Being Real in a Fake World

Reading Time: 11 Mins.

I wanted to write a post on my personal thoughts, feelings, and beliefs on where we’re all heading on this ship we call planet Earth. By the way, nothing I do will ever have AI anything in it. Not even writing blogs. I process, edit, trim, and thoughtfully pick each word out exactly like I do with the strokes of a pencil on paper. I appreciate all who bother to read my humble pieces of insight. 

I know it’s a struggle nowadays since everything has been frying attention spans. Y’all too real for that.

Lack of Realness is an Illness

I’ve met so, so many amazing people throughout the course of my art career who are real fans of my work. I cherish that a lot.

I’ve always prided myself on being honest in who I am as a person, regarding everything I do. But I’m an oxymoronic entity; I tend to be popular for doing things I’m deeply passionate at, such as my art and improving in it, while tending to be unpopular for being honest about myself. It’s a consistent rocking of a seesaw; either side never stays down for long, because I refuse to lie. Personally, I’ve made many mistakes in my life, and that’s not counting all the ones in my art, however I’ve never hid them, as I think it’s foolish to pretend I’m not human. Because of that, I tend to harbor a lot of inner turmoil and envy towards those who aren’t as open or honest about their humanity, as it seems they “get away with it” while I get lambasted, attacked, or ridiculed for keeping it real. It’s incredibly exhausting.

With that said, since leaving socials for the past couple years and change, I’ve been heavily invested in myself. Lots of meditation. Breath work. Energy recharging. I’m coming up one year sober from smoking weed, and I haven’t sworn it off or anything like that (as I'll always love me some marijuana, lol), but it was so easy to do so… just stopped cold turkey, with no withdrawals. Anyone who used to follow me on IG knew how often I smoked. I just don’t really have any addictive traits outside of making art, the only addiction I can’t quit. Additionally, In the past few months, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know a small group of fantastic people outside of the realm of the art community. People who have gone through what I’ve gone through in their own respective, and very reflective paths. Successful and attractive outcasts, loners, and black sheep in their own rights and industries, because at the end of the day, it’s all the same shit no matter what path one is honest in. Male, female, doesn't matter.

In my near-4 decades in this meat robot, I’ve learned that we meet the same souls over and over in different bodies. The only difference is they are on levels higher than the ones you grew out of alignment with. I mean, that’s all this stuff is about anyway: We meet people, we grow alongside them at variable rates, then we move on once we’ve outgrown them. I’ve lost count what wave of friends I’m on at this point; it’s like playing a complex roguelike. There are people I used to genuinely care for that I already forgotten about, for whatever reason. Yeah, I may have felt some type of way after getting betrayed or ghosted in those moments, but eventually, they always become forgotten to me. I can’t even hate ‘em because I just don’t remember ‘em anymore. But life always has a way of bringing higher-level replacements of the people who didn’t grow beyond their own propensities for being fake. And that those who have chosen to not be real won’t be “getting away with it”. The Law of Cause and Effect coming soon to a theater near everyone.

All that to say, my mental acuity and clarity has increased tenfold.

Mistakes, Miss Takes…

I attract and kick it with beautiful women in real life, man, because I’m simply REAL. I have no desire to fake any part of me. Real G shit. (And no, I’m not dating the homegirl depicted. I’m proudly single by choice at the current moment and not looking.)

When you’re a polarizing individual, you can attract all kinds of energy for it. It’s nothing really personal, though, as everything is reflection and projection. No one knows anyone more than they ever know themselves. It’s literally impossible to— if you’re operating from ego, that is. I’ve always known this, which is why I find no shame in being honest about what I’m good at, what I’m not, and any of my flaws. I’m very willing to state whenever I’ve made a mistake, and trust I will get hated for that from people who aren’t.

I have fangirls and groupies all over the world, even folks’ popular favorite e-girls out there. So I’m no stranger to waking up to a pic like this DM’d to me where they roleplay or mimic poses in my older art. (I don’t even remember exactly who this was, lmao… respectfully, of course. Dat ass was definitely plump tho.)

For example, everyone knows I draw sexy female characters and women for fun. Even my own devout Christian mother knows. I’ve never hid that. I’ve also never hid times whenever I got into relationships with them, or hid hanging around them at public events, talking to them in DMs, etcetera. Longtime followers know I was married for a good 10 years of my life in my 20s, faithfully avoiding and ignoring passes and gestures from girls while I was in it. Yes, I’m a loyal dude. It’s one of my favorite personal traits. If I don’t cheat in art, then you can expect me to not cheat in anything else. Never hid that. But also, everyone knows I’m a skilled artist, because I never hid that. They know I’m an attractive black man, because I never hid that. They also know I have a huge following, made a sizable income off my work, failed a genuine Kickstarter project, take my sweet time on making artbooks, a game, and new merch, smoked weed, drove sports cars— if you saw it from me, and you can name it, then I never hid it. I promise that most people would hide everything I’ve ever revealed about myself if my size 13 shoes were on their feet, because they’re simply afraid of judgment. I never cared about being judged. I welcome it, actually.

Anyone can find anything about anyone on the internet, but isn’t it interesting how no one can actually find proof from assumptions made about others? In 2022, I made an ad for hiring models professionally to draw for some new projects (this was before starting Syrup). I was inundated with emails from women with their portfolios, and I was about ready to get back to them. Even the girl I was dating at the time heavily supported the idea. (At least I think she did... IDK, can never tell with people who don’t stick with or be patient with me. They’re always real in the moment, but fake in the end.)

Anyway, I got so much backlash online for that. People labeled me a sexual predator, a deviant, a weirdo— all kinds of shit. Peers I’ve supported for years all jumped on the bandwagon to slander my name all at once because I simply wrote an ad wanting to legitimately hire real women to draw, like humanity has been doing since the dawn of existence with life drawing and pinup art. Female predators and haters in the art community began to creep on me with their burner accounts after I blocked them, perverted hypocrites who enjoyed my art all turned on me because it was finally “cool” to, even friends I often hung out with and opened my home to in person who I’ve been 1000% Real™ with distanced themselves from me. None of those friends stood up for me, and that’s okay.

People don’t even realize I explicitly learned how to draw women from being in a relationship with one for years. I can quite literally scribble an ideal figure with no reference from scratch in 15 seconds. I indeed, don’t need anyone’s direct reference to do all that. I simply wanted to try something fresh and unique since everyone in that art community pretended they got it like I do. I mean, I knew all along they didn’t, since half of them would copy whatever I do. This is the real reason the Mixbook project with Syrup started and will soon exist in physical reality. Because unfortunately, folks will start shit all because they’re jealous of not having one’s abilities to make their own models out of nowhere and sell boatloads of content with them.

This was a popular female artist I supported for years who jumped on the bandwagon to hate me at that time. I hide names out of respect and to prevent witch hunts, unlike how these so-called “professionals” tend to do towards me.

I’m not saying all this because I’m angry or spiteful, I’m actually not anymore. Again, it’s just to reiterate that I never hide my mistakes. I shared my old shitty art on the last blog post, even.

Artificial Assumptions

I shudder to think if the above experience example would happen today. Google VEO has now been tuned up to a point where anyone can make anything moving off of someone’s likeness, and the worst part of it all is that people can be incredibly stupid enough to believe it. They were already capable of believing bullshit without any actual evidence, so how can they not be capable of believing anything with manufactured artificial evidence? And people still refuse to see the real, actual evil right in front of them.

Heck, I had to repeatedly stop my own father from believing random shit he’s found on Facebook for the past year now.

And it’s for this reason why I always sought to show myself for who I actually am, all my faults and flaws included. I knew well in advance that we would get here, to this point. It’s why I left social media, stopped attending shows, and stopped attempting to befriend artistic peers, because I’m basically a celebrity in those environments. Everyone knows I’m not anywhere else anymore, so if someone come up with some new BS fantasy about me and they can’t find it here on this site, then I don’t know what to tell them… “GGs”? 

Now what? I’m not really into doom and gloomin’ about the future of humanity because I’m consciously aware of so much more shit than I actually present myself to be, but I will say this: All this AI nonsense is simply another hurdle we must collectively deal with together. No matter what path one is at as an individual, eventually they’ll have to come back to reality. Escapism is always temporary. Technology is just a crutch. And artificial intelligence is fake. Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to go out and frolic in some grass again.

When it’s all said and done, Syrup will be finished soon, the 750+ endearing fans who preordered and waited patiently for it will enjoy thumbing through it, the other 5,000+ people who missed out on it but visiting my site weekly will be buying the next one, the chicks who were hitting me up will be dying to get into a new book if I choose to do that original idea again, and I’ll be kicking it with my new, successful, like-minded, NON-ART homies who got no reason to get jealous of my years of hard work and skill built. Crazy bitches be crazy tho, man. That’s why I have strong boundaries and keep to myself because I’ll be damned if someone tries to pull some allegation nonsense on me. The penile chamber stay wrapped up, I got no kids I’m responsible for, and whaddaya know, still nothing on my record other than a couple of speeding tickets. That’s real. 

Also, wanted to thank those who subscribed to the Online Gallery so far. I’ve been thinking of adding a couple more incentives, but I don’t want to overdo it yet and wanna ease into it. Maybe a monthly sticker or something. We’ll see. I’m getting consistent with the daily drawing and posting again, so big ups to giving me the motivation to be doing so once again.

Siri, play cLOUDs by J. Cole. This track really resonates with me and this post.

✨😶‍🌫️✨


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Is It Ego? Or Is It Honesty?

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Accountability and Art