JohnCelestri at 7:34AM, Feb. 8, 2024

I've created art for both hire and personal projects: commercials/advertisements, animated TV shows and feature films, crime fiction novels, and personal comic strip stories. All have been aimed at different audiences. But I know my successful works have been those through which I've been allowed to express myself. It's not about me sending "messages" with my work, but rather me inserting/revealing a part of me into those characters/stories in an attempt to connect with the audience.

bravo1102 at 4:38AM, Feb. 8, 2024

The comment about learning the personality of a TV talk show host from their show is interesting. One of the best known TV talk show hosts was a very private man and most were totally surprised by revelations about his life after he died. Some creators wear their heart on their sleeve and others are not reflected in their work at all and many more somewhere in the middle.

Tantz_Aerine at 4:16AM, Feb. 8, 2024

Absolutely, everyone leaves their imprint in their work. That's unavoidable. I often consider it as a prism through which the work is shone, but exactly because we see the projection it's not always easy or even possible to see the prism. What we definitely can see is what the creator wants us to take from their work, which says something about them. What that is varies.

marcorossi at 4:05AM, Feb. 8, 2024

I think that we should make a distinction between the conscious "message" of a story and the unconscious signals. It is common to assume that there are unconscious signals in our communications (especially in art but not limited to it) and that a reader might try to understand/guess them. This is very difficult and ambiguous even when we speak of people we know personally since a lot of time. This is something different from the more explicit/conscious themes or messages of a story, which include the "catering to the audience" things.

TheJagged at 2:31AM, Feb. 8, 2024

Probably wouldn't take a psychologist to figure out most of the running themes in my work, lmao. Also i think i do whatever the opposite of catering to an audience is, i love when i manage to unsettle and upset people with my work. I *want* people to feel the ugly side of their emotions. Comfy art is for normies. :U Catering is something i only do on a technical level, like using a readable font for my text and fixing spelling errors. And sometimes not even that.