How I Found Self-Esteem Through Animation/Transcript


 * Rebecca Parham: Hello, my geeks and peeps, my explainers and entertainers, my little oo-de-lallies, Rebecca Parham here. Something the Internet likes to talk a lot about. These days is the struggle for self-esteem. Many major YouTubers are opening up and saying that even though they are popular and they obviously have the capacity to create or entertain, they still struggle with basic self-love. a lack of self-esteem can have many causes. Your body image, your skills and talents, your current level of success or maturity. For me, it's been pretty much all of the above from fourth grade on. I spent my school days in the perpetual wallflower. The shy, bullied, socially awkward girl with no friends and no confidence. Things got better when I went to my first college, but my journey for self-esteem really revved up when I got involved in animation. Some people watching this video who are actually familiar with the animation industry are reading the title of this video and going: "Huh.". At face value, everything about the animation industry is meant to lower your self-esteem. I could start listing off the many reasons for that, but that would be another video, entirely. We're moving on. "So Becca, how could working in such a soul-crushing industry actually give you self-esteem?". So glad you asked. I made a list: Number one: learning to take criticism. Anyone who has ever tried picking up an art form has probably come across the road block known as criticism. You get emotionally attached to your work and you feel very vulnerable showing it to someone, and very often when you encounter rejection of your ideas of performance, it's easy to take it personally and decide that it's a reflection of your worth. But in the professional creative industries, criticism happens every day. Literally, in major studios, you show your work to a group of your colleagues and superiors every day - they're called dailies for goodness sake - and in the creative industries, you have to learn how to take criticism and what that basically boils down to is accepting the fact that you are an imperfect human being, and you will make mistakes, and you do have areas that need improvement, and that's okay. That's normal. Everybody in the room is getting critiqued and having their weaknesses put on display, and I, trust you, but the constructive criticism that receive from your colleague,s it's just a means of making you better, making you stronger. Don't accept the criticism get excited about it: "Yay, I'm gonna be better by the end of this.", oh my God. Anyways, number two: Having confidence in your ideas. Now, just because you have to learn how to accept constructive criticism doesn't mean you can't believe in the decisions that you make. That was a very hard lesson for me to learn in animation, because if you have zero confidence in your capabilities as an artist, you end up second-guessing every little choice. You make every color, every line, every idea, projects take forever because you are constantly going back and changing things, and the end result is that your work becomes watered-down and mediocre. You never venture to try anything new or interesting, so therefore, you never grow as an artist, so you have to recognize to yourself. I know what I'm doing you want to use that color for these reasons. The character is gonna walk to the store for this motive and you stick to your guns, especially in critique, your client or superior or colleagues are not always right. So when you know you've made the best creative choice, you've got to defend it in a mature and professional way. That is so what this does for your self-esteem is that you know you're worth knowing that you have skills and experiences and ideas and good things about yourself, that you can bring to the table and add to the conversation and you just get so excited about the fact that you're just gonna continue to improve and have so much more to offer. Knowing your worth is knowing self-esteem Number three: Learning how to fail. SPOILER ALERT: You're gonna fail. A lot. Especially in the beginning, but for some reason, we in modern society associated alia with the end of everything. Excuse me? If you can answer wrong on the test, you don't fail the whole class, you'll learn from it. I failed, I failed 3D animation too, and had to wait an entire year to get back in the major, but guess what? I learned more from getting kicked out of that class then I ever would have if my teacher had given me a passing C. Out of pity, I came back to that major several times stronger and I made straight A's in 3D the rest of the way again. This is going with the theme of accepting the fact that you are human and you have weaknesses and you will make mistakes. So then, it just becomes effective, trying again and learning from those mistakes and working on those weaknesses. People with high self-esteem don't hide behind their strengths and pretend their weaknesses don't exist or their mistakes never happened. People with egos do that. So, as I say, in the industry, fail early, fail often. It ain't the end of the world. Number four: Empathy. High self-esteem is very often associated with positive feelings in a person. Empathy and compassion being among them and being an animator means you have to put yourself in the shoes of the character, you have to figure out why this character makes the decisions they do, what experiences and motivations beget their actions so you begin looking for and observing those motivations in real people. And so when it comes to interacting with people whether it's a co-worker or the person at the cash register or a family member or girlfriend or boyfriend, you begin to realize everybody wants exactly what you want. You want to feel included, listen to respected and involved, don't you? You want to be asked your opinion and have it taken seriously, you want to feel valued and you want to be known as an individual and treat it as such. Well, so does everyone else, and if you really really understand that it's a rather humbling notion, I stole that from this book. It's a good read, so in my life, would that has created within me is this feeling of love, wanting to help someone wanting to be there, for someone wanting to stick up, for someone wanting to listen to them wanting to understand or at least try to understand what they're going through, because that's what I would want someone to do for me and finding love for others is one of the quickest ways to finding love for yourself empathize. It's good for you. And number five and really one of the most important for me: Seeing beauty. "Becca, what do you mean by that?". So glad you asked. I'll tell you this one was pretty revolutionary for me when I finally figured it out the concept of beauty, especially human view, exceeds all societal definitions of that word. "What are you talking about, Becca?". Here's some context: I've always been the fat kid from third grade to this very moment, and I can say, without a doubt, it has been the biggest influencer of my self-esteem or back there of for my entire life, I don't have to go into detail about being a fat person in a thin person's world. We're all talking about it lately. It's a thing, but up until I got into animation, I believed I was ugly. It was just a fact. I was less than my body was a huge factor in my worth. As a human being, I played into the boundaries that society says for anybody above a size eight and it sucked, and then I went to animation school and I began to notice things, especially when we were drawing nude models in figure drawing class. "Wow, look at the curve of her hips, the shape of his legs, the way her body moves, the way the fat of his stomach deforms when he sits down. It's all so fascinating, I could use her body shape for my character design. He shaped like a triangle. Oh, it's be so cool to animate. She has a scar on her face. Oh my gosh, I wonder what the story is behind that and how it affects who she is.". My God, humans are beautiful. They come in so many beautiful sizes and shapes and colors, and they have scars and stretch marks and tattoos that hotel stories, and they each have their own unique talents and drains and life experiences that shape who they are, and what they do. And then, it finally dawned on me. I'm human, I'm beautiful. An ugliness is only defined by your actions, and how you treat people. And in that, I found a love for my body that I never thought I could have. So, animation, it's done right by me. So, to conclude, everything and put it up in a tiny little box and put a bow on it for you. Just remember that the journey for self-esteem is a never-ending one. There are highs and low,s there are good days and bad days, even I have days where in the morning, I'll feel warm and positive about myself and just love everything about me, and by the afternoon, I can't even look at myself in the mirror normal, normal, normal, normal, normal, normal, normal, normal... But the longer you keep at it, the easier it gets what you're saying. Practice actually makes you better at something, and the impossible challenges you face in the beginning are pebbles beneath your feet later. Go on, have courage and find love, find self-esteem. If you'd like to add anything to what I've said or discuss anything, please do so in the comments section below, with love and understanding and respect, please. Alright, explainers and entertainers, this has been a very long video, and I am so happy you stuck it out for the end. I hope this has helped you. Thank you so much for tuning in, but now, I gotta tune out. Love you!