The Posing Tourist, Revealed

Virtually every so-called creative artist in the world at this juncture does the equivalent of thrusting their eager grinning face into a cut-out hole in a plywood tourist tableau and saying "Look! It's me! I'm doing the thing!"

Whenever you hear the nth singer sing that bluesy note singers always sing to signal bluesiness, it's precisely that same impulse. "Look! Now it's me doing it! I'm the soulful bluesy singer!"

It's most flagrant with political speeches. Every politician gives the same speech. The words scarcely matter, because the politician has nothing particularly important to say. He's there just to be That Guy with the haircut at the podium giving The Speech. "Now it's me! I'm giving the speech!" At rare moments where the words actually matter, they can't rise to the occasion because shallow preening is all they've got. The posing tourist, revealed.

I've often noted that most singers become singers because they want to be singers, not because they want to sing.

But this is not really about singers.

Also, I'm getting ready to nix "most".


Further reading: "The Crux of Creativity"