We recently connected with Alex Millar and have shared our conversation below.
Alex, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?
I never wonder what it would be like to have a regular-type job, because I’ve had lots of them. From cleaning out grease traps with my bare hands and driving illegally as an under-the-table pizza boy at 15 years old, to being a terrible waiter on Pier 39 in San Francisco, to working as a receptionist at a “massage” spa, to getting up at 5am to haul out garbage in the Winter rain as a bakery barista, to doing graphic design, to teaching music at the collegiate level, I think I can speak for every Artist when I say that we all have to take lots of regular jobs to make ends meet. Unless we’re born rich or a nepo-baby.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name’s Alex, I’m a white queer nonbinary neurodivergent artist-agitator. My musical project is called VATTICA, where I make anthemic, catchy rock music. I was also chosen as one of 33 recipients of the CA Creative Corps Fellowship which is generously supported by the California Arts Council and administered by Community Partners which means that I have been able to create NEURONITE, a mini-music festival centered around the needs of the neurodivergent community here in East Los Angeles. You can learn more at these links: https://vattica.bio
https://neuronite.org
We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
Currently NFTs are nothing but a plaything of the rich. I certainly understand the idea, and am always interested in emergent technologies, but the combination of unregulated AI and rampant theft has created a pump-and-dump ecosystem that I’ve only observed hurting artists and creatives, while making rich folks richer and polluting the planet.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
My advice for anyone trying to build a following on any social media platform is to remember that they’re all gated. By which I mean, you’re at the mercy of a proprietary algorithm that’s controlled and constantly updated by that particular platform. Even TikTok, which is currently the only platform that actual gives everyone a shot at real, organic growth, still has a host of issues; from prioritizing white faces over everyone else, to not understanding musical content very well, to paying creators 0.0015 cents per view. I say all that to any one starting out so that they remember that if they’re not getting engagement, that isn’t an indication of the quality of their content.
For example, I did a test. I posted a video of mine that got over 1m views on TikTok to YouTube shorts, Guess how many views it got there? Four. It got four views. Same video, same content. Obviously there was a target market for it, but YouTube didn’t push the video like TikTok did, for whatever nebulous pile of reasons.
Remember, there’s a target market for everything. There are three Human Centipede films, you know what I mean? They were like “should we stop at one” and someone was like “no way, there’s an audience for at least two more”. So to every indie artist I say be yourself, do what you do, and remember that you’re fighting an uphill battle against systems that were not designed for art, but for outrage content and brands.
Unless of course, again, you’re rich or a nepo-baby. Then you can just buy your way in.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://officialvattica.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/vattica
- Other: https://tiktok.com/@vattica https://vattica.bio https://neuronite.org
Image Credits
Liam Woods