Getting outside of Your Creative Bubble

Creating a feed of fresh inspiration

Apr 28, 2023

Creative inspiration can be found everywhere.

Step outside and look at the shapes of the buildings around you. Look at the shapes of the plants. Look at the different color palettes that surround your environment.

Inspiration can also be found on our mobile device in front of us… Duh.

What I want to do today, and want y’all to do is to refresh your feed.

As time goes on, our feeds become more and more precise to the things we have been looking at and consuming. It’s cool to see these very niche communities, but there’s so many other communities that we can get inspired by that are just a search away.

A few weeks ago I traveled back to the land my ancestors called home, the Philippines. It was the first time I’ve ever visited the motherland. My dad was born and raised in the states and my mom immigrated from the PI before she was able to attend school. So I’ve been very much disconnected from my actual roots.

While taking everything in at the homeland, I saw a car that I’ve never seen before. It was a cute little Suzuki that looked like a tiny Jeep. Being from America, cute little cars like that aren’t very common at all. I then began to look for that car whenever we were driving around the Metro Manila area.

When I got back home to the states, I began to search the internet for that specific car. It became the car that I would want to bring stateside, if I could. After some searches, I found that the car was called a Suzuki Jimny.

It’s a like a little G Wagon. I think it’s so dope. I began to search Youtube videos for this car.

“Suzuki Jimny review”; “Suzuki Jimny USA”; “Can you import a Suzuki Jimny?”

After all of that, I got the heartbreaking news that I would not be able to be a proud Jimny owner in the states. The only models that is allowed to be imported would have to be 25 years old or older due to US import laws. I’ll just admire from afar.

Why did I go on this little story?

Well, I began to explore this community. I began to see the people who drove this car. I began to see the love people in this community had for this type of car. I found the rally car off road community and started to get inspired to get into off-roading. Now as a hobby, building an off-road vehicle is on my bucket list.

What I’m trying to say is that there’s so many different communities out there that can inspire you. Whether that’s for personal hobbies or for creative inspiration.

Today, I challenge you to refresh your feed and find new communities to inspire you.

How can we go about this?

Well, what’s something that you thought was cool in the moment, but didn’t put much thought into it after?

For me, it was kpop. I’ve started to consume and watch k-dramas and for the past few years I have noticed the explosion of popularity of Korean pop within US pop culture.

While watching a twitch streamer, I heard of a new kpop group called NewJeans. They were blowing up fast. Everyone was talking about them and sharing their new song at the time OMG.

I’m not going to lie, it’s a bop.

I’ve been out of the loop for a while now, let’s see what all of the hype is about.

During a cleaning day, I put that song on Spotify and let the algorithm do the rest. I only knew of BTS, Twice, and Black Pink because of how popular they were within my friend groups. Didn’t know any of their songs. I let Spotify take the wheel and introduce me to some new sounds and artists.

Then I found my new favorite artist YOUHA. She’s so dope. Her vocals are strong, yet gentle. She has amazing range in her songs from a simplistic acoustic guitar with complimenting vocal melodies to city pop-esque musical productions with strong baselines and hard hitting choruses. She has yet to miss on a single release.

Then, I just dove deeper into the rabbit hole. These productions are insane. Who is producing these songs?

A French producer named Alawn produced the song above. He started his music career traveling between Houston and LA with credits from Boys II Men, Snoop Dogg, and Gucci Mane. He went to a writing camp in Seoul in 2019 then began his journey in K-pop.

After this rabbit hole, I now have new creatives to follow. Creatives who I may not be in similar fields with, but can take inspiration from the work they are pushing out and see who they are working with. Just some dope people who are creating dope pieces.

When you find someone new you think is dope. Look them up on socials and follow them. See what type of work they are posting. See what photographers they work with. See who’s making their album art. See what type of clothes they like to wear. Go deeper into the rabbit hole. Follow those people. Now look into the people they collaborate with.

Now you’re in a completely new community. You are seeing from a different bubble’s point of view. Creativity is universal. But how we go about, how we see the world is different. If we maintain the circles that we are in and don’t decide to branch out we are hindering the creativity that we can grow from through these vastly different perspectives.

I never really cared for off-roading or 4x4 cars at all. I saw a cute mini G-wagon in the Philippines and now I’m altering the future that I thought I wanted in order to achieve these new goals of mine. I will own a Jimny at some point in my life.

I didn’t really care for k-pop just because I didn’t think it was necessarily “cool” at the time; and now I’m finding all these cool new creatives that are making amazing work half way across the world.

Dive into new rabbit holes. Follow 5-10 new people. See how it transforms your feed.

What has been something that intrigued you a bit in the past? What is something you are slightly curious about?

Do a search and look for something that catches your eye or ears. Go further into that creators work or look for people who are similar within that genre. Find someone or something that pops out further to you and then go and break it down further. Who was a part of this project? I really liked this aspect of the project, who did that portion of the work? Look further into it. Follow the people you find on the way. See who they have been inspired by and follow them. Now you have a fresh feed.

There’s an endless amount of different bubbles of creatives in the world. We live in a time where we have access to international creativity. We have access to thoughts, personal portfolios, and resumes of so many talented people across the world. Don’t limit yourself to what and who you know.

Who cares if it isn’t your aesthetic. You could probably take an aspect of what these other people are doing and apply it to your style.

I love discovering something new to me. Something that is fresh and different than the same monotonous content that the algorithm decides I should consume.

I just watched Next in Fashion on Netflix. I really now have an itch to dive into the fashion bubbles. Also I highly recommend watching that show.

Expand your creative library. Explore and refresh yourself. That is your challenge this week. See what you find.

“Creative growth through experimentation and exploration.”

That’s what we aim for and what we want y’all to do.

Follow 5-10 new people.

Have a great week y’all. Have fun exploring.

Here’s some interesting spaces you could start with if you’re having a hard time with a starting point.