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Copyright© David Gauntlett 2018

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Firsr edition published in 2011 by Polity Press This second edition published in 2018 by Polity Press

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Names: Gauntlett, David, author. Title: Making is connectin~ : the social power of creativity, from craft and

knitting to rugiral ev::'l'°'ing / David Gauntlen.. . .. Description: Second edioon. I .\1edford, MA : Pobty, 2018.- I_ ReV1Sed edition

of the author's Making is connecnng, 2011. I Includes b1bhograph1ca l references and index.

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Subjects: LCSH: Social networks. I Creaove ab1hty--SOC1al aspects. I ~ eb . 2.0-Social aspects. I Culture. I BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE I ~erua Studies.

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements Vl

Preamble to the second edition 1 1 Introduction 9 2 The meaning of making I: Philosophi es of craft 30 3 The meanin g of making II: Craft today 56 4 The meaning of making ill: Digital 91 5 The value of connecti ng: Personal happin ess and

social capital 112 6 Tools for change 146 7 Online creativity needs better platforms 165 8 Making connections and th e creative process:

From music to everything 192 9 Doing it yourself: More lessons from music

making and connecting 207 10 Platfo rms for creativity 231 11 Conclusion 252

Notes 277 Index 313

1 1

CONCLUS I ON

In this concluding chapter I will begin by summarizing and pulling together key arguments from the book. This starts with a section about our phi losophical heroes, John Ruskin and William Morris, as I want to reiterate their core points and connect them with today's issues. Then everything else is boiled down into a set of seven key principles, namely:

1. A new understanding of creativity as process, emotion and presence

2. The drive to make and share 3. Happiness through creativity and community 4. A middle layer of creativity as social glue 5. Making your mark, and making the world your own 6. All media are social media 7. Do it yourself and self-transformation

I will outline each of these, and then discuss some of the political connotations of the 'making is connecting' thesis.

CO NC I .US JON

Finally, I will offer some positive thoughts about building and connecting creativity. 1

THE LESSONS OF RUSKIN AND MORRIS

We started the book with a discussion of the ideas about eve- ryday creativity suggested by the Victorian social critics John Ruskin and WiUiam Morris. These arguments, after 150 years, remain extremely powerful and relevant. We saw that making things is part of the process of thinking about things. Making leads to pleasures and understandings, gained within the process of making itself, which otherwise would not be

achieved. We also saw how amateur craft, and what I call everyday

creativity, has been consistently derided over two centuries. The manufacture of everyday objects, and the media of enter- tainment and information, has become professionalized, and it is in the interests of those companies and professionals to run down the work of amateurs (altl1ough they do not always do so)2. Meanwhile, 'a rt' itself has aJso become a professional field of experts and elites, who carefully police the borders of their practice. A significant part of the joy of craft, and online creativity, is of course that it does not rely on hier- archies of experts and elites to be validated, and does not depend on editors and gatekeepers for its circulation.

Ruskin made the excellent point that roughly-made and non-professional things embody a kind of celebration of humanity's imperfections - the very fact that we are not machines. The collaborative mish-mash that characterizes many social media services is a heightened version of this. Ruskin argued that human creativity must be unleashed, and should risk failure and shame, so that the richness of human - ity could be properly expressed. You may remember that he was thrilled by the sometimes silly and ugly sculptures to be

CONCLtrSION

found ornamenting Gothic cathedrals, as they were signs of the uninhibited life and freedom of quirky individual artisans. Th.is is rather like the point made by internet commenta- tor Clay Shirky, in his book Cognitive Surplus, that even daft websites - such as those collecting silly photos of cats with comic captions - reflect a zesty, everyday, creative liveliness which we should embrace and value, especially because they suggest to other everyday amateurs that 'You can play th.is game too'. 3

Ruskin also helped us to make the connection from indi- vidual creativity to the 'big picture' of social stability and vitality. He showed that societies may establish apparently rational systems, which are intended to 'cure' inefficiencies, but which as a side-effect silence individual voice and stran- gle independent creativity, and so ultimately create a much greater sickness. This Ruskin point also has a modem-day counterpart, in the recent work of Nick Couldry, which we will discuss in a few pages.

Ruskin's enthusiastic supporter, William Morris, was a creative p1-oducer throughout his life, as well as critic of industry and politics. He drew our attention to the fact that we need models of good practice. Criticizing present realities is important but insufficient. It can be hard to picture what the future would look like, and so to be making things, as examples of future creative diversity, in the here and now, offers a powerful and tangible form of inspiration to others - and challenges the apparent inevitability of the present. This idea is shared by the makers of punk zines, and the knitters, stitchers and guerrilla gardeners, as well as the makers of YouTube videos and Soundcloud recordings, who show by vivid example that you do not have to accept all of main- stream culture, and can start to create you r own alternatives instead.

Morris contended that people need to be able to make

CONCLUSION

their mark on the world, give shape to their environments, and share knowledge, ideas and self-expression. Ivan Illich made the same points, in a different way, 100 years later. Both thinkers observed that these opportunities provide a feeling of joy - or, when they are Jacking, a dull misery. These argu- ments are today more vital than ever, and since we live in a world with so many media - and, now, so much potentinl for everyday personally made and distributed media - they offer a kind of prescription for how we shou ld proceed.

Since - as critics of this book may like to point out - the majority of people remain, most of the time, viewers and consumers of mainstream professional stuff rather than makers and sharers of amateur material, this is a prescription that may seem ambitious and radical. But there are clearly many signs of th.is potential - not least of a ll i_n the stagger- ing g rowth of people using social networks where personal creative material is shared.

SEVE r KEY PRINCIP L ES

This book has highlighted a number of key principles, which I offer as tools for thinking about everyday life, creativity and media. Here, I have tried to draw together the main points, and numbered them from one to seven.

1. A new understanding of creativity ns process, emotion and presence

The standard definition says that creativity should be judged on its outcomes, which are required to be original and paradigm-shifting. I argued that this way of understanding creativity is unsatisfactory because it rejects eve1yday activ- ity that we would normally describe, in a 'common-sense' way, as creative; and especially because it is about the final

GONCLllS ION

product, rather than the process. There also seemed to be a philosophical flaw in a definition of creativity which would not enable anyone to identify 'creativity' unless they hap- pened to be in possession of a God-like overview of the history of previous innovations in that sphere. A new defi- nition was therefore proposed, in longer and shorter forms (see the discussion on pages 84-90). The shorter one was this:

Everyday creativity refers to a process which brings together at least 011e active human mind, and the material or digital world, in the activity of making something which is novel in that con- text, a11d is a process which evokes a feeling of joy.

This approach to creativity is valuable, I would say, because it correctly recognizes the imaginative process of, say, knitters and bakers, amateur engineers, gardeners, LEGO enthusi- asts, bloggers an d YouTube video-makers, as the creative activity that it is - engaged in because the makers want to, and because it gives them pleasure. In the longer version of the revised definition of creativity, we also recognized that others may be able to sense the presence of the maker, in the thing they have made - the unavoidably distinctive finger- print that the thinking-and-making individual leaves on their work, which can foster a sense of shared feeling and common cause, even when maker and audience never meet.

2. The drive to make and share

It is clearly the case, as we have seen from a range of offline and online cases mentioned in this book, that people like to make and share things. This may not be alt people, partly because modern life has sought to render personal creativ- ity unnecessary, but it is s011u people, with the potential to

CONCLUS ION 2D7

be many. They enjoy making and sharing things without the need for external rewards such as money or celebrity; although low-level recognition and reputation - being able to impress the people around you - may be a motivating force. But people do just do it anyway.

In the discussion of motivations in chapters 3 and 4, we saw that people often spend time creating things because they want to feel alive in the world, as participants rather than viewers, and to be active and recognized within a community of interesting people. It is common that they wish to make their existence, their interests and their personality more visible in the contexts that are significant to them, and they want this to be noticed. The process of making is enjoyed for its own sake, of course: there is pleasure in seeing a pro- ject from start to finish, and the process provides space for thought and reflection, and helps to cultivate a sense of the self as an active, creative agent. Bur there is also a desire to connect and communicate with others, and - especially online - to be an active participant in dialogues and com- munities. These are impulses which shoul.d be supported and developed by the websites and technologies of the future - as well as tl,e toys and games, education and government pro- grammes, and everything else of the future, as we will discuss in the 'implications' section below.

3. Happin ess through creativity and comrmmity

We have seen that humans are very bad at predicting what will make us more happy. Indeed, it is a matter of historical and current fact that we typically allocate time to activities which are the wrong ones, working harder in an attempt to increase wealth, at the expense of the social engagement which can actually improve.our enjoyment of life.

Happiness research shows that happiness is strongly

CONCLUS I ON

associated with the quality of our relationships and our con- nections with others. Nothing else comes dose. Richard Layard, a leading economist and happiness researcher, even ends up saying: 'Increasingly, research confirms the dominating importance of love.'4 In chapter 5 we saw that happiness is also heavily associated with self-esteem, and having projects to work on; and that work needs to be mean- ingful if we are to be satisfied and healthy. Crucially, we saw that although the happiness research identifies a number of variables and circumstances which should be able to assure humans of greater happiness, we cannot simply line up the 'correct' lifestyle elements and expect happiness to flood in. Happiness has to be worked towards, and it Aows from action, not passivity.

All of this suggests that creative projects, especially when either online, or offline but linked via onli_ne platfonns, are invaluable for human happiness. We should also remember Layard's stark warning that shared purpose is essentia l for human stability, otherwise we can find ourselves unexpect- edly crushed by loneliness and stress. 'The current pursuit of self-realisation will not work', he says, least of all from the consumption of readymade products. 5 Communication, exchange, and collaboration in the production of everyday life, ideas and community, are much more rewarding.

4. A middle layer of creativity as social glue

Social scientists have traditionally analysed social life at the level of individuals, groups and families - the down to earth 'micro' level - or in terms of organizations, institutions and governments - the more abstract 'macro' level. More imagi- native analysts, such as sociologist Anthony Giddens, have sought to connect the two levels by showing how the percep- tion of macro-level expectations influences individual micro

CONG L US ION

behaviour, and how everyday practices can in turn reinforce, or change, the macro established order.6

The discussion in this book, however, has often concerned activity in what we might call a middle layer. Social capita l theory, as we saw in chapter 5, suggested that 'meso-level social structures' could act as 'integrating elements' between individuals and society.7 Making and sharing activities, online and offiine, can be seen as a disorganized (or, rather, Lightly self-organized) cloud of creative Jinks which can bind people together. These ties ma y not necessarily forge links between individuals and formal institutions, but they cer- tainly connect people witl1 otl1ers in unexpected, unplanned and perhaps rather anarchic ways. This creative cloud carries no single coherent message, but its existence, representing people doing what they want to do, because they want to do it, raises a challenge to the Lifestyles of individual consumers, and to the ambitions of organized businesses and govern- ments. These are people who want to make their own stuff, rather than only having stuff that is made commercially or on an industrial scale; and who are interested in that kind of thing made by others.

5. Making your mnrk, and making the world your own

Human beings need to be able to make their mark on the world, and to give shape and character to the environments that they live in. They need taols to do this, as Ivan Illich showed (see chapter 6). Ideally, these are tools which can be used in any way that a person likes, to do whatever they want. Tools which only offer a predetermined set of opportunities, or which are scaled up to provide uniform 'solutions', Illich warned, deny creativity and impose the fixed meanings of others. But mastery of a cr~ative tool means that an individ- ual can invest the world with meaning, and thereby 'enrich

l:IIH CONCl.llSION

Lhe environment' with the fruits of their vision.8 This is not a specific roadmap towards a better society: the vision is only that there must be the ever-present possibility and potential of unpredictable and unplanned creativity - and that the tools for this must be readily available and easy to use.

This mention of such tools may lead modern readers to immediately think of online services, and it comes with implications for how such digital tools should be designed. It means that social media tools should be as open and as inviting of creativity as possible; and offer platforms where people can truly make their mark, express themselves, and shape the environment. As Jaron Lanier has argued (see chapter 7), it cannot involve simplistic templates where identities are reduced to a tick-box level. Expressive messi- ness, rather than Facebook-style neatness, is therefore to be encouraged - even by those of us who, for whatever psy- chological reason, prefer things to be tidy. Furthermore, distinctive creative contributions, and individual expressive voices, should be distinguishable - not mushed-together - so that we can respect and recognize each other as individuals.

Ideally, we need sustainable online platforms, offering a service to citizens without advertising or unnecessary sur- veillance, underpinned by the common good rather than profit-seeking motives. This may sound expensive and unlikely in modern societies, but for example, in the UK the BBC collects £3.7 billion in licence fee income each year to support its public service media operation.9 The greatest public service that such an organization could offer today would be a fully non-commercial online video and social network service, guaranteed for the long term, a platfonn for the creativity of everybody.

Furthermore, as we saw in chapter 10, society would benefit from 'platforms for creativity' of all kinds - not just online platforms but also events, environments, tools and

CONCI.USION 20 1

toys that support people to initiate creative projects and share their work with others. These platforms typically come with an invitation to do something, and should be open, easy to engage with, and foster helpful communities. Sometimes these communities come to take on a particular character, or attract certain kinds of person, which is fine, but it means also that we need to ensure that there is a broad diversity of making platforms and opportunities, so that people of differ- ent backgrounds and experiences and preferences feel that there are creative communities that they can become a part

of.

6. All 111edifl are social media

When people were first starting to talk about 'social media' - meaning digital platforms where people could connect and interact - some old-schoolers liked to say 'of course, all kinds of media have always been socia l media'. What they meant was that we shouldn't forget about o ld media like radio and television because there was a long tradition of people writ- ing letters to broadcasters and newspapers - which were essentially ignored - although in a tiny proportion of cases they were published or broadcast before being ignored. I'm not making that point. I don't really care about those emphatically one-way vehicles - they barely ever counted as mediums (media) of communication at all, if you think that communication is a rwo-way process, which it is. (And when I say 'two-way' here I mean 'two-or-more way', of course.)

But I do want to embrace the wide meaning of social media, so that we do count in all of the genuinely two-way or participatory means of exchanging information, emotion and ideas - so it's a happy yes to pianos, paint and sticks, and a hearty thwnbs-up to pens, wool, LEGO, clay, stickers and charcoal. And a whole load of other nouns.

202 CONCLUS IO N

The point of consider:ing media this broadly is to connect and integrate how we think about all the different ways in which humans can exchange, engage and relate. It's easy to think of digital media as a unique new part of human experi- ence, and to focus on specific gadgets and services, and the th:ings that people do with them. But I think the greater under- standings come from thinking about this hardware, software and activfry as part of arts, crafts and culture more generally; and to think of the feel:ings and needs that they engage with as essentially timeless human emotions and yearnings.

7. Do it yourself rmd self-transformation

The 'do it yourself' (DIY) ethos runs throughout this book, unsurprisingly, since making and connecting are things that you have to do yourself. 10 And you do them for yourself because they're good for you - and, perhaps, for others. In terms of which media we would be talking about, the opposite of DIY would be those twentieth-century types of one-way media, such as broadcast radio and television, and things that don't want you to participate or play with them. DIY is not powerful because of the stuff that is made, but because of the feelings and meanings of the process.

Making something yourself can be both a pleasure and a challenge - most probably a mix of both, and of course the chal lenges can heighten the pleasures. Making things can be about building external relationships, but is also about self- worth. I think the essence of this was captured by Peter Korn when he explained, rather beautifully, in chapter 8: 'None of us enter our studios because the world desperately requires another painting or symphony or chair .... We engage in the creative process to become more of whom we'd like to be and, just as important, to discover more of whom we might become.'11

CONGl,US ION 20:l

In making and reflecting - in seeing what we can do, and how we can prompt feel:ings of fascination, curiosity, pride and joy in ourselves and others - and connecting with others through the social practices surrounding creative endeavour - we encounter great opporrunities to learn, grow and change.

TIIE POLITICAL CO 1 NOTATIONS OF

' MAKfNG IS CONNECTING'

This book is built on a broad general understanding that people are happier, more engaged with the world, and more likely to develop or learn, when they are doing and making things for themselves, rather than having things done and made for them. This obviously lines up with liberal and countercultural notions of self-reliance and independence, but at the same time could appear to steer close to core right-wing or reactionary ideas: that the poor and disadvan- taged do not deserve our support, as they are simply people who have failed to do the necessary things to ensure their own well-being; who expect to have 'things done for them' rather than solving their own problems. Of course, this is not my intention. 'Making is connecting' suggests that soci- ety is stronger, and kinder, when we take time to listen to the voices around us, when we pay attention to the diverse sto- ries presented through the everyday creativity of our fellow human beings, and when we engage helpfully in the world. To suggest that it is reward:ing and inspiring to make and fix things for oneself, rather than relying on external forces, is not at all to say that there should not be external services which provide security and support for individuals, families and communities.

In particular, when we are talking about media, art and culture, a kind of do-it-yourself individualism, or

204 CONCLI TSJON

do-it-with-others collaboration - with wide part:1c1pation across the population - is highly defensible, since otherwise we only have a choice of large-scale monolithic solutions (such as broadcast television stations) or more distinctive but elite ones (such as the artworld system of 'star' artists and inter- national galleries, where having the right kind of education, sponsors, and jargon, are necessary markers of worthiness). Compared with mass-market populism on the one hand, and pretentious eLltism on the other, the multitudinous and diverse fruits of the 'make it yourself ethic, or the 'make it with others' ethfr - as seen across YouTube and the rest of the Web, and in craft fairs, guerrilla gardening interven- tions, and elsewhere - are easily the winners.

The DIY ethic in everyday culture is wholly different from, say, the Thatcherite do-it-yourself notion which is encapsulated in Norman Tebbit's famous 1981 statement that his unemployed father had 'got on his bike and looked for work', a phrase often sLlghtly misremembered as a direct command to the unemployed to 'get on your bike' (which, although a misquote, represents the implied meaning). This right-wing version of self-reliance, which implies that poverty or unemployment are a consequence of personal laziness, stems from the view that all of life is fundamentally a marketplace, within which some products (or people) will succeed, whilst others fail. This is the mindset which today is known as neoliberalism - the idea that markets and market forces are the primary way to understand and organize not only economics, but also poLltics and society.

I would say that the ideals associated with 'making is connecting' - individual and collective creativity, self-expres- sion and sharing - offer a challenge to the neoLlberal vision of society, consumerism and education. I am helped in this by the recent work of Nick Couldry, the LSE, University of London professor who has emerged as one of the sharp-

CONCLUSION 2015

est analysts of the intersection between politics, culture and communications on multiple levels. In his book Why Voice Matters: Culture and Politics after Neoliberalism, Couldry charts the ways in which neoLlberalism has become naturalized in social and political life over the past couple of decades, and argues that human 'voice' may be the most powerful tool to erode its power. As he explains:

Voice as a process - giving an account of oneself and what affects one's life - is an irreducible part of what it means to be human; effective voice (the effective opportunity to have one's voice heard and taken into account) is a human good. 'Voice' might therefore appear unquestionable as a value. But across various domains - economic, political, cultural - we are governed in ways that deny the value of voice and insist instead on the primacy of market functioning. 12

Being opposed to neoliberalism does not mean that one is opposed to markets per se. Markets may be a good way to organize a number of things, such as trade and employment - with some regulation to ensure decent practices, such as minimum wage laws. Neoliberalism, however, is the belief that markets are the only lens through which to run anything, or to assess the value of anything. It is manifested in many ways, and becomes apparent when individuals are seen as simply customers and consumers, and workers become face- less 'service providers'. It means that the 'voice' of people is denied, because they can only express themselves through choices within the existing market, which is not genuine self- expression at all.

The perspective of neoliberalism, Couldry argues, seeps into all aspects of society and culture, shaping our assumptions and expectations, and ultimately making some approaches common-sense and other views alien. For

260 CONCLUSION

example, in education, the influence of neoliberal.ism means that students become 'customers' who assume that their purpose is to purchase and extract a quaJjfication as simply as possible, rather than engage in a process of discovery, learning and growth. For their teachers, the work becomes a matter of handing over the relevant packages of 'knowl- edge' in a uniform manner - the practice which can be most simply unified and audited, at the cost of individuality and creativity. In businesses and organizations, the influence of neoliberalism means that individuals become 'brand repre- sentatives', whose work takes over more and more of their l.ives and demands a particular performance of passion and enthusiasm, the better to sell the brand, but not as an invitation to genuine self-expression. In media and commu- nications, thls trend led, for instance, to the rise of 'reality TV', which appears to give a voice to individuals but only as pare of an edited package produced by professiona ls, not as an actual vehicle for self-expression.

CREATIVITY AND BElNG UEA RD

My own argument here would be that, aJthough mass-market broadcasting, conswuerism and 'neoliberal rationality' are currently well embedded in our society and culture, we have seen in thls book the seeds of a possible new direction. Part of the way people may now be finding a voice is by using the internet in particular ways. CouJdry's Why Voice Matters acknowledges online communication at various points but is not primarily concerned with it; and his brief discussion of online political practices generally involves a conventional understanding of political activity (such as onl.ine circu- lation of photographic evidence by activists; antiwar and environmental campaigning websites and networks; and other onlme means to communicate and organize protest

C ONGI. USION 207

and opinion to governments). However, he does also point towards a rethinkmg of what politics means - a 'politics of politics' which would aim to reimagine and re-enable collec- tive participation in public affairs13 - which, in the 'everyday' contexts we are concerned with here, could, I think, involve finding new meaning within our own participation in society through creative making and sharing.

If we are willing to consider an optimistic possibility, I wouJd argue that the 'making is connecting' power of the internet, which in turn may be seeding and inspiring other offiine (or both on- and offline) activities, offers us a poten- tial way to disrupt the inevitability and dominance of the one-size-fits-all broadcasting and consumerism model, and to enhance the power of voice. For voice to be meaning- ful, people need opportunities and tools for self-expression, but - as Couldry asserts - they also need to be effectively heard. As we saw in chapter 7, the existence of social media technologies, or companies, does not guarantee this in any way, and indeed the commercial nature of the tools can be the basis of significant concern. Furthermore, the resources of skills, techniques, networks and contacts which can help some people to get heard are not equally distributed - some people can speak with much louder voices than others. This can be seen on Twitter, where there seems to be a class of 'ordinary' users, who typically have fewer than 500 followers, and a class of high-status Tweeters, who are likely to have well over 5,000, and are much more active. And of course, a majority of people are not on Twitter at all. Similarly, the very point of the 'long tail' of videos on YouTube is that most videos, wrulst available, are very rarely watched by anybody. 14

However, what we do know about online communication is that, although the capacity to be ' heard' is not evenly dis- tributed, it does not only follow traditional or straightforward

268 CONCLUSION

patterns either. In terms of being able to make attractive online content, an indjvidual needs to acquire and develop certain skills. Anyone with the basic eqwpment can do this, although some amount of literacy and computer Literacy is necessary, and a certam flair for design, and self-promotion, can also be helpful. In terms of becoming heard - a distinct further step, once the content has been created - the sensible individual makes use of existing online networks in a bid to push their material in front of others who may then pass on the links to yet more others. The same kind of 'anyone' can do this too. Previously-existing fame or status can definitely help - that's a fact- but it is not at all necessary. Many people have become popular bloggers and YouTube video-makers even though they had no previous platform, celebrity, or rel- evant contacts. In the online discussion of social and political matters, it is true that college-educated professionals, and in particular already-established journalists, commentators, politicians, organizations and think-tanks get a huge boost in visibiUty (whjch is largely the point of Matthew Hindman's book The Myth of Digital Democracy) 15 • But it is still true that unconventional, minority and non-professional voices also can get heard.

It is worth noting that in order to feel supported and encouraged in their creative efforts, people do not necessarily need a huge audience or network. The pleasure in connecting with other people through creativity, and therefore feeling more connected with the world - becoming heard and rec- ogruzed, and starting to feel that there may be some point in trying to make a difference - can develop through interac- tions with small numbers of like-minded people. We should also remember that for those who wish to have a voice, and be heard, all of this is much, much different to the previous situation, just twenty-five years ago, where you had to be one of the absolute elite, employed by a media organization, and

C ONCLllSION 200

selected to produce content, to even get to speak. Today, a lot of non-elite, non-professional people are creating and sharing media, making their mark on the world and sharing what they have to say about an incredibly diverse range of spheres and subjects, from parenting to pajnting, ecology to economics, diabetes to discrimination, lifestyles, poetry, sci- ence, and everything else. They also make things which are simply meant to be beautiful, inspiring, or entertaining.

It is partly for these reasons that this book has not primar- ily concerned itself with explicitly 'political' activity online, or with the work of 'craftivists' who combine craft activity with political activism. 16 I have not focused on these more obvious centres of poli tical activity because this book is about the idea that making and sharing is already a political act. Taken bit by bit, it's small stuff. Each little pebble of creative activity is easily lost in the general landscape, which is domi- nated by varjous big beasts such as social institutions, popular broadcasters and giant supermarkets. 17 But those pebbles all add up, and cumulatively could reach as high as any of the big beasts. We have already seen that the huge numbers of people engaging with a vast array of homemade things on YouTube present a severe challenge to the professional mass-market TV stations, which until recently had asswned that they were the natural providers of what people wanted. If we are willing to be optimistic, this could just be the start of a substantial shift from the one-size-fits-all industrial fast food culture of the twentieth century, towards a homemade, slow-cooked, highly diverse feast of meaningful engagement, sharing and playfulness fo the twenty-first. This would be based on an ethics of understanding, self-expression, rec- ognition and respect, rather than a general assumption that people shouldn't mmd parking their own personalities under a readymade platter of mass-market identities.

If you're not optimistic, you can note that the ways in

270 CONCLUS I ON

which the internet has connected u p the narrow-minded and supported them to mutually reinforce their views have led to darker days. The internet reflects the world, and some- times the world is much less kind than you would wish. But awful political surprises such as Trump and Brexit emerge because people feel disenfranchised, so talking about activi- ties and technologies that will give people more of a voice ought to be part of the solution. If it is the perceived divide between the elites and the masses that causes the masses to vote for disruptive change, even when the change in ques- tion seems rationally dreadful, then a more level playing field of creative and cultural communication and exchange shouJd be helpful. In any case, more people having a voice - rather than a small elite having a voice - has got to be better. And if we can develop widely-used tools for meaningful creative conversations then maybe we can start to build our way out of this mess.

Now for a change of gear as we head towards the end of the book. Here's the penultimate section, which is both more cheerful and hopefully more usefuJ.

DEVELOP! 1 G AND CONNECT! 1 G CREATIVITY

Since the first edition of Making is Connecting was published, it has become apparent that lots of the people who read it are makers themselves. They like to make things, and they are interested in the meaning of this activity, and how they can do more of it, and maybe have more recognition and exchange as well. In other words, they want to do more making and they want to do more connecting.

So in this section, I will mention a few things I've worked out, or picked up, about how we can develop and share our creativity.

GONCLllSlON

Feel the fear and do it anyway

Am I really offering you advice ripped straight from the cover of a thirty-year-old self-help book? Definitely. The thing is, I had always liked the well-known title, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, but hadn't read the actual book, by Susan Jeffers. Then I was invited to do a talk about creativity to some music students. I'd not met these music students before and had decided to purely say inspiring things to them. I had to reply to an email where they wanted me to give a title, and I was in a rush, so I suggested 'Creativity - Feel the fear and do it anyway'. It wasn't an accident, and I was going to give due credit. But then later I thought, if I'm doing a lecture which has Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway in the title, then I'd better read Susan Jeffers' book. And, good news: it's a great book. 18 Clearly, a lot of it is in the memorable title. I had already found that useful, without ever having seen the book. It's self-explanatory, and inspiring.

From the book, I took away a slightly more complex understanding of Jeffers' approach - though it's still simple enough to be memorable. The first point is, 'the fear' - such as the fear of doing a new creative thing that you've not done before - is not really a bad thing. It's an indicator that you are pushing yourself, for sure - but it's good to be challeng- ing yourself. Therefore, if you continue to push yourself creatively, then some amount of fear is not, in fact, going to go away. And the way to get on top of the fear - to reduce it, or understand it, or live with it - is by doing the challeng- ing thing. The 'doing it' has to come before the fear can be diminished.

Jeffers knows also that the fear can be associated with seJf- esteem. We might think, '\Vhen I feel better about myself - then I'll do it.' But, crucially, she points out that we will only feel better about ourselves through doing the thing, and,

GONCLUSION

as she says in an especially neat sentence, 'The "doing it" comes before the feeling better about yourself.' 19 We only get better at things by doing them - therefore there can be no good reason for holding back. That is perhaps the great- est lesson of the book: it's aU about the power of just doing things, making things, getting on with it, learning through the process, and growing as a person through the process. But none of the learning and growing can happen without the doing.

Jeffers has two more strong points. First, she points out that while you wil1 experience fear when on unfamiliar ter- ritory, so does everyone else. This is one of those statements which seems predictable and obvious on the one hand - and we don't really believe it on the other. Clearly, people do experience different levels of anxiety when faced with the prospect of doing a creative or performative thing - but the less anxious people are those who had that fear more strongly before, and have learned to deal with it by doing the thing - not because they were already superhuman, or better than you. I note, for example, that in the more than 200 inter- views with stand-up comedians in the Comedian's Comedian podcast series by Stuart Goldsmith,20 almost all of them talk about considerable fear, anxiety and self-doubt, at least at some point in their performing lives. And in all cases, the only way to get beyond this fear of performance was by doing more performances.

Second, Jeffers says: 'Pushing through fear is less fright- ening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.'21 She suggests that if we 'protect' ourselves by not taking creative risks, we actually feel a lot worse, and for longer - potentially, forever. Doing things, and so eventually coming to feel competent at those things, feels much better than not daring to even try to do them.

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CONCI. IJSJON 273

(( you don't like it, it wasn't meant for you anyway

-when we make things and put them out there, tl1at is already a brave thing to do. We are allowing ourselves - directly or through our work- to be seen, and judged. That's not easy. As Brene Brown has said, if you step into the creative arena - the place where we make things and show them to others - 'you will get your ass k.icked'.22 It is wise to accept from the outset that a creative life will bring some negative feed- back, as well as - hopefully - more positive responses. But Brown adds this: 'If you aren't in the arena also getting your ass kicked, I am not .interested in your feedback.' Hearing from other creators, and people who want to engage mean- ingfully, is worth doing. But some people are only mere to criticize, and they are welcome to come and look at what you do, but you really have to ignore what tl,ey say.

This connects with two other points. First of all, if ili.ey don 't like it, it wasn't for them anyway. It's so easy to feel bruised by the one person who didn't happen to like your thing, and to forget about the 100 people who did. But a fact that we already know is that not everybody likes every- thing. That's obvious. Not everybody likes everytl,ing, so of course there will be people who don't like your thing. That's a totally inevitable statement. We can tell you, right now, before you make a thing, whoever you are, and without us needing to know what it is, that there will be people who don't like it. If we can remember this, then any unhelpful criticism of your creative work can be met with an absolute blank: 'OK. So, it wasn't for you.' And then you can get on with doing the things you like to do.

The second point about 'wasn't meant for you anyway' is the positive flipside, and connects with what we learned during the '1,000 true fans' discussion in chapter 9. If 98 per cent of all people have absolutely no interest in what you

27'1, CONCLUSION

are doing, it sounds like you're doing really badly. But out of every million people, there are 20,000 who might like it. That's a lot. Focusing on the potential positive recep- tion from a certain sphere is likely to be more rewarding than worrying about a zero or negative response from other larger groups that are probably just not your kind of people anyway.

Make the time

Finally, and very pragmatically, it's easy to feel disappointed or annoyed that we have not made more things, and the explanation is often that we just didn't manage to carve out the time to make the things. Although we may like to imagine that delightful creative moments 'just happen', in fact they are distinctly more likely to occur if we write them down on the calendar in advance.

The musician and producer Ill Gates has a striking meth- odology for getting things done, presented in his online 'Ill. methodology' workshop - some of which can be seen on YouTube.23 He knows that electronic music-makers can have an endless capacity to tinker with equipment, tweak sounds and play with software, even where they have strong positive intentions to seek music gold. Promoting his method, Gates says, 'I went from finishing a tune every six months, to fin- ishing one or more a day.' Basically it is about marking out creative time in your schedule, so there's a clear block of time set out within which you aim to get somethjng completed.

During creative sessions we might tend to 'take a moment' to send some messages, do admin or promotion, look online for information and tutorials, or email friends to ask for feedback. Gates says you have to remove all of these distractions from your allocated creative session, and do them at other times. The creative session needs to have

CONC L US ION

a clear ticking clock. Depending on your craft, lifestyle and commitments, this length of time might vary. For Gates it is twenty hours - 'I like to imagine what I call the 20 hour guil- lotine: there's this guillotine hanging above my studio desk, and if I don't finish that song in 20 hours, you just gut it for parts, put them in the library, and move on with your ljfe.'24

You get things done by setting out limited blocks of time within which the thing has to be done. And again, to go back to Susan Jeffers' message, it might feel scary to say 'I must complete this whole task in the next six hours', but it is only by setting that fixed amount of time aside, and then doing it, that you get things done and start to build a sense of confi- dence and achievement.

1 CONCLUSION

This book has been about the shift from the 'sit back and be told' culture which became entrenched in the twentieth century, towards the 'making and doing' culture which could flourish in the twenty-first. Although I think there is an appetite for such a change, we could hardly say that this will be an easy shift. Many people have become comfortable with the undemanding role that contemporary culture expects us to enjoy - it appears pleasant enough, allows us to consume wall-to-wall entertainment, and nothing very bad seems to happen. But at the same time, we are not left feeling very whole, or fulfilled, or creative. And bad things 1,re happening - see all the evidence of social isolation, fragmented com- munities, environmental pollution and c)jmate change jn particular - which we choose to not really notice.

It doesn't seem right to suggest that people just don't know what's good for them: but the empirical research on hap- piness and well-being does show a clear 1nismatch between the things which we say help us to feel posjtive, alive and

278 CONCLUS ION

connected, and the things which we actually spend most time on. It sounds illogical, but we all do it. And because modern life is often tiring and complicated, we are often likely to welcome the blessed relief of the 'sit back and be told' ele- ments which don't require us to do very much. The 'making and doing' culture does require a bit more effort - but it comes with rich rewards.

Making things shows us that we are powerful, creative agents - people who can really do things, things that other people can see, learn from, and enjoy. Making things is about transforming materials into something new, but it is also about transforming one's own sense of self. Creativity is a gift, not in the sense of it being a talent, but in the sense that it is a way of sharing meaningful things, ideas, or wisdom, which form bridges between people and com- munities. Through creative activity - where making really is connecting - we can increase our pleasure in everyday life, unlock innovative capacity, and build resilience in our com- munities. The potency that comes from doing and making things yourself is irresistible, and means that we can face future challenges with originality, daring and joy.

NOTES

PREAMBLE TO THE SECOND EDJTJON

1. Jonathan Taplin, Move Fast and Break Things (London: Macmillan, 2017).

2. GSMA, 'The mobile economy 2017', 27 February 2017, https://www.gsma.com/newsroom/press-release/ number-of-global-mobile-subscribers-to-surpass-five- billion-this-year/

3. On 24 September 2014: https://twitter.com/davidgauntl ett/status/5 14729040364986368

4. Detailed at length in the Wikipedia article 'Gamergate controversy', https://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamerga te_ controversy

5. Wikipedia again has a summary: https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Ghostbusters_(2016_film)#Controversy

6. Such statistics are compiled, for instance, by Internet Live Stats, which in J uly 2016 stated that there are 3.4 billion internet users in the world, wbere a user is 'an