41 pages • 1 hour read
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
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Chapter 8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary: “Be Nice. (The World Is a Small Town.)”
Kleon encourages artists to ignore their enemies and say nice things to people they want to be their friends. Try to be friends with the “most talented person in the room” (104). While it can be easy to grow frustrated by online discourse, Kleon encourages artists to “stop picking fights” (105) and use that energy in their work.
When it comes to receiving validation for one’s own work, internal validation should take precedence over external validation, which might never come. He encourages artists to keep a “praise file,” where they keep nice emails and feedback to revisit when they feel lonely or isolated.
Chapter 8 Analysis
This chapter is the first of two that advises creatives to turn inward and assess how their own behavior affects and is affected by creative processes and community. As such, it represents a shift toward a reflective approach, which serves to conclude the book’s progression of step-by-step concepts, following the established pattern common in self-help and advice literature.
Kleon alludes to something called the “golden rule,” addressing Creativity in the Digital Age when he says that in “our hyperconnected world,” this rule “is even more golden” (101). Drawing on a tenet of moral philosophy that asks that people treat others as they would like to be treated, here Kleon moves into the field of ethics in the community, addressing how best to engage with others online to foster positivity and limit negativity.
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