Here's the tea, a new generation of makeup gurus are taking over. YouTube has now become a platform for countless up and coming makeup artists to display their talents, one of the most influential of whom is James Charles Dickinson, popularly known as James Charles. Charles rose to fame from a meme (of course), making fun of the fact that he brought a ring light to his senior photos. This caught the attention of CoverGirl, and soon after, he became their first male spokesperson. He has gone on to be on the The Ellen DeGeneres Show, he has created a series with his younger brother called, Brother & Sister, and has his own merchandise called Sister Apparel. Charles makes an effort to meet his fans by doing live make-up tutorials along with a Q&A for the audience. Charles made sister strides in a beauty industry by being the first male CoverGirl, trying new looks on his channel, and collaborating with other makeup artists and YouTubers. By accomplishing all of these things Charles is able to create a community. His followers have even begun talking like him-- he refers to his fans as "sisters" as well as using "sister" before adjectives that start with s. He has also popularized many other terms such as "tea", meaning gossip and "good and fresh", meaning good. Today, James Charles has 9.3 million subscribers.
Charles describes an instance where his friend missed her makeup appointment so he did her makeup for her. Slowly, he started doing makeup for others as well and eventually on himself. He loves makeup and the creativity that goes into it. His biggest inspirations have been Jaclyn Hill and Nikkie Tutorials, they have inspired him to "work hard and never settle for less". Charles also recognizes the kind of influence he has on his viewers. He describes how a lot of his viewers struggle with mental health and explains how one fan even said his videos prevented her from taking her own life. He continues to share his makeup journey because it can inspire people to also do makeup and help them feel more confident.
Flashback Mary
Although Charles rose to success very quickly, he has not done so without facing his fair share of obstacles. In high school, Charles would get bullied frequently. After he became famous, those same people asked him for merchandise and money. His father even mentions that he is constantly worried for Charles safety. Charles continuously receives negative looks on the street, hate comments online, and death threats. On the other hand, Charles had a lot of growing up to do as well. In the beginnings of his career, many people started noticing how made "racially insensitive comments". He eventually realized that he was wrong to say those things and made a public apology. He was also made into another meme called Flashback Mary, in which his makeup is too bright with the camera flash. Despite the sister struggles that Charles has faced in his career, he says he can handle any negative comments and tries to stay positive.
Part of the reason why Charles has such a large following is because of his unique personality. His Meyer's Briggs type is most likely ESFJ. He is always around other people whether it is spending time with his family and friends or doing collaborations with other YouTubers. He is very talkative and enjoys being the center of attention, which could put him in the extroversion category. Charles is very particular about his videos, they are very detail oriented, he tries his best to make them perfect but still practical, giving him a preference for sister sensing. He cares a lot about his fans, tries to diffuse tension and feuds with other people in the industry, and cares for his family, suggesting that he could make decisions through feeling. Charles is also very goal oriented and driven which may mean he lives life through judging. Overall, this personality is very appealing to his viewers.
Charles continues to work on good and fresh projects. He is doing what he loves and is becoming more and more sister successful by the day.
Ten years ago, two kids played a concert for eleven people in a small venue in Columbus, Ohio.
Those two kids are now two men with a Grammy, several music awards, multiple world tours, and five albums under their belts. These men are Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun, the lead singer and the drummer of the band Twenty One Pilots. Josh boasts epic trumpet skills, while Tyler also plays bass, ukulele, and piano. Now I know what you’re thinking: there are millions of musicians in the world. What sets these guys apart?
Tyler and Josh accepting their Grammy in their underwear based on a deal they made years ago
They first caught my attention in 2015, when they performed on late-night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live. Tyler was running all around stage, jumping on things, climbing equipment, and even taking a giant leap off his piano. The performance struck me. I thought the band just seemed different. Fresh. Spunky. I decided to look into them a little further. Three years later, I found myself a die-hard Twenty One Pilots fan.
The band got their name when Tyler studied the play All My Sons by Arthur Miller, which is about a man who knowingly sells faulty airplane parts during a war, causing the death of twenty one pilots. This name resonated with the band because it evoked the moral dilemma of choosing between right and wrong. This reason behind the name “Twenty One Pilots” gives a picture of why Tyler and Josh are different. What draws many people to the band is the issues they address with their music. Their lyrics discuss things like faith and lack thereof, mental health and depression, self-harm, and even suicide. Their openness in speaking about these issues, which have been considered taboo in the past, have set them apart from other artists who shy away from these real-world problems. It has also garnered them a large and devoted fan base, who call themselves “The Clique.” In an interview with Alternative Press, Tyler and Josh talked about what inspired them to create music that addresses these important concepts. Tyler has struggled with depression since he was a teenager. He needed an outlet to express his emotional pain, and he found that outlet in music. He used his internal struggle to create something beautiful. When Josh moved to sunny Los Angeles, Tyler stayed behind in Columbus because the long and cold winters cause “seasonal depression,” which inspires his lyrics. Depression and his battle with it has always motivated Tyler to think and reflect on his life. He will write lyrics about struggling with mental health problems, battling suicidal ideations, and dealing with insecurities. Many people afflicted with these have not heard others talk about them, let alone heard them manifested through music. What draws many fans, dubbed “clique members,” to the band is that the music and lyrics of Twenty One Pilots makes them feel less alone. The lyrics describe feelings that have always made them feel isolated. Knowing that others, including Tyler, are feeling the same pain brings fans closer to the band as well as one another, and that’s what the band members live for. Josh claims that “through music … we want to get people to think. We want to get people to go to that place in their minds that’s a little bit scary sometimes, and at least start to think about or find purpose in some way, for life.”
Tyler Joseph during a performance of the song "Guns for Hands"
Twenty One Pilots also stand out as creative because of their unconventional way of approaching the music itself. Though they are usually classified as alternative, they don’t really have a genre. Their music fluctuates between pop, rock, electronic, indie, and folk, sometimes all in the same song. When talking about their music in an interview, Tyler has said “I would describe our music as a burrito that has all the things you want in it, even chocolate. Which some people don’t like.” Elements from all different genres are present in their songs, which creates an odd sound that can sometimes rub people the wrong way. “It’s an acquired taste,” as Tyler puts it. He can go from a folksy ukulele melody to rapid-fire rapping in a matter of seconds. While other musicians have stuck to a genre or two, Twenty One Pilots isn’t afraid to go against social norms. I believe this is a result of their openness to experience. In his article “Openness to Experience: The Gates of the Mind,” Luke Smillie says those who are open to experiences are usually “intellectually curious, creative and imaginative.” This definitely applies to Tyler Joseph and Twenty One Pilots. They aren’t afraid to try something new, and they are open to anything that feels right, even if it is previously unexplored. Tyler’s lyrics continuously
Tyler in his hamster ball during a show
uncover new territories. Tyler and Josh don’t fear that their music won’t top the charts because to them, that’s not the point. The point is to find purpose in creating, and to share that with others. And if you’ve ever seen them perform live, you can tell they are imaginative. With only two members, they have a lot of stage to take up. But what Twenty One Pilots lacks in members, they make up for in spunk, energy, and creativity. In past shows, Tyler has climbed up into the rafters, crowd surfed while singing, and even rolled around on top of the crowd inside a giant inflatable hamster ball. Every concert, Josh also brings a drum set attached to a platform out into the crowd, and they hold up the platform with their hands while he sits on it and plays. The band’s signature closing performance is their song “Trees,” which they have played at every concert for years. It features Tyler and Josh being held up on two platforms by the crowd, beating two large drums in unison, while exorbitant amounts of confetti blast from the stage. It’s a sight one has to see to believe.
While there are plenty of musicians in the world, Twenty One Pilots set themselves apart with their crazy, empathetic, genre-breaking, poetic screamo rap. They’re not only here to entertain: they’re here to show everyone that there’s a purpose for being on this earth. They want their shows to be more about others than about themselves. And no matter who you and what you’re going through, Tyler and Josh serve as a constant reminder: stay strong, live on, and power to the local dreamer.
Not your typical poet, Lily Allen, a British pop singer known for her silly, controversial lyrics, shares similar characteristics of the women mentioned in Kaufman's and Baer's, I Bask in Dreams of Suicide: Mental Illnesses, Poetry, and Women. Lily Allen is not a classic poet, but by turning “inward for inspiration” she shows that song writing can be seen as a branch of poetry. She writes music which can be really shocking to new listeners because of how unapologetic she is. Songs like “Him” and “F**k You,” which are both about George Bush and his lack of capabilities as a president, demonstrate her intrinsic motivation in creating music because she wants to share how she feels about the world through her eyes. Some of her music has been inspired by her mental health issues such as being bipolar, postnatal depression, and PTSD. Kaufman and Baer wrote that people with mental illness have been linked to having a peaked interest in writing poetry and that speaks for some of Allen’s creations.
In her second album, It’s Not Me, It’s You, Lily Allen sings “Everyone’s At It” which talks about drug use, specifically cocaine, and her own use of the drug singing“I get involved but I'm not advocating.” She brings up her troubles with drug use again on her new album No Shame in the song “Trigger Bang” singing “Anything went, I was famous...Everyone knows what cocaine does/Numbing the pain when the shame comes” to further explain the hardships of fame and the use of cocaine. Issues with drug use is how Allen looked inward and found inspiration through assessing her life and making her past actions become part of her music.
In 2010, Allen experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after having a stillbirth with her first child George. Lily Allen said that she laid “in a hospital bed with [her] deceased son stuck between [her] legs halfway out of [her] body for ten hours.” This traumatic event in her life inspired the song “Take My Place” on her Sheezus album. Allen again dealt with childbirth issues with her daughter Ethel who was born extremely sick and was tube-fed for 7 months which led to Lily’s postnatal depression. This was brought on partly because of “‘what had happened to [her] in the past, [Allen] couldn't take [her] eyes off [Ethel]. It was mentally exhausting.’" Kaufman and Baer wrote that women in poetry “suffer from greater psychological stress” than any other female or male writers and I think that Lily Allen has definitely embodied that with the incredible amount of stress life has put on her.
Her latest album, No Shame, is meant to showcase her life from an outside perspective from family and paparazzi as well as from “her own self-deprecating gaze.” She tackles issues covering her public divorce, her struggle with parenthood, and drinking and drug use habits. With mellow songs meant for reflection, “vulnerability is the record's greatest asset” because we see a side of Allen that is usually disguised by an upbeat tempo.
Allen takes her struggles with mental health and uses it as intrinsic motivation to write music that will express what she and other women have experienced in life. Kaufman and Baer write that women struggle with avoiding extrinsic motivation when writing poetry because of a natural need to “attune to the needs of others” and, frankly this sounds slightly sexist, even though Allen might have experienced something like this at some point, she has currently put herself in a place of using her work to reveal a deeper self, not worrying about extrinsic motivators but focusing on bettering her inner self.
Tattoo
your name across my heart/So it will remain.... Not even death can make us
part – Beyonce (“Sweet Dreams”)
Although tattoos have been a global, cultural phenomenon for thousands of years, with their significance varying from amulets, punishment, and status symbols amongst different cultures worldwide, modern tattoos in the United States of America weren’t popularized within pop culture until the 1950s – a time known as “The Tattoo Renaissance”. During this time, tattoos were recognized as an individual art form and were typified by “avant-garde tattooing” – consisting of Japanese, tribal, and fineline art, all inspired by ethnic subcultures (Japanese, Polynesian, and Latinx respectively).
Polynesian-style tattoo
Japanese-style tattoo
Latinx-inspired tattoo
However, while tattoos were popularized during this time, it wasn’t until the women’s liberation movement of the 60s and 70s when, with a wider client base to tattoo, the style shifted and moved away from traditional subjects and clients. Tattoos starting veering towards “feminine designs,” such as floral and mystical imagery and many were inspired by celebrities’ personal tattoos, such as Janis Joplin’s Florentine wrist tattoo.
Janis Joplin
According to a recent 2015 study,
about 29% of Americans have at least one tattoo and the styles of tattoos have
evolved based on two types of groups. While there are the traditionalists, who
tattoo based on pre-made designs found on the walls of their tattoo shops,
tattoos have started opening up towards artistic freedom and a collaborative
effort between the client’s ideal vision and the artist’s execution.
Enter: Rita Zolutukhina, a 25-year-old
Ukrainian tattoo artist known as “Rit Kit”. Although she started off with a Bachelor’s
in architecture, Zolotukhina has taken many different art courses throughout
her career to help inspire her current line of work as a tattoo artist. While the
current popular styles of tattoos are watercolor or nontraditional dotwork,
Zolotukhina manageed to create a new style of nontraditional tattoo completely
her own.
As long as she has been a tattoo
artist, she has created nature-based tattoos. However, realizing that she was
unsatisfied with the creation of her tattoos and wanted them to be more
true-to-life, Zolutukhina created “botanical fingerprint” tattoos. In order to
create these tattoos, she first dips flowers and leaves in stencil ink, presses
them onto the client’s body, and then proceeds to directly tattoo the rest of
the design. Even though stencil ink is a typical step in creating tattoos, she
cuts out the actual drawing and design step of tattooing. Her experimentation has
led to her ability to create what is known as the “live leaf tattoo.” These
tattoos allow for clients to know with full certainty that their tattoos are
uniquely done. Each flower and leaf placed is unique to them and each delicate
detail of nature is captured directly onto the skin.
Similarly to many big-C creatives,
Zolotukhina is also aware that, like the artistry of tattoos, her style will
eventually evolve and change. One day, she could lose her love of nature and be
tattooing other subjects or be inspired by something besides nature. In the
meantime, she attempts to constantly develop her skills by varying the plants used
or travelling to different countries around the world to challenge herself and
utilize local botany. Furthermore, based on Csikszentmihaly’s idea of flow
and the setting of challenges to create the optimal performance levels,
Zolotukhina exemplifies this with her consistent push towards traveling, discovering
new styles of tattooing, and allowing it to affect her attitude towards her
personal style, knowing that she pushes herself towards adaptation and
evolution. Much like the “live leaf” tattoos she is creating, her artistry has
made a permanent mark that will continue to grow.
Lamb of God is an American heavy metal band out of Richmond, Virginia. The band formed in 1994 under the name Burn the Priest. This year the band celebrated the 20th anniversary of their 1998 first release, which bears the same name as their former moniker. Guitarist Mark Morton bears a majority of the responsibility of song writing, while the other four members will collaborate and improve upon the work and ideas Morton presents in order to make cohesive pieces. Morton, in an interview with songwritersprocess.com, makes it very clear that he likes to clear his head in while writing. He does this as a way of avoiding fixation upon the mundane, uninteresting, day to day things that don’t make for good music and really thinking about the important things that actually make for meaningful music. Morton talks of how his songwriting process has evolved over the years, comparing his early writing to writing a thesis for an essay. Looking back on the songs he wrote this way, he describes them as “hokey” and “(not) very pure”. He sees the newer, clear head method as producing superior music. He refers to it as a “eureka” type situation, in which inspiration just strikes, invoking a certain sense of insight. While trying to make his music meaningful, Morton, much like a poet, doesn’t make the meaning explicit, and he leaves it to the reader to decide what the true meaning behind the music is.
Considering Morton is first and foremost a guitarist, he says he never writes music around his lyrics. Rather, he painstakingly tailors his lyrics to fit with his music. He says “ I will very often write music looking for some kind of physical response to the pattern and to the cadence of the guitar. I look for the rhythm. Lyrics come at any given moment. . . On a mechanical level, I have to literally edit the syllables so that it locks into the music better. In that sense, it evolves from a point of being purely creative and imaginative, almost like a prose freeform thing, into a technical process where I have to ensure that the words lock-in just right and that they are not too wordy. What words can I lose for example, without losing the meaning? What words can I add to make it flow more naturally? That’s where I become a technician.” Furthermore, in writing these lyrics, he considers the vocalist, Randy Blythe, to be an instrument rather than just words on a page. He looks at the overall composition of the piece, adding and deleting bits and pieces, be it vocals, melody, or rhythm to make for a cohesive work. As far as motivation goes, Morton isn’t too concerned with the glamour and fame that comes with touring. Of course, he enjoys being on stage for the fans, but for Morton its all about the music. He tells songwritersonprocess.com “Don’t get me wrong: I do enjoy watching people enjoy our music and I enjoy the energy of the live show, but I didn’t start playing guitar or writing music as a means to the end of getting on stage in front of thousands of people. I started writing songs because that was the end game. I’ve always been so enamored by that process.”
http://www.songwritersonprocess.com/blog/2014/09/04/mark-morton-lamb-of-god Images courtesy of https://www.facebook.com/lambofgod
The opening lines of Gillian Flynn’s sophomore novel, Dark Places, were the product of a complete rewrite after the author realized her main character Libby Day was someone that she despised as a character, and someone that she despised writing. Flynn wrote this first version of her main character in hopes that this would be the best route for her to take from a careerist perspective. Her first novel, Sharp Objects, focused on a dark, bad women, but she felt that she could not be pigeonholed into this niche. When reflecting upon her first draft of Dark Places, her husband asked her what she thought of Libby, and Flynn responded with “God, I can’t stand her. She’s so optimistic and so perky, and she just drives me crazy.” It was after that consultation with her husband that Gillian Flynn finally made the decision to write what she needed to write, not what she was supposed to write.
Gillian Flynn for Time Magazine.
Growing up, Gillian Flynn’s father was a film professor. She was constantly surrounded by movies, and even now, she described in an interview with Fast Company how her two great loves are films and books. As a kid, her writing was always based in a fairly dark, “otherworldly reality” with someone having something bad happen to them (Fast Company). Gillian went to college to study journalism in hopes of becoming a crime reporter. She realized very early on that she was not cut out for writing tough crime, but what she could write about was movies and TV. Out of college, she got a job at Entertainment Weekly and began writing for herself at night. Although her third and most recent novel Gone Girl is what she is best known for, her first novel also had the same dark and complex lead female character that fans of her breakthrough novel loved. In an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Flynn describes how she thinks that women have just as many issues with aggression and anger as men do, but that they express those emotions differently, and they are not talked about as frequently. When she was working on getting her first novel published, the same reason that Gone Girl became so popular was the reason why various publishers turned her down for Sharp Objects. She explained how she heard that a lot of people did not want to read about women like Camille, her main character. They wanted to read about people they could route for and those that are heroic. Flynn then countered these claims in an interview with CBS Sunday Morning that Camille is in fact very heroic, and sometimes the most heroic thing that a person that goes through extremely traumatic and painful things can do is to just keep their head above water.
Despite Flynn feeling comfortable with her product after going through an strenuous process of rewriting, the field and critics were not ready for that kind of a paradigm shift. Much like Einstein in Gardner's Creative Minds, Gillian Flynn exhibited Gardner’s role of The Child and the Master. Flynn broke through in writing with Gone Girl because she did not accept the norms for writing women at that time and the criticisms of her first novel. In order to create Gone Girl, Flynn went back to the basic, conceptual ideas and inspirations that were more simplistic, which she could then expand upon. Flynn had been let go from Entertainment Weekly right before she began writing Gone Girl, and she could not find another job as a writer. Instead of giving up, she utilized her current situation to help get into the mind of Nick Dunne, one of the main characters.
The opening and closing scene of Gone Girl.
Arguably, one of Gone Girl’s most iconic scenes in both the novel and film, that Flynn herself was screenwriter for, was the “Cool Girl” scene. The monologue was the product of a writing exercise. One of Flynn's rules with writing exercises is that she cannot put any of those exercises in a book because she feels like she would then try to justify the effort being put into the exercises and put them in even when they do not belong. Finally, she came to the conclusion that with this monologue she had to break her own rule, and she added the scene to her novel.
In Teresa M. Amabile’s Beyond Talent: John Irving and the Passionate Craft of Creativity, Amabile describes how the componential model of creativity has three domains including: domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant processes, and intrinsic task motivation. Flynn was able to exhibit that she possessed both domain-relevant skills and creativity-relevant processes, however, as Amabile states, it was Flynn’s intrinsic task motivation that thrust her forward and allowed for the momentous success of Gone Girl. She did not care that the publishers or readers may not fall in love with her characters or story. Flynn wrote her characters and story the way she wanted to because that was what she desired more than anything.
It was this straying from the normal character archetypes that have drawn so many fans to Flynn’s work. It was not the first time that a woman was portrayed as evil in books or on film. The long held “idea that women are innately good, innately nurturing and bemoaned the ‘spunky heroines,’ ‘soul-searching fashionistas,’ and ‘dismissible bad’ tramps and vamps” in contemporary fiction are completely dismantled by Flynn with her characters (The Washington Post). A journalist for The Washington Post notes how Flynn allows the women in her novels to be complicated, flawed, profane, unsympathetic; even, “pragmatically evil, bad, and selfish”. The women in Sharp Objects echo remnants of familiar archetypes — the prodigal daughter, the chilly matriarch, the “woman-child with a gorgeous body...asserting her power over lesser creatures” — however, Flynn “acid-strips them of sentiment.” In an interview with Chicago Magazine, Flynn stated:
“I’ve nurtured my dark side very carefully. I’m not someone who’s ever wanted to get rid of my demons. I don’t want them to take over, but I couldn’t empathize with my screwed-up and dark characters and disturbed narrators unless I had pieces of them.”
Flynn is passionate about writing dark and complex female characters because she can, to a certain degree, empathize with them. Her field had yet to represent any women like this, and instead of waiting for someone to write them for her, she went ahead and wrote those characters herself without any care for what the critics thought.
After the success of Gone Girl, Flynn was offered a deal for a movie adaptation. It is very rare that the author ever gets to be the screenwriter for their movie adaptation, but after sitting down with the director, they offered her the position. The director of Gone Girl, David Fincher, when describing her screenwriting, said, “Gillian writes like an audience member. She is the thirteen year old with a bucket of popcorn in her lap watching a movie.” Flynn writes both her novels and her screenwriting the way she would want them if she were the one experiencing them. When HBO approached her about an adaptation of Sharp Objects, twelve years after it was published, Flynn once again felt like she had to have some creative control over the adaptation. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Flynn said:
“I was worried that adapting Sharp Objects to a film would lose that character study, and I always felt that Sharp Objects was more of a character study than a mystery. I want the expansiveness to explore the character in a different way. Who is she? Not, who done it?”
Whether it is work on her novels or on TV and film, Flynn makes sure that her work is representative of herself and the way she personally wants it to be. With her Sharp Objects adaptation, Flynn used her knowledge that she had gained from screenwriting Gone Girl and was an Executive Producer for the successful HBO mini series.
In Teresa M. Amabile’s article Perspectives on the Social Psychology of Creativity, Amabile states how harmonious passion, a critical part of internal motivation for creativity, is defined as:
“The autonomous internalization of an activity, making it part of one’s identity and thus creating a sense of personal enjoyment and free choice about pursuing the activity.”
Flynn’s characters are part of her, and she in turn, is part of them. She enjoys writing these dark and complex characters because they are her own and no one else’s. Flynn’s ability to open up the door and create a space in the literary field and TV and movie industry for complex, anti-hero women not only highlights her creativity, but also her ability to persevere. The struggle for more representation in the media and pop culture is not over, however. Flynn described in an interview with Vulture how:
“I think fiction, as far as it regards women, just needs to tackle that idea of pressing to make sure that women of all different types are seen and explored and related to. That was my push, that women do have their dark side, and that should be allowable. I don’t know that there has to be a push of “the uglier the better”; that’s never been my motto. Let’s allow women their full range of emotions, good and bad. Let’s allow women their full range of good and bad qualities. And we still need to see tons more women of color, more LGBTQ, all kinds of women represented of different socioeconomic stature. There’s always room to see more kinds of women.”
She recognizes how her success was fundamental in the push for more representation, but what is important is that she recognizes that this was only one step in the process. There is always going to be more to be done, and only time will tell what Flynn, or other creatives, does next.
Rob Scallon is a name that might sound familiar to you. That’s because he is a famous YouTuber, not only because of his personality, but also because of his amazing talent on the guitar. Rob Scallon is a multi-instrumentalist that lives in Chicago and has over 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube. He grew up in the Chicago suburbs and went to Arlington Heights High School where he played as a drummer for a death-metal band named Gas Mask Catalogue. Prior to this, he realized the potential of the internet and how it could help him in his musical journey. He created his YouTube account in 2007 and, although it was a slow process, he gained popularity through the years. Initially, he held random jobs to pay for this venture, but he eventually quit them to play for other YouTubers, such as Weezy Waiter. Currently, the only time he plays live is when he plays for Hank Green & the Perfect Strangers; the majority of his music is now on just on YouTube.
Rob and his signature 8-string Chapman
Rob is one of the most creative musicians I have ever seen. Now, metal is not my favorite genre, but the personality that Rob brings to his video performances captivates me. So, I continue to watch more and more. Personality is key to the creative process, and according to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s “The Creative Personality,” Rob Scallon has the perfect creative character. The first of the ten dimensions of complexity is that of having a great deal of physical energy but being quiet and at rest the majority of the time. In an interview with Leor Galil, Rob is described as being gentle and affable when he is not thrashing about while playing music. The second dimension describes being smart and naïve at the same time. Rob constantly displays this trait in his videos. Anyone can tell that he is a master at the guitar and drums, but he constantly puts himself in situations where he plays an instrument that he has very little experience with. For example, he challenges himself to play other instruments such as the berimbau, Shahi Baaja, and even a shovel!
It is hard to put into words the magnitude of Rob’s creativity. Many of his videos are off the wall, weird things that no one has done before. For example, he posts many videos that he calls “Challenge Videos.” These consist of Rob writing songs with a specific obstacle he needs to overcome. Some of these challenges include forcing himself to play a note on every note of a guitar in the duration of a song or writing a song with a capo on the 14th fret. Other videos involve him playing a song and singing what sounds to be gibberish. He then reverses the video and it sounds as if he was singing normally. In addition to these entertaining videos, Rob writes his own music. Most of his music is either metal (no surprise) or folk and all of it will leave you breathless. My personal favorite is Rain. He put up a video of himself playing this song in 2011. The video is simple - he is just sitting on his amp in an empty parking lot as the camera pans left and right - but it is breath taking. Rob uses an extreme amount of reverb to create swells of sounds and emotion that pour out in a beautiful rhythm as he picks at the strings. Another one of my favorite songs is Anchor. This is the first song Rob wrote on an 8-string guitar and it has stuck with me and many other fans for years after.
Rob playing the banjo
I think we can all take a lesson in creativity from Rob Scallon. Just like Rob stretches the limits of music, I challenge you to test your passion to the limits and see the immensity of your own creativity.
Here's the tea, a new generation of makeup gurus are taking over. YouTube has now become a platform for countless up and coming makeup artists to display their talents, one of the most influential of whom is James Charles Dickinson, popularly known as James Charles. Charles rose to fame from a meme (of course), making fun of the fact that he brought a ring light to his senior photos. This caught the attention of CoverGirl, and soon after, he became their first male spokesperson. He has gone on to be on the The Ellen DeGeneres Show, he has created a series with his younger brother called, Brother & Sister, and has his own merchandise called Sister Apparel. Charles makes an effort to meet his fans by doing live make-up tutorials along with a Q&A for the audience. Charles made sister strides in a beauty industry by being the first male CoverGirl, trying new looks on his channel, and collaborating with other makeup artists and YouTubers. By accomplishing all of these things Charles is able to create a community. His followers have even begun talking like him-- he refers to his fans as "sisters" as well as using "sister" before adjectives that start with s. He has also popularized many other terms such as "tea", meaning gossip and "good and fresh", meaning good. Today, James Charles has 9.3 million subscribers.
