Video is my art

I’ve never enjoyed art. I don’t appreciate or feel pulled toward music or drawing or painting or anything else. And I felt a bit of jealousy toward people who had a creative outlet like those.

But, it recently occurred to me: video is my art.

Since taking video production classes in high school 15+ years ago, there is something I enjoy about planning, filming, and editing a video. But I never considered it “art.”

Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo Da Vinci, and tons of other greats throughout history had some form of art as a hobby. But until recently, it couldn’t have been video. Video is relatively new. And the ability to create a video at home with a digital camera is even newer. Perhaps because it’s ‘new’ I didn’t feel like it was art.

Art is a form of communication through time. Shakespeare wrote plays that have lasted hundreds of years. Michelangelo created paintings and sculptures that have lasted hundreds of years. And composers like Beethoven have created music that has lasted hundreds of years.

Video is the way I will spread my ideas over time, long after my body has died. It won’t be a beautiful sculpture in a museum hundreds of year from now but maybe it’ll be on Youtube admired by someone in the year 2300.

Even more than ideas, storytelling is what survives. Something like Mona Lisa, the most famous painting in the world, is so famous because of the story behind it. The time and effort that went into creating it. Each stroke was intentional and masterful.

And we - you and I - are way luckier than any artist who has ever lived.

DaVinci, Picasso, Michelangelo, these guys may or may not have gotten extremely wealthy from their art in their lifetime, I don’t know. They certainly got posthumous fame and influence - which is completely worthless. But now, perhaps for the first time, there is space for millions of people to become wealthy, or at least make a good living, from their art i.e. in the form of video or podcasts or writing on the internet.

But, I don’t like to describe myself as an artist or an influencer or a creative.

Those sound pretentious.

I like to describe myself as a teacher.

I learn things, then I teach them.

At scale.

Video is my medium.

Video is my art.