#and i'm sorry you got a lot of the bullshit 'fake outrage' that tumblr does that always sucks

[thetragicallynerdy]

[ID: four images. The first three are polls, and the fourth a collection of tags and replies. The polls ask:

1) Artists- Do your lines live in your hands or your brain? (Focus on lines exclusively).

Results: Hands - 58%; Brain - 23.9%; My lines live outside my body - 8.8%; I'm not an artist - 9.3%. 205 Votes.

2) Artists - Does your shading live in your hands or your brain? (Focus on shading/mass exclusively).

Results: Hands - 39.9%; Brain - 34.3%; My shading lives outside of my body - 15.7%; I'm not an artist - 10.1%. 178 votes.

3) Artists - Does your color live in your hands or your brain? (Focus on color exclusively)

Results: Hands, 14.3%; Brain, 53.7%; My color lives outside my body, 18.4%; I'm not an artist, 13.7%. 926 votes.

4) The series of replies and tags to the colour post:

# i dont think the poll maker is an artist in the same way the rest of us are artists # fascinated by what this is trying to imply # op i wanna see how your brain works

# shaking hands with everyone in the tags asking what the fuck # because what the fuck

# Huh # why would I possess a color # furthermore why would specifically only my hands possess a color # why is it living also can't forget that # I chose the third option but I reject the idea of owning any color at all # and also I can't think of color without light and shadow! # which bleeds into form and texture and shape! # they are all intrinsically linked how many issues can I have with one question?!?! # Is this actually about auras and the artist thing just really confused the context?

# What the fuck does this mean?!?!?! # HUH?!?!?! # I am an artist and I love coloring and I have NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS TALKING ABOUT!?!?!?!?

# i guess my fears are right and im not an artist #because like what? # what even is my color?

Reply from @/spoop-geist : Brain i guess cause i dont know what this even means

Reply from @/hollowprose : girl what the hell does this mean D

Reply from @/ morgan-aleghieri : can. can you elaborate??

Reply from @/ nadsdraws : I also dont understand the question

End ID.]

Okay so this is interesting-

Last night I posted three polls. This was in the name of Fun, but the goal was to figure out how artists perceive their own skills. I suspected that elements of art that require high manual dexterity, like line work, are most instinctual. But elements that don’t require any manual dexterity at all, like color choice, are more cerebral. Here are the polls as of now-

So actually- after just 14 hours, it’s kind of bearing out my lazy and non-scientific hypothesis.

I intentionally wrote the questions to be matching and with very little nuance, but also very open to interpretation. I wanted an instinctual response that wasn’t based on logic, but how artists felt about their skills.

For the first few hours everyone seemed to get it. But then something interesting happened. The color poll broke containment. Not much. But enough to alienate it from the context of the other polls. And people started reacting with bafflement and, in some case, frustration.

I’m not surprised that the color poll specifically was the one to get this response. The poetry and grammatical vagueness of the phrase “where does your color live,” outside of the context of the other two polls, implies that you own a color and it lives somewhere.

I’m a little surprised at the total lack of curiosity of the people responding. When I see something baffling, I immediately check out the OP and see if there is a context I’m missing. All of these polls are at the top of my blog right now, and my pinned post explains pretty well what kind of artist I am.

So yeah. No lesson, here. Just an observation from like 5 asks (all of which were very nice and kind of excited to see what the results will be) and kind of a lot of comments and tags demanding explanations while searching for none.