The Disease Called Creativity and How To Catch It
YouTube Confidential: A Decade Under the Influence
As always, I’m Taylor Gunn and remember… It’s FREE to Subscribe and helps me a lot.
Everyone wants to be creative… until it starts feeling like an infection. Creativity can feel like a sickness… triggered by a movie, a song, a color combination, a texture, light and shadow on a surface… a eureka moment where your cup fills up and you gotta dance.
That dance is what makes life worth living, dear reader. But, the space between songs is lowest of lows god saw fit to seed into the hearts of men and women who dare to venture into lonely world of “The Artist” — this is the sickness.
Accepting the Grip.
For starters, the world lies to you about creativity. It tells you it’s beautiful, enriching, soul-expanding. It forgets to mention it’s also a bloodsport. And the many habits that come along with it often invite scowls, scoffs and straight-up middle fingers for not returning texts in a timely manner.
To be creative is to be constantly vulnerable. Which honestly, is a pretty shitty way to be all-the-time.
You open your chest and dare the world to point at your beating heart and laugh. And when they inevitably do, it really, really, really sucks.
I’ve cried. As a full-grown-man. Because of people not liking my stuff. Or people not liking my stuff as much I had hoped they would.
This is the truth.
I cried because I deeply, deeply cared and still care to this day. It still burns me up at 1am when intrusive thoughts spring up that remind me, “hey! Remember that one time you dared to dream a delusion that when met with reality, crashed and burned?”
And yet, I still wake up the next day and take another swing.
I do this is film. In music. In art. In poor attempts at comedy. And I’ve always found one thing to be a universal constant…
The criticism will come. The silence will sting. You will question your sanity and your sense of worth.
It’s not a side hustle. It’s trench warfare with your insecurities. And it never stops and quite honestly, I’m damn glad about that. It shouldn’t stop. The second I’m not a little scared to put something out, is when I know I’ve stopped caring.
According to a 2022 report from Adobe, 85% of people believe they are not living up to their creative potential. The gap between desire and action is a canyon of fearborn excuses.
If you want to catch the disease of creativity, you need to burn the safety net.
That’s the grip. You don’t get to flirt with creativity. You marry it. And more often then not, it’s a toxic, tragic, gaslighting, often abusive spouse that you run back to time and time again because when things are good, they’re great in ways that only lovers and poets understand.
Let’s beat a Dead horse real quick.
“Someday” is the favorite word of cowards.
I know I’ve talked about this before, and I’m not trying to make anyone feel bad, but I cannot understate that it’s highly likely, even probable, that you are your own worst enemy.
There’s a little movie by Richard Linklater called "Waking Life” and if you haven’t seen it, it WILL blow your fucking mind.
It’s one of my all-time favorite movies, and there’s a part in it I want to share with you. Here’s a transcript that says it better then I ever will…
TRASNSCRIPT:
”There are two kinds of sufferers in this world: those who suffer from a lack of life and those who suffer from an overabundance of life. I've always found myself in the second category.
When you come to think of it, almost all human behavior and activity is not essentially any different from animal behavior. The most advanced technologies and craftsmanship bring us, at best, up to the super-chimpanzee level.
Actually, the gap between, say, Plato or Nietzsche and the average human is greater than the gap between that chimpanzee and the average human. The realm of the real spirit, the true artist, the saint, the philosopher, is rarely achieved.
Why so few? Why is world history and evolution not stories of progress but rather this endless and futile addition of zeroes. No greater values have developed. Hell, the Greeks 3,000 years ago were just as advanced as we are.
So what are these barriers that keep people from reaching anywhere near their real potential? The answer to that can be found in another question, and that's this: Which is the most universal human characteristic - fear or laziness?”
Here’s a scene you can checkout as well:
Powerful stuff…
If you want to be creative, you need to make things. Not plan, not dream, not overthink. The only thing that separates “creative people” from the rest is action. That’s it. That’s the secret.
I do a “2-Tier Creative Flow” method in ALL my creative pursuits. I put gas in the tank. I drive for a while. It’s that simple. When I run out of gas, I either get more gas, or I stop.
Actionable Habit: Try the “2-Tier Creative Flow” method.
Tier 1: Input (The Gas) (30 mins) — Read, watch, or study something creatively enriching.
Tier 2: Output (The Drive) (90 mins) — Create something small based on inspiration. Doesn’t have to be good.
Do this daily for 30 days. It will change your brain chemistry. It will make you dangerous, I swear.
And don’t wait for inspiration. Show up like a bricklayer. Lay the words, the strokes, the edits… every damn day.
I like this method a lot because even when all I’ve build is garbage, I still get to turn around at the end my week and check out some things I did. That makes me happy. What doesn’t make me happy to turn around and find I’ve done nothing.
Stat to Know: Writers who publish regularly are 300% more likely to sustain a creative career long-term than those who wait for “good ideas.” (Source: National Endowment for the Arts, 2020)
Your talent doesn’t matter until it’s consistent.
Steal Without Shame… I mean it.
Good artists borrow. Great artists steal.
Don’t know who said originally, but I don’t care to look it up to attribute it, and that’s the goddamn point.
There is no shame in stealing ideas. There is shame in parroting them, trying to pass shit off as yours, but using things as influences to inform your own work? That’s just a good idea.
Your job isn’t to regurgitate, it’s to transform. Watch Tarantino. He built an empire from stolen tropes and grindhouse grit. Or Billie Eilish whose voice is a Frankenstein’s monster of popular influences like jazz, emo, bedroom pop, and I don’t even know what else. It works because she made it hers.
When you hear her sing, you might not know all of her influences. But you for sure know when It’s her singing, because it’s so distinct. A style developed through influence and honed by practice. That class, is how we develop our creative voice.
Here’s your homework:
Pick a masterpiece in your field.
Study it obsessively for 72 hours. Watch it on mute. Read it out loud. Print it out. Tape it on your wall.
Now recreate it badly. Copy the rhythm, not the details.
Add your own twist. Turn it upside down. Change the medium.
Suddenly, it’s yours. We live in a remix culture.
Figure out who your idols are in your chosen field and emulate beyond all reason.
Find Your Spot and Defend It Until Death
Creativity doesn't happen in the margins. It needs a home. A place where your brain learns to turn on like a switch, not just a whim.
Your creative spot doesn’t have to be glamorous. Hell, some of the best work on earth happens in car seats, grimy basements, cheap motels, and coffee shop corners. What matters is that it’s yours — a space carved out, declared sacred, and defended with militant loyalty.
Actionable Advice: Build a Ritual.
Pick your creative hour. Guard it. Tell your family, your boss, your dog: This is mine.
Sit in the same place each time. Let your brain build association.
Begin with a trigger: music, coffee, candle, notebook. Doesn’t matter what it is, only that it’s consistent.
End with a “shutdown” routine: log progress, write one note about what’s next, then step away.
This is the boring part no one talks about. The stuff that makes the brilliant stuff possible. Routine is the soil; the work is the bloom. Inspiration need not apply.
Stat: A 2021 study published in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts found that people with consistent creative rituals were 42% more likely to produce publishable work within a three-month window than those who created “when they felt like it.”
Show up even when you suck. Especially then, because here’s a little secret: most days, you’re gonna suck. lol.
Share It Before You’re Ready
Keeping your art private is like growing a garden in a basement. No sun. No air. No feedback.
You’ve got to share your work. Not for clout. Not for affirmation. For completion. Art doesn’t exist until it meets an audience, even if that audience is four people and 3 of them are bot accounts.
Yes, you will feel naked. Yes, you will want to explain, over-justify, or hide. Don’t. Let it go into the wild. Let it be seen. The goal isn’t to go viral. The goal is to release it.
I get it… You’ll feel like you’ll get caught as a fraud if it’s not perfect.
Impostor syndrome isn’t a sign you’re a fraud, it’s proof you give a shit.
We’re all kinda frauds. Very few people alive are true savants. Think of Charlie Puth. That dude could make music with a spoon, and actually… he did… live on Jimmy Fallon. And it slapped.
Don’t try to be a savant. You’re not the one who decides if your stuff is good. Just decide you like it and let it go.
If you wait to “feel” like a creative before calling yourself one, you’ll wait until you’re buried in an unmarked grave of could-have-beens. Creative Identity is not earned. It’s claimed.
Here’s the language to use:
“I’m a writer.”
“I’m a filmmaker.”
“I’m an artist.”
“I’m a designer.”
“I’m a creator.”
Say it out loud. Say it until it feels less like a lie. The label is a compass, not a trophy. My favorite shit ever is how ANY Major Hollywood Director in every interview ever responds the same way when asked “How do you become a director?”
They ALL say: “Pick up a camera, film something, show it to someone. Now, you’re a director.”
Identity drives action. Own it early.
Meet my Best Friend, Failure…
Most people think the creative life means finally winning. The real ones know it means learning how to lose over and over and keep swinging. Or better yet, that after
You will fail. Your video will tank. Your chapter will bore. Your pitch will be ignored. Your ideas will suck.
Good.
Frame Failure as a System:
Micro-failures = Feedback (bad lines, weak designs, clunky intros)
Mid-level failures = Rebuilds (projects that don’t land, clients who ghost payments)
Existential failures = Redirection (career shifts, long-term pivots, burning it all down)
Don’t fear it. Track it. Study it. Laugh at it. Learn from it. Nothing will grow you like your ugliest, most public, most painful flops.
Failure isn’t the curse of a bad creative. It’s the crucible that makes you into a good one.
Community is Fuel, Not Validation
You can’t make great art in an echo chamber. You need people who understand what it means to stare at a blinking cursor for two hours, or scrap a month’s worth of footage or writing or canvas because it “just didn’t feel right.”
You need folks who speak your language, not in buzzwords, but in scars.
That’s why you need a creative crew. Not a fanbase. Not a mastermind group with matching logos (lmao, if you get this reference, I love you.)
You NEED A crew. People you trust with your trash drafts. People who will tell you when something is flat. People who celebrate your weirdest wins and roast you with love when you get too precious.
Find Your People:
Join niche communities on Discord, Reddit, Substack comment threads, Twitter.
DM someone whose work you admire and offer value (not vague praise).
Start a weekly check-in with one or two other creatives, no bullshit, just process, goals, feedback.
Here’s the difference between solo grind and squad momentum: solo work builds skill. Community accelerates it.
Often I hear people bitch about their writing groups… if that’s the case, you’re not ready to be in a writing group or the find a new group.
And don’t worry about being “the best” in the room. You want to be in the room. Creativity is viral, and talent spreads by proximity. Hang around sharp people and you’ll sharpen too.
We live in a world that worships productivity, conformity, efficiency. Creativity spits in that world’s face because in almost every way… It’s not efficient. It’s not scalable. It’s not always profitable. But it’s real.
I always think of Aaron Sorkin’s masterclass where his wife sees him laying on the couch all week. To anyone else, he would appear as a bum, doing nothing… but as we writers know… he’s writing. Studying. Gathering nuggets. Inputs. Little turns and twists and scraps for his story. He’s hunting.
There Is No Cure — And That’s the Point
Here’s the final truth: there is no arrival. There is no moment when you’re “finally” creative. There is no badge. No finish line. No cure.
The disease doesn’t leave you. It gets into your skin, your thoughts, your routines. You will carry it forever and thank God for that.
It gives meaning. It gives shape. It gives fire. It lets you scream into the void and sometimes, just sometimes, the void screams back something beautiful.
You’ll feel wrecked. You’ll feel alive. You’ll fall in love with process and rage at your limits. You’ll burn out and recover. You’ll quit and come crawling back.
And through it all, you’ll keep making.
Creativity is the most human thing we do. It rewrites despair into stories, breaks strife into song, turns grief into brushstrokes and corruption into a conversation. If that’s not worth the madness, what is?
There’s no vaccine. No antidote. Let it make you whole, and as always… stay creatively dangerous.
- Taylor Gunn
LINKS BELOW…
WHAT IS YOUTUBE CONFIDENTIAL?
IN MANY WAYS, YouTube Confidential is a love letter to YouTube, the industry that gave a wretch like me more than I ever deserved or thought possible. In other ways, it’s a road map of scars, burnt bridges, and ego-deaths outlining my checkered career – that at times, is far more honest then I’d ever wished to put down on paper.
My justification for said honesty is that I truly believe that in doing so, I’ll help others avoid my mistakes and avoid years of wastrel and wayward behavior and get to where they want to be faster. That means more money, less bullshit, and doing meaningful, fulfilling creative work without all the drama and stress that is all too common in our industry.
For the common reader, I hope "YouTube Confidential" is good for a few laughs while exposing the creative malpractice that takes place daily in the industry’s labor ecosystem.
The editors, strategists, and thumbnail artists I work with and talk to on a daily basis are the lifeblood of this industry, and I hope to shine a spotlight on those dark, damp and downright abused corners in this place we all call home.
SOCIALS:
“It forgets to mention it’s also a. Blood sport.”
Boom.
Do you think of yourself as a Creative? Why or why not?