I'm too close to it too tell?

[domisotto]

Ouch, that’s just mean. Like, really, can’t people just take a break when they are in that mood?

[DiscountedArtist]

Like, really, can’t people just take a break when they are in that mood?

I had one other encounter with someone who was in a bad mood. Then we just talked the next day and now we're fine. I haven't talked to the first person though.

[impossiblesoul]

When I was teenager, I became a fan of a webcomic called Slightly Damned, and so I got involved with the chatroom the writer had set up. They had a bot account in there with commands you could give it - one of them being the ability to speak through it.

I was going through an edgy/emo nihilistic phase, and otherwise I'm not even sure why I said it, but I made the bot say, "God isn't real."

The writer of the comic was there and she blasted me for it. She then asked me why I made the bot say that, and my anxious reply was something like, "I don't know I was just having fun," and she responds,

"Oh so you're just an idiot. Got it."

I had looked up to her as an idol in my childhood because I loved her storytelling so much. I had other things going poorly in my life at the time so that was the needle on the haystack that finally killed my self-esteem. I stopped writing short stories for a couple years.

Looking back on it now, I know I took it too seriously, but hindsight is 20/20.

[DiscountedArtist]

"Oh so you're just an idiot. Got it."

I hate how people will act like they know who you are on the internet. Especially when you were just making a joke.

[KJWhitten]

Well the most demotivating thing I received so far was from a book club that I used to be part of. A member of the club told me my grammar was so bad that they had to stop reading. Then they told me to go hire an editor. What they said stuck with me for a while and I didn't write anything for some time.

Luckily some writer friends read my book and told me they liked the story so far. A close friend of mine praised it and so my motivation came back.

[sxxaint]

That's so horrible of them to say! Especially in such a casual way

Mine was probably a pretty savage book review I got over on wattpad. The reviewer actually said my story was 'painful to read' because my prose was so confusing. I was just like well ... this is ... just how i write...

It sure gave my confidence a hit 'cause it's my first time ever sharing my writing with people.

[domisotto]

Ouch. Yeah, the struggle to understand just what exactly is confusing... heh. A couple of people corrected my text to the point it was so dry, it read like a manual for 5 yo’s. At some point, I decided that there are people who can make connections as they read, and those who simply can’t. And there is very little I can do to involve the latter group.

[Shadymeadows]

Wow, reminds me of my figure drawing teacher in college but even worse! A teacher that bad should be fired for being judgmental. there is nothing constructive about dissing someone and giving no specifics on how to improve. It's more like these teachers just want you to abandon the arts all together.
My bad teacher yelled at me for having too much of a "comic style" and told me I couldn't draw my characters on my lunch break with ink I bought. I tried my best to be traditional but she always said it wasn't good enough.

[KoreanTacos]

I keep it as a constant reminder, and this was a critique

[Random_Guy]

I... admittedly can't really think of anything. I've heard a lot of demoralizing, excessive criticism in my time, but I've also had plenty of situations of being excessively praised for my work. Neither of which are helpful.