Tiktok's most popular painter sends followers after art critic for negative review of gallery exhibit
Tiktok's most popular painter sends followers after art critic for negative review of gallery exhibit
Ben Davis on the fallout from his critical review of Devon Rodriguez's "Underground," and what it says about "parasocial aesthetics."
For all of you guys that aren't going to read the relatively long article, here's a TL;DR
The artist in question is Devon Rodriguez, who you will more likely recognize if I say he is "the painter who draws people on the subway, from TikTok."
He did a gallery, and this critic, Ben Davis, said that these types of subway portraits are nothing new. The portraits are good as far as realistic portraits go, but as an art critic, the portraits themselves are not very noteworthy. The videos of him making the portraits are what is noteworthy.
Devon Rodriguez didn't like the review and pointed his fans at it. His fans didn't actually read the review (nor did Devon). The fans really got stuck on the part where the critic said that you might not recognize the artist until he called him "the painter who draws people on the subway, from TikTok."
On Saturday morning, I woke up to a tidal wave of anger from Rodriguez on Instagram, tagging me across scores of posts. Hundreds of his followers went on the attack, swarming my Instagram: “loser,” “hater,” “pathetic,” “jealous,” “your a dick,” and on and on and on. There were many creative variations on “kill yourself.” Others said they were going to get me fired, or said things like, “we are going to start a cancellation campaign against you.” A large number thought that defending Rodriguez meant calling me bald, ugly, fat, or whatever they thought could get under my skin. Most didn’t seem to have actually read my article. A contingent went after my wife. “Some women will do anything for money,” one commented. That one was funny, actually.
Meanwhile, Devon makes public posts saying, of the critic, "love will always outshine being a hater, I hope I taught you that today."
The critic goes on to say that Devon Rodriguez's videos are obviously faked, and posts the most obvious example he could find, where another TikToker dances on the London Underground for 30 minutes while he makes a sketch of her that clearly seems to be from a photo not taken at the time. The whole thing has multiple camera angles, and then she acts surprised when he reveals that he drew her.
He ends talking a lot about how problematic parasocial relationships can be. These are where a lot of people feel like they "know" a famous person, but he clearly doesn't know them. And the celebrity ends up with a lot of people acting all wacky to defend him.
I wish we could hold people who do stuff like this with their social media platform accountable and make it so whoever does this kind of stuff would get deplatformed immediately or something.
It’s gross that some people think it’s genuinely okay to practically sic their fans on people who just… don’t like what they do, or might disagree with something they said. The fact the TikTok person also said “love will always outshine being a hater, I hope I taught you that today” is a fucking disgusting and twisted line of thinking because he’s encouraging his fans to hate on the critic - where’s the “love” in that?
people who just… don’t like what they do
it's worse than that!
An art critic took a critical eye to his art, there are some negatives pointed out but overall it's a rather benign and positive review. This mob was unleashed because he dared to offer actual mainstream attention...
Yikes. That’s pretty fucked up of this guy. That’s mild criticism that most artists will have to hear at some point. In the era of photography where hyper realism in hand drawn art is just a skill you can learn art requires more than hyper realism to be notable. That’s just the point of modern art. It’s not a secret, I’m in stem and can’t draw for shit and I know it
The full article is definitely worth a read. The author says that his original article was giving the artist praise, and also mentions that he probably got to where he was without having anyone criticise him.
I always enjoyed these tiktoks, staged or not. But man this is a shitty attitude. Imagine taking it as an insult if someone identified you from your best known (and quite good) work.
Don't display your art to the world if you're not strong enough to take criticism
And apparently don't display your art criticism to the world if you aren't strong enough to get harassed? What a time to be alive
Not to defend any of these fans or the fragile artist, but I just realized how weird it is that there's people whose whole job is to tell others what they think about art. Like it takes longer to consume their thoughts than it does to look at the art yourself and form your own conclusions (at least when we're talking about pictures).
This artist's mob of a following harassed an art critic for their opinion. And so did the artist himself actually! Encouraged it even. What a bum.
Never heard of this guy but no one should be surprised by his actions. Seems like folks popular only on social media tend to be very thin skinned and entitled.
Not a fan of this type of stunt.
This was my first thought - that this was a calculated stunt. Talent builds intrigue, but rage gets clicks. This is sad to see as it is, but if this is a genuine reaction, it's even sadder.
I would never want anything to do with this artist, whether this was a genuine bad reaction or malicious. Just sad.
Wow, what a cool artist, making 30 grand a day shilling fucking cheetos online drawing lame shit an AI could crank out in 2 seconds. Truly a revolutionary thinker that will be talked about for generations to come.
EDIT: Removed the quotes around 'artist' because they are, in fact, an artist, I just have no respect for their art.
This is why I have little respect for most of the art community. There are some exceptions that are just doing it for the love of the work and producing unique styles. But, mostly it's just boring, overdone bullshit being sold for 500x what it's worth, or artists sabotaging themselves to get ahead, or artists shitting on their own audience, or all three, or everything in-between.
As the industry has been growing increasing oversaturated for decades, centuries even, the toxic egos have been more and more pronounced. And I am definitely not surprised this guy got popular on the cesspool that is TikTok.
Isn’t this the dude who obviously makes staged videos? In his videos there is always an obvious cut when the camera pans from the subject in the subway to the drawing. No wonder all his fans are straight up morons
Article says he works with "A-list celebrities"
Open TikTok link
It's Jared Leto
Birds of a feather stick together, him being a harasser isn't surprising then.
Tik Tok guy needs to understand that this will not make the critic appreciate his work.
Like this will just piss off every other critic but okay, you do you.
This artist has a shithouse personality. How thin skinned do you have to be that any criticism warrants that type of petty approach, jeeze
An art influencer is an interesting concept.
Huh, his art is technically fine, but I've seen photorealism done better (and really, it tends to be one of the most boring genres of art imo, because it's usually more focused on accuracy than on any kind of meaning or feeling). I probably wouldn't have thought twice about him if I ever came across his work, but now my impression is that he's not particularly likeable in addition to being a pretty mediocre artist. Especially since the original review was very fair - maybe nicer than he deserved. That chicken hand was rough.
Why do you think that being famous on TikTok makes you professional at something?
Haha Devon Rodriguez is a little bitch. Only a little bitch sends his followers to harass a critic.
Tik Tokers pretend like the culture of building ethical parasocial relationships with your fanbase hasn't already been established years ago by Youtuber and Twitch streamers. You never send your fans to harass others. That's literally how you get banned from the platform.
I mean yes, any rationally minded individual would understand that sending your supporters after someone is a bad idea. Being kicked off the platform has nothing to do with it, it is wrong period.
I'm more convinced it has something to do with social media induced narcissism than anything else. When your role models are all vapid and self centered, why would you be any different? And when you're a narcissist you will absolutely be so conceited as to think you're too big to fail.
Add in a little stupidity and voila: you have someone like SSSniperwolf.
What a sad life the artist must have to be so callous
Being able to make a living through art in any way is tremendous success that most don't achieve, but it seems based on his reaction, it still isn't enough. One lukewarm review (not even a full-on pan) was enough to send him into a spiral of negativity. Definitely an instructive case study about the actual value of social media fame. Can't make you confident in yourself.
He should play George Santos in the inevitable biopic/buddy comedy of one [George Santos can play George Santos I and his best friend and occasional casual friend-with-congressional-benefits, George Santos I(I)
Edit: and like the whole 47 second credit run is populated exclusively by George Santos. Where is that schtick from btw if anyone knows? Like the gag where you are all the credits...and it goes like waaay too fast low-budget style. I feel like that was a funny part of some production within the production of the show Nathan For You but I'm not convinced that was the first time any auteur's done such a thing either seriously or because its funny
Damn this is some thin skinned baby behavior