Privilege

I signed up for the painting workshops and if anything I got to see how people did their crafts. The hosts were gracious, the participants were friendly, but being enmeshed in the community for extended time showed me just how privileged getting to treat a hobby as purely a hobby and a money sink had become. It seemed like a foregone conclusion that if you dabble in visual arts in any capacity you would have an Instagram account. And maybe Youtube. I hadn't gotten such bemused reaction from people for saying I'm not on social media for quite a while now. Everyone was doing "content" all day, camera strapped on their necks for POV streaming to traditional point-and-shoots. I accidentally walked through a couple shorts because I didn't realize they were filming. I helped someone do a sketchbook tour by providing the hands flipping the pages off-camera. People were toting around goods sent by companies and talking about review opportunities, Patreon, selling originals... They were all…