News Summary

• The pursuit of fame for fame’s sake has become an almost banal pursuit in the attention economy.
• Creators described feeling hypersensitive to how their posts performed and spending more time each day monitoring them.
• One artist bemoaned that she had to “flatten and suppress her real self” to engage her audience.
• An otherwise chipper cartoonist likened her audience to a “chamber of despair” that nobody else understands.
• It struck musicians and illustrators, YouTubers and Instagrammers, self-proclaimed anxious wrecks and the freest of spirits.