rosalinda.blog

A year ago one of my close friends in USP, Mark* (true identity not disclosed – besides, he adopted this pseudonym himself) started a WordPress to mark his foray into content creation, which wasn’t exactly a surprising streak of his character to be frank if you recall the immense wit he brought to all sorts of conversations. He attributed his “consumer self” to being a science kid. His words ad verbatim:

“I’m a Science kid. Science kids don’t produce content for fun. We learn what Science adults discover (for work!). We aren’t Arts kids. We don’t do Art things. We do Science things.”

Beautiful.

Anyway, all the digital content he claimed to have consumed in abundance surely amounted to something, because his blog turned out to be a masterpiece.

At this point, I guess I should provide the blog address and/or at least tell Mark I’m referencing him in an anecdote, but this is the prime conundrum of hosting your thoughts in a semi-public space. You never want to be actively drawing your audience in, so you are spared the liability for any inanity your content may have exposed your readers to. Besides, I haven’t talked to Mark in a while. At the same time I should probably give credit to the inspiration for this post. Hmm. I’m just going to leave this hanging.

In essence, this dichotomy somewhat between being a producer/consumer of content is intriguing to me. I’ve been a “producer” many times in my life, and it all started that day I set up my very first email address and Yahoo asked me what my occupation was. I accidentally selected “Producer” because computers were slow then. I didn’t know what it meant back then, but when my parents explained it to me, it sounded fantastic. Since then, I became a producer in the little ways a kid can growing up.

Primary 1: We always had Art exams after English/Maths/Mother Tongue. My mermaid drawing impressed the invigilator so much that when we had to go for recess, she instructed us with special mention to the girl who drew the mermaid, to keep our artwork under some newspaper to ensure they’d remain intact when we got back. After recess, so many people came over to see my now famous mermaid.

Primary 4: I started writing fiction about girls who were aged 13 and older, and their boyfriends, and whatnot. I co-wrote them with 2-3 friends each time in 50 cent exercise books you use for spelling homework. Apparently it was well-received, because the series lived till the sixth exercise book and we were writing for peer consumption all the way till end of P5. I still recall that rush of pride I felt when the coolest girl in my P4 class asked me a year later if I had “Book 5” or if someone else were reading it, and the teacher who overheard our exchange seemed surprised there was this battered-looking exercise book that for some reason was in high demand.

Secondary 1: I ended up in Choir. My class had 4 girls who were also in choir, 2 sopranos and 2 altos. One day that year, just before the June holidays, some of our classmates stayed back to listen to us sing Kimi o nosete and recorded us on their phones (!!).

Secondary 3: Two friends told me separately they read my blog every morning before school. That drove me to making sure I posted something every night, so they would always have something to read the next morning.

After O’s: I started doing covers with all that free time on my hands, and also because 2011 was the year I started actively listening to pop and Top 40’s. Looking back my covers were quite awful then. But that I had consistent listeners asking me to cover other songs despite my level of noob kept me going.

J1: I started doing covers again, but learnt to record individual harmonies with my iPhone, send the whole lot of 30 mini recordings to my email, download them on my old ASUS laptop, open Windows Movie Maker and place them one-by-one in their appropriate spots, zooming in and out excessively in the process. That was before I realised Garageband does that for you in one swift motion. But I didn’t mind all the work when I listened to my final output, and even more so when friends started sharing this piece, and some even told me they listened to it on repeat. Really?! Are you sure you’re referring to something I made?!

2014-2015: Gained enough recognition for my graphic design ability while I stayed in Cinnamon College to find one morning, when I was chilling at the lobby after breakfast, that 80% of the posters on the wall opposite me were mine. And to get into the lift and find the same.

Dopamine

Apparently there’s this substance called dopamine that we millennials are quite well-acquainted with. I came across this on a viral video – each time we get a like on social media, our body releases dopamine and it just feels so good. Subset of endorphins, but without the requisite physical workout. Dopamine is the best way I can put across my love for producing things, although “likes” weren’t really a concept until late 2009, and definitely not my KPI / means of validation back in 2002.

More accurately, it was the realisation that things I were creating were giving other people utility. The thoughts I scribbled every evening made a friend’s sleepy breakfast less sleepy the next morning. The cover I stringed together made a friend’s morning train ride to school at least a little bit more interesting. Never mind if maybe some got more utility from the recognising the flaws/mistakes/areas lacking- at least it contributed something, and well, it’s always an honour that people consume what you create.

How it really began

Then again, as infatuated I was with the idea of being a producer, I was always an avid consumer first.

Primary 1: The only way I learnt to draw that mermaid well was because my mom, an architect by training, drew it first, and I spent hours trying to recreate it afterward because it was so beautiful.

Primary 4: I only started writing those little stories because I was inspired by a former classmate’s own stories. In fact, the very first 80 pages I wrote was essentially copying what this classmate wrote (she did realise later on and called me a copycat, but hey that was the truth anyway, at least for the first 80 pages), and only afterward I got the hang of creating my own storylines and characters.

Secondary 1: Prior to joining choir, I spent the whole of primary school admiring the choir girls who performed at Founder’s Day mass, or at school concerts and secretly hoping I could be on a performing arts CCA one day.

Secondary 3: Once again, was inspired by seniors’ blogs on school life, because they made secondary school sound a whole lot better than what I’d been experiencing.

After O’s: That was after falling in love with Glee, The Voice and realising people like Christina Grimmie (rest in peace, beautiful soul) were posting their “singing videos” on YouTube.

J1: I started travelling to school on my own Sec 3, and just before stepping out I’d whip out my orange iPod nano and listen to the likes of Leona Lewis, Dave Matthews Band and Pixie Lott. When you listen to such good tracks repeatedly, you can’t resist harmonising / improvising along to them after a while. Afterward, I watched on YouTube one of Kimbra’s live looping performances. I was so amazed at her talent I spent the whole of the promo exams season wondering if I could ever pull off the same and have at least an inkling of her chops.

2014-2015: There were so many talented artists in JC that I didn’t dare to tell anyone I used to like anything art-related. But the turning point was when I started my first internship and had to use Adobe software for graphic design purposes. My fellow intern, an expert at Adobe Illustrator, taught me a great deal and since then, I’ve never regretted buying a second Macbook six months later from NUS so I can get Adobe Creative Suite for a tenth of the retail price HAHA.

*

I guess the common theme, or red thread if you will, running along these episodes was that before I ever started doing something on my own, I always observed first, and for a much longer time.