The phrase “devastated to announce” is funny because it lands somewhere between comedy and confession. It echoes the language of the online rollout, “excited to share,” “humbled to announce,” “thrilled to finally drop,” but flips it on its head. It names the ache underneath all those polished captions. Artists joke like this because we’ve been burned before. We share our work, wait for someone to notice, and most often, no one does. So we beat everyone to the punch by laughing at ourselves before anyone else can ignore us.

It’s tempting to call this kind of humor self-deprecating, but that’s not quite right. It’s not about minimizing our efforts. It’s about preparing for The Void. We want people to care, and it hurts when they don’t. So we post our project with a smirk. We coat it in irony so it’s not so painful when it disappears. “Devastated to announce” works because it holds truth. Creating something and sharing it in public can feel devastating in a culture that doesn’t know how to respond to artistic endeavors or even show curiosity.

I’ve felt that sting more times than I can count. There was a vacation once, several years ago, where I sat at a table with my sister-in-law, a woman I no longer speak to, and she said, straight-faced, “I don’t like music. I don’t get artists. I don’t get why anyone would waste time trying to make art.” My husband is a musician. I write and dabble with arts and crafts. She said this with full awareness of who she was speaking to. She wanted it to sting. And it did. Not just because it was mean-spirited. I know she’s a bitch cloaked in naivete. It stung because she was sincere. She believed it. There are people like her who walk through the world thinking beauty is optional, expression is indulgent, and anyone who chooses to live by making things is playing pretend (unless you are Kenny Chesney. She loves her some Kenny.)  When we hear that enough times from people, no matter how ignorant the person, we start to wonder if maybe silence is safer in this fucked up, lonely world.

Asking doesn’t help, either. I’ve asked people to engage. I’ve written the emails, sent the links, shared the drafts, and made the pitch. I recently reached out to over thirty women I know, including friends, acquaintances, and former colleagues, and invited them to engage with my writing and Mocktail Hour blog because it’s important to me. I was deliberate and vulnerable. Most wrote back with encouragement. Three followed through. The rest were kind in theory, but gone in practice. I don’t blame them. People are busy. We’re overwhelmed. We’re just trying to get through the day. But the truth is, it still hurts my feelings. Not because I think I deserve attention, or because I think my writing is excellent (though I do think it’s fair to good), but because I am trying to build connections. And more often than not, the connections never spark.

Very few of my family members read my work. One aunt. Maybe my sisters. One says she does, the other said, “I’ll read it, I just didn’t know it was so important to you.” One time, my mom told me, “So-and-so said, ‘Amy sure has strong opinions!’” I am not dense as to what that means, but I’m happy that someone thinks something!

I’ve stopped expecting anything. I still share because I have to keep speaking for my own beliefs. I have to name the things or I disappear inside my grief and loneliness. And this world, as full as it seems, is lonely in a way that feels structural. Loneliness doesn’t just come from isolation. It comes from the sense that our voices have nowhere to land. It comes from the feeling that expression is a one-way transmission into The Void.

I no longer care the way I used to. I think menopause helped with that. Something shifted in me. I stopped organizing my life around being palatable. I stopped waiting for approval. But that doesn’t mean I stopped wanting real engagement. There is a difference between not needing validation and still craving connection. I don’t want applause. I want people to show up for me. I want people to sit with what I make. I want the arts to feel less like shouting and more like real conversation.

I don’t fault people for being tired. I don’t blame them for turning to comfort, to distraction, to sugar and TV and whatever numbs the noise. I do it too. We live in a brutal world. Everyone is overloaded. The architecture of our lives leaves very little room to slow down, to attend to one another, or to give sustained attention. But when we stop responding to each other’s work, something precious begins to die. Creative ecosystems don’t collapse due to a lack of talent. They starve from a lack of reciprocity.

So if I have an urgent plea for my fellow artists and it’s this: let’s stop pretending we’re too cool to care. Let’s stop using irony to disguise our hunger for community and real conversations. Let’s stop punishing sincerity with the silent treatment. If we see someone creating something, whether through writing, painting, composing, or crafting, we take the extra five minutes in our day to say something genuine. Don’t just like the post. Tell them one feeling the piece evoked in you.

The next time someone says, “I made this,” don’t scroll past. Sit with it. Stay a little longer. Let it matter because it does matter, even when it sucks.