🎭 The Cult of Creative Purity

There’s a peculiar new religion rising among creators.
It doesn’t have saints or sermons, just a collection of smug Instagram carousels and the occasional tweet about “staying true to your art.”

You can spot its disciples easily. They’re the ones who begin every sentence with “I don’t create for the algorithm” — before posting precisely when the algorithm likes it most.

They’ll tell you money corrupts art while dropping a link to their Patreon. They’ll sneer at “content creators” as though “content” is a dirty word, forgetting that art has always been content — it just used to be delivered on canvas instead of in pixels.

Welcome to the Cult of Creative Purity — where irony is the house wine and hypocrisy is the main course.

The Myth of the Untouched Artist

There’s this romantic fantasy that still clings to the creative world like cigarette smoke in a basement café — that real artists are meant to suffer in obscurity, making pure things for pure reasons, untouched by the dirty fingers of commerce or attention.

It’s a nice story. Comforting, even.
But it’s also complete nonsense.

Art has always existed in tension with the world around it — funded by patrons, influenced by culture, and shaped by what people wanted to see, hear, or feel. Shakespeare wrote for ticket sales. Michelangelo painted for the Pope. Even Van Gogh — poor, misunderstood Van Gogh — desperately wanted to be recognised.

The only difference now is that our Popes are called followers and our patrons are subscribers.

Yet somewhere along the way, we began worshipping the idea that if you want to make money or get noticed, your work must somehow be less authentic. As though the act of being seen taints the soul.

That’s not purity.
That’s just insecurity with a creative spin.

The Algorithmic Priesthood

Let’s be honest — the modern creative scene isn’t some noble resistance to capitalism. It’s an audition. Everyone’s trying to get noticed while pretending not to.

Creators now perform a delicate dance of denial: I’m not doing this for engagement — says the person checking their analytics like a stockbroker on caffeine.

We post, we edit, we optimise. Then we pretend we don’t care.
We use the language of rebellion — authenticity, vulnerability, realness — all while curating every breath of it.

It’s not wrong. It’s just dishonest.
The truth is, we do care about reach, because reach is visibility, and visibility is survival.

The algorithm isn’t our enemy. It’s the marketplace we’re currently living in — annoying, yes, but not inherently evil. The real danger is when we pretend we’re above it, because that’s when creativity starts suffocating under the weight of its own self-righteousness.

The Messy Middle

Here’s where I land on it:
Art without an audience is a diary.
Commerce without art is a billboard.
But between the two — in that messy, unpredictable middle — that’s where the real work happens.

I don’t trust anyone who claims their art is “pure.”
Purity is sterile. Lifeless. It’s the creative equivalent of wrapping your soul in plastic to keep it safe.

I’d rather make something flawed and alive. Something that contradicts itself, sells out a little, confesses too much, and still manages to reach someone who says, “God, I felt that.”

That’s the point, isn’t it?
To reach. To connect.
To make something that ripples beyond your own head.

Confession of a Modern Heretic

So yes — I write for joy and for rent.
I chase meaning and engagement.
I want to be authentic and noticed.

That doesn’t make me impure. It makes me honest.

Because let’s face it: the “pure artist” is often just the insecure one who’s too scared to fail publicly. The “sellout” at least had the guts to ship something.

And in the end, what will matter isn’t how untainted your process was, but how alive your work felt — to you, and to the world that met it.

Maybe that’s the real rebellion now.
Not pretending to be above the noise — but learning to make something worth hearing through it.

Because purity never made anything worth remembering.
But passion — unfiltered, conflicted, human passion — still does.

“If this struck a nerve, you might also like Value Without the Varnish — a piece about connection, truth, and why we’re all tired of the performance.”

Until Next Time