#Throwback

How 10 Years of Artistic Cringe Can Lead to the Web Series of My Dreams

2016 is all over my social media feeds right now. In this nostalgia-driven trend, people are posting throwback pictures from a decade ago, hilighting how everything from the clothes we wore to the media and food we consumed has changed with the trend cycles. For me (this is Leorah btw), this brought up the question, what art was I making in 2016? The short answer is nothing very good.

There’s an Ira Glass quote that haunts all young creatives. You know the one, it’s been written out in cute fonts on Instagrammable graphics and reposted a bajillion times. I’m sure my mom has sent it to me before accompanied by a well-meaning “Thinking of you!” If you either live under a rock or never pursued a BFA, here it is:

“All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this…And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work…It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.”

I know that Ira is right, or else this quote wouldn’t be nearly as famous, but I don’t exactly relate. Like a mother convinced by some protective biological urge that her newborn baby is adorable even though it looks like a slug posing as a half inflated Cabbage Patch Doll, I have the unique and tragic ability to believe that whatever project I’m currently working on is good. It’s not until I look at the thing retrospectively that I feel the long overdue sense of cringe. Therefore, in 2016, I was pretty sure that I was reshaping American Theater in a high school multipurpose room. I was not.

In 2016, I worked with a group of equally …perky friends to petition our high school to run a student-led drama club in the spring so that we could perform in theatre all three trimesters (after the fall play and winter musical of course). We were begrudgingly granted permission, and went on to devise a play about a group of misfits navigating their first week at college. Reader, please note that as we were juniors in high school, none of us had attended college. We were vert proud of the final product, and prouder still that we had written in a scene where the characters eat pizza, meaning we got to order delivery on the school’s dime.

Maybe it’s actually just because of ego, but I like to think my inability to see the “taste gap” in real time has been due to the joy and pride I have in the work I’m creating. I was so excited to be making work that was barely school sanctioned, even if it meant the resources we had were few and far between. We supplied our own costumes, and stole classroom furniture to be repurposed as our set—even if no one really believed that a table with a fitted sheet was a dorm room bed (although they are equally uncomfortable to sleep on—ayooo). I hand-drew on our “cast shirts” with fabric marker, turning my parents’ basement into a textile factory for the weekend. The cast shamelessly advertised our show with flyers and school-wide announcements and general begging.

If I had been more critical of the work I was making in 2016, I might have quit, as Glass describes. I’m grateful not only for the fact that I kept going, but also for all the skills I acquired because I kept going. Now, as I’m (hopefully) closing my “taste gap” a decade later, I also have a decade of taking big swings under my belt. Final Girl was made without industry permission; we greenlit ourselves and then hustled to find resources. We’re prioritizing passion over paycheck—though we’re hoping the paycheck will come. I’m still sourcing costumes from actors’ closets, and fudging set decoration to transform our shooting locations into the rooms and worlds described in the script.

I think the thing that keeps artists going during those awkward, growing-phase years is the support of people who can see their vision, even when said vision has yet to come fully into focus. In the past decade, the through-line keeping me creatively afloat has been this support; from collaborators, friends, and beautiful beautiful substack readers (yes, we launched this blog in 2025, but still). I am thankful for my 2016 self with her optimism and weird pixie cut, but I’m even more thankful for the people who yes and-ed me between then and now. I hope in another decade, I’ll be able to look at the work I’m making now a little less critically, but just as fondly. Who knows, ask me in 2036.

xoxo,

Preset-day Leorah <3