this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
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- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
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Art isn't about making something pretty, nor is it really about design, it's about wanting to do or make something with no ulterior motive, or going beyond what you have to go make something inspiring (these are the same thing when you think about it).
Clip art, a lot of corporate design, a lot of architecture and more isn't meant to be art, it's meant to fulfill a purpose and maybe look pretty doing it. That's not what art is.
Cameras largely killed off commissioned portrait because people don't care about the process, they just want a picture of themselves, therefore the portrait wasn't art, it was utility.
That doesn't mean that it's impossible for a portrait to be art, nor that photography isn't art, just that unskilled people were suddenly able to make what they were looking for to a "good enough" standard much more conveniently.
The same can be seen for so many things, including AI being used for clip art or supplementary images in articles. In the case of AI, if all you want is any picture that help support part of an article you're writing, you didn't want art in the first place. If you use AI to help you make a statement, or to match a vision you have in your head, or even do things like poke around at the internals to distort the output, then that is art.
I've been saying this for years
I love your take. And extrapolating from it a bit, a lot of what we consider 'artists' weren't really making 'art', as you define it. They were (and mostly still are) drawing/painting, etc pictures as a means to an end. For money; and now they are mad or worried or scared (with reason) about losing their livelihood. Because a cheaper, not necessarily better but certainly with a better cost/benefit ratio, comes along.
I think that's extrapolating too far... I think the overwhelming majority made art outside of their job, with with minorities making art for their job and a minority not making any art at all. It's hard to create commissioned works without a strong skillset which overlaps significantly with that required for art, just that if they were just taking a commission without going above and beyond, that isn't art.
Except corporate art also has human elements behind it that change. Look at global village coffeehouse vs alegria. Having ai churn out all clip art and corporate art will make it stagnate and become even more soulless.