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Creative Envy

4 years ago - Edited 4 years ago2,668 words

Did you know that Toby Fox composed a music track for Pokemon Sword & Shield? Because I didn't, and when I found out, I felt so weirdly envious about it! But why??

I've tried like half a dozen times over the past week or two to write a personal post, but lacked the mental energy to think of how to talk about the depression for the umpteenth time in a way that wasn't completely like a broken record. So I never finished them. This one's about some unrelated distraction though! Kind of.

(Sorry about being particularly bad at replying to stuff though! That's also because of the depression. I feel it might be lifting a bit now though, thankfully!)



I finished Pokemon Sword maybe a week or two ago, which meant that I could listen to its soundtrack without any risk of spoilers (which tracks with titles like "DUMBLEDORE LICH BATTLE" in the expected lass boss position of the list very much are).

I always have mixed feelings about listening to soundtracks! On the one hand, a big reason I play games is so that when I've finished them, I 'earn' the chance to integrate some tracks from the OST into my regular playlists - the ones I have to listen to in order to stay productive while working, because silence or something with voices makes it too hard to focus - so I get quite excited about playing games with good music. I wish I'd finished Octopath Traveler for this reason! On the other hand, though, I worry that by repeatedly listening to pieces, I'll drain them of their emotional impact, so that if I ever do replay the game, they'll lose their effect during their proper context. That's not even how it works, really, and re-hearing a familiar piece tends to have more impact, but it's still some odd quirk my mind seems to have.

(I've been wondering whether to replay the Playstation-era Final Fantasies recently, and this is a big reason why I'm hesitating, since I've listened to their soundtracks to death and hearing those tracks in their proper context was an enormous part of the games' appeal for me back when I first explored them. Would they feel the same?!?)

It took me a few days to finally start listening to Sword's OST for that reason. I'd happily buy the soundtrack if it was an indie game, but since I've no idea how or where I'd get an OST for a Switch game, I instead googled free copies to download in bulk so then I could add some tracks to my offline playlists. I did - and was annoyed that some of them seemed to cut off before the end so I'll have to find a better copy and do the whole thing again, ugh - and almost all of the tracks list 'Minako Adachi, Go Ichinose' (heehee, itchy nose, and yes I know that's not how it's pronounced) as the composers. Makes me wonder who did what, and how they'd feel about being credited as a pair rather than individually for each track they composed. Or maybe they collaborated on them all? I also recognise at least one of the names (Go Ichinose); I think he must have done the music for other Pokemon games maybe?

(Hmm, Bulbapedia tells me Go Ichinose ("Go, Itchynose! Use Scratch!") has been composing the music since Generation 2, and I wonder if he's the one mainly responsible for the distinct Pokemon music sound! I think I've also transcribed some pieces by him... yet I just had to look up who he was or what he'd done.)

Almost all the tracks listed them as the composers. Except one battle track, which for some reason had as its composer famed internet darling Toby Fox!

"Wait, that's not right", I said aloud to my wall at full volume. "Maybe whoever assembled these files for this dodgy games soundtrack website accidentally selected some Undertale music and applied the composer name to all of them and caught this track by accident", I continued aloud, at the floor this time because I didn't want it to feel left out. I listened to the track again, and thought hmm, maybe it's more than just a metadata error; this does sound like he composed it - it feels very familiar - so maybe it's just taken from Undertale or something and crammed in here because everyone loves that guy and inserts his work everywhere even where it doesn't belong?? "This OST is boring, better add an Undertale track at the end just because!"

So I checked the track on a YouTube playlist:



And I see from that that is is indeed composed by Toby Fox! You were probably all already aware he'd made music for that game, but I was very surprised!!

And profoundly envious, of course. Not only has he made a huge impact with his own game(s), but he's somehow wormed his way into the latest main installment of ∞ literally the most successful media franchise in the world ∞. God, some peoples' career trajectories!

(As an aside, have you ever heard of Anpanman, a Japanese thing for children about an anthropomorphic red-bean-paste-filled-pastry superhero? Because I hadn't, but it's apparently been more financially successful than essentially all of the cultural juggernauts that have become worldwide household names!)

It just feels more valid or something, more like a marker of 'real success', even though Undertale surely made millions and influenced people much, much more than a single track on a game's soundtrack would. I know I'd feel like I'd really made it! if something of mine was included in a main series Pokemon game!

I suppose it's why people fantasise about being part of big games companies, despite the lack of individual identity and acknowledgement as just a cog in the machine... Being a part of something you grew up with, and which made a huge impression on everyone around you, must be an amazing feeling.

The reason I'm writing this post though is because of how people speak about Toby Fox in the comments of that video. It's something I saw on the Undertale post I wrote here too.

People speak about him as if they're on personal terms with him, like he's their friend, they're on a first-name basis. "Haha, typical Toby!" Maybe it's just out of syntactic convenience, or maybe there's more to it than that. We talk about Mozart and Michelangelo, but not Fox. It feels more personal, less distant or formal. (I usually see Toby Fox though, both names, which is... interesting?)

I suppose it's this way with most creators - I assume fans of, say, youtubers or streamers do the same thing - and I find it interesting how this kind of unidirectional and completely unreciprocated parasocial relationship develops. Maybe the same is true of people who follow celebrities, too? Probably. I've been noticing the Johnny Depp/Amber Heard mess lately, and people do speak about them like this, usually with both names.

I suppose this feels remarkably different though because if you're referring to a celebrity or streamer by their first name, it's because you're used to seeing them perform, whereas for creators or artworks like music or games, it feels more like a positive appraisal of their more abstract creative worth rather than just their charisma or looks as a biological person. More mental, less physical and primal. Or something. Or maybe all these people are used to seeing him perform in a context I'm just not aware of?

Or maybe people talk about me in the same way, or at least used to when I was actually slightly known? I don't know! (Or I suppose it was 'Pseudo(lonewolf)' back then since I used a PSEUDOnym (HAHAHA JOKE), and I did notice people talking about me like that?)

It also seems to be something unique to creators and performers, maybe? I'm reminded of this quote by Picasso, which you might be familiar with since it's the sort of thing that's plastered all over these motivational images and which people probably share on social media:



But then again we have things like Napoleon, Hitler, Obama... Not Pablo, Adolf, or Barack as much, but not Bonaparte either!

One of the comments on that video said (in a memey format) that 80% of the reason they played Pokemon Sword was because Toby Fox had composed a track for it.

But what's the psychological motivation there exactly? Why does this bring them pleasure? I'm assuming it brings pleasure. Is it mere familiarity, or something more like incorporation of oneself into the other person's impact, kind of like how people speak of sports teams as 'we' and revel vicariously in their victories as if they did anything more than sat in front of a television screen, and personally earned it? Maybe it's not exactly the same, though, since there seems to be a more spectator-ly distance when speaking about creators? Or maybe they do see him as 'one of us'? Hmm.

Also, I don't know how old Toby Fox is or what he looks like, since if he's younger and ~prettier~ than me, which he probably is, then that's just more reason to feel envious (even though the very idea of feeling envious of someone who's already worlds away from me in essentially every way is absurd, I know). I saw a youtube video a while back that flashed a picture which made me assume from the context was of him, and it was some attractive, blonde, Chadly young man with his arms around two pretty girls. "Great", I said to my only friend the wall (I consider the floor more of an acquaintance, but don't tell it I said that because it won't understand as it is a floor, and you can't anyway because it neglects all its online accounts). But then I saw another video more recently which also flashed up a picture which the context more strongly suggested was him, and he looked like a scrawny, ratty, nerdy guy with dubious facial hair, like me; the kind of guy I'd not be intimidated by and might even be friends with - if I was capable of being friends with anyone, anyway - which felt surprisingly... relieving? Something like that?

The actual reality of his physical stats isn't all that important or interesting to me (I can't decide whether I'd rather not know, or not), though as I've said a bunch of times before, the psychology behind internal reactions is what fascinates me.

There's a concept called egoistic relative deprivation that I've talked about on this blog before, probably years ago. It's where people feel extreme envy when people they feel essentially on the same level as do better than they do. If your colleague gets a big raise, you'll probably seethe, but if some distant manager gets one, or some celebrity gets an additional golden mansion, you're unlikely to care (except maybe on some abstract, cultural level) because it's not as if you could conceivably have got that instead. It's all about what we feel we're owed or capable of achieving in our current situation.

It was a big thing for me in university when I was friends with a girl who had a boyfriend, since I didn't have a girlfriend. It felt more painful than the many years I'd spent before meeting her, even though I'd also been alone during them, because when I was alone, I wasn't constantly around someone who was perceived as more fortunate than me.

Buddhist monks are considered the 'happiest' people in the world based on studies of their brains, or so I learned in Psychology, which they claim is because they've given up the material life to focus on higher things. But it must be easy to avoid jealousy when you're not surrounded by peers who have things you feel you should have as well but don't.

It's odd though that my mind has apparently classified Toby Fox as a peer, and his achievements as things juuuust within my grasp that have been denied me. That's clearly not objectively the case, but I suppose it's the result of being psychologically spoiled by the success of MARDEK back in the day. I got it into my head for years that I was some kind of minor celebrity, worthy of great things... These days, I look at other indie devs, and recognise us all as senselessly sliding slowly into a pit. I wonder a lot - too often to the point of creative paralysis - about when I'm going to have to give it up because it's not working out.

But then I also feel so envious seeing a track by Toby Fox on the Pokemon Sword soundtrack. So strange... Maybe it's a reflection of some deep hope inside that I really am capable of reaching great heights somehow, one day. Maybe I just need to hold onto that to keep going, even though it's completely unrealistic. Certainly better than just seeing all the failure throughout the indie dev scene and being discouraged from getting any work done!

The biggest reason for the envy though is that he made an RPG based around not killing things, which was something I made my life goal a few years ago but haven't (yet?) succeeded with. I don't compare myself to people like Pewdiepie, Tom Holland, or... Justin Bieber? (I've no idea which younglings are filling the music charts these days) because they're on completely unrelated paths to me. But Toby Fox is a creator who's known for his ostensibly solo indie RPG and in particular for his music, and I suppose there aren't really many examples of that out there to compare to. It's not like there's a list of them, like there would be for actors, musicians, or youtubers! At least not that I'm aware of.

(Can you think of any other people who could be classed together with Toby Fox, actually? 'Solo' devs who've made non-violent RPGs and are particularly known for their music composition?)

There's a film called Amadeus, about Mozart, or I suppose it's more accurate to say that it's about another composer called Salieri, who felt completely upstaged by Mozart. I've been meaning to watch it, though it's apparently 3 hours long so I haven't found the time yet. Here's a clip though:



It's not a perfect example of my creative envy for Toby Fox, since what gets to me there is the social popularity more than the quality of his creative work (which I don't think is bad, but I also don't think it's blows-me-away amazing, as I wrote about in the Undertale post). And of course those two were in physical proximity, presumably literally in competition for a role. Still, I suppose it's a good example of the envy that one creator can feel for another in a general sense.

Makes me wonder how many other creators out there have some specific individual they feel is some rival to them even if that other person has absolutely no idea who they are. Maybe there are some youtubers with 10 subscribers who cringe at the mention of the name Pewdiepie. "That should be meeee!!"



If you do any creative stuff yourself, are there any creators on a similar path to you that you feel specifically envious about? Or are you just wholly inspired by others' work, which is of course the much less maladaptive psychological stance to take? If that's the case, is your craft just a side hobby? I suppose it's hugely different when you're trying to make a living from it.

If you don't do any creative stuff, does this kind of mentality seem odd to you, or can you understand where it's coming from? Do I seem deranged?!? I mean I actually am, but I'm asking anyway!