"You want to be a doctor? Oh that's nice - excellent career choice."
"A dentist! That sounds lovely."
"A writer? Come on seriously..."
Is it considered less of a great thing being a good writer as it would have been two hundred years ago; are aspiring concert musicians of today somehow less valued than an aspiring biologist?
This thought passed me by when my English teacher accidentally let slip I dipped my toes into poetry now and again (in front of my entire class). What's wrong with that? Most would say, you're doing something creative and I should be proud of it? From some of the subsequent questions and clipped replies, it became clear to me that some classmates were miffed, for lack of a better word, at my creative tendencies.
I'm quite aware of the stigma that comes along with young people writing poetry, (well, from my own experience) that it's for profound, philosophical prats who exist in a new region up their backside that they call enlightenment. This is the stereotype I am terrified of being associated with, and so why I feel really embarrassed telling people I enjoy writing/reading poetry.
It's an awful thought, maybe a testimony to my weakness of character, but I think that this could affect more people than just my sorry self? A very dear friend of mine writes and performs her own music, but feels uncomfortable saying "I wrote a song last night!" - The joy I feel when I finish a poem I think is half-decent, or my friend would get when finishing a song is capped to a degree, when you can only tell certain people.
This may have contributed to the explosion of "internet poets", people publishing their poetry on their blogs or websites, alongside the staggering multitude of musicians, artists and many more who have a presence online to display their work, (myself included) as opposed to a plateau to display their work to people they know in 'real life'.
(some extremely generic examples)
- http://www.tumblr.com/search/poetry
- http://www.deviantart.com/
- https://soundcloud.com/
Is this a localised thing to just myself, (I'm a shameful example) or has this been experienced by other people?
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