Recently I made some artwork that got a LOT of positive attention online, and I was riding the wave of success and fame in my own way. It felt like such a good rush, such a deep boost of ego. I wanted, most of all, for this artwork to be noticed by one of my favorite people on social media that I'm kind of in love with, because it's an artwork of them. Despite all the positive input from many people, I still haven't gotten the attention of who I REALLY want to impress. And I've tried getting his attention in multiple ways. I've decided to give up for now and move on to other art projects.

The positive feedback has died back, though, and even my new artwork is not getting nearly as much buzz as the previous one. Worst of all, the guy I'm in love with finally featured someone else's artwork with glowing words about them. I felt like he had ripped my heart clean out of my chest. At first I thought, "Maybe he's just not looking at fan art"... but now I know, maybe my artwork just isn't good enough to be validated by him. I worked so hard on it and put so much passion into it. Plus, it's different from literally everyone else's style. I was SURE he'd be crazy about it.

It's amazing how you can climb so high and then crash so low beneath the earth, emotionally, when you get high off of validation and praise... and then it's taken away from you, and you can't get it back. You start expecting people to react a certain way to you, and when it's gone, you're destroyed.

I am so sick of people ignoring me. I don't want it to ever happen again. All my life I've been ignored. Although, getting so much fame and attention recently has only spiked my awareness of when I get ignored.

Am I the only one who feels like the worst possible thing that can happen when you post art is that it gets absolutely no likes or responses? I feel like that's far worse than criticizing it. Putting so much work into it only for no one to love you.