The Creative Ecosystem & Affirmation Fatigue

By Lloyd Lewis

There’s a point in every creative’s life where you can no longer pretend a place, a platform, an economy of encouragement, a digital village fête of “You’ve got this!”is anything other than a biosphere. A living, wheezing, self-regulating ecosystem full of organisms that feed, feed on, parasitise, pollinate, or quietly decompose the remains of everything said and done.

Call it what it is:
A forest.
Some of us grow; some of us rot; some of us pretend to be trees while secretly plugging into a petrol generator round the back.

And so, for the sake of clarity (and to save time for all of us with limited lifespans), here’s the ecosystem as it really is: Consumers, Producers, and Decomposers.

No nice metaphors.
No positivity pyramids.
No nonsense.

Just the truth, with a side dish of existential dread.

1. The Consumers: The Endless Mouths of the Forest

Consumers are not “bad.” They are simply hungry. All the time. Their diet is posts that sound affirmational but are actually hallucinated TED Talks in note form.

A Consumer will tell you:

“This REALLY resonated.”
“You captured EXACTLY what I’ve been thinking.”
“You’ve inspired me to begin my creative journey!”

They will say these phrases to three thousand people a week. They will subscribe to you with the devotional energy of a cult acolyte until you write something slightly inconvenient, then immediately unsubscribe because, you now, “boundaries.”

Their dominant feature is need. They need meaning, direction, mentorship, structure, salvation, validation, identity. But they need it without wanting the obligation of creating anything of their own.

Consumers graze on your labour, digest it instantly, and move on, leaving behind nothing but a polite emoji and the faint scent of motivational platitudes.

And then they say, with straight faces:

“I built my audience entirely organically.”

Of course you did, mate.
And I built mine by leaving zines under car windscreen wipers.

2. The Producers: The Photosynthesis Brigade

Producers are the ones actually making things. Words, videos, animations, games, essays, zines, ceramics, glitch GIFs made at 2 AM while wondering if the electricity meter will judge them for turning the kettle on again.

They are the ones who turn their own internal compost, their pain, boredom, illness, memory, rage and wonder into something tangible. Something that exists. Something that, crucially, can be stolen.

Producers often sound like this:

“It’s not perfect, but it’s honest.”
“I need to take a break before I burn out again.”
“The algorithm has murdered my will to live.”
“Please stop telling me to ‘just keep going’, I’ve been going for 40 fucking years.”

Producers don’t complain out loud as often as they should. They’re resilient, partly out of necessity and partly because being visibly exhausted is considered “off-brand” for the new middle-class hobbyist creative economy.

Meanwhile, some among them (let’s be honest) are not really Producers at all.
These are the ones running secret Google Ads campaigns to gain their first 3,000 subscribers while loudly insisting:

“I don’t believe in growth hacking. My newsletter grew through authenticity.”

Oh absolutely. Authenticity. Sponsored by Google Ads™.

The real Producers?
They’re usually the quiet ones.
You’ll recognise them by the quality of their work and the lack of attention it receives.

3. The Decomposers: My Kinda People

Decomposers are the rarest species. They’re the fungi on the forest floor; strange, slightly damp, occasionally glowing, quietly pulling apart the bullshit and transforming it into nourishment.

A Decomposer says:

“This is all nonsense, but I’m still making things.”
“Let me break down why that motivational thread was a pyramid scheme.”
“Here’s why this creative economy feels hollow.”
“You know that viral post that ‘changed your life’? It was an advert.”

Decomposers are not negative.
They’re not pessimists.
They’re biologists: they break things down so the rest of the system can stay alive.

They provide nutrients. Perspective. Humour.
They turn affirmation sludge into something resembling truth.

They are hated by the fake Producers and adored by the genuinely lost.

But they are often exhausted. Why?
Affirmation fatigue.

Because everything, every bloody, tiny creative, fucking act must now be accompanied by:

reassurance,
validation,
motivational fluff,
heroic backstory,
and a closing CTA encouraging you to “share your thoughts!”

And Decomposers know this is killing us.
It is flattening creative complexity into consumable pap.

We’re suffocating under the weight of polite applause.

The Triangle of Madness

Consumers take.
Producers make.
Decomposers break.

And somewhere inside this circulatory system is you, trying to publish something honest without drowning in the soup of encouragement culture.

We are expected to be everything at once:

inspirational,
vulnerable,
consistent,
brand-aligned,
authentic,
and “grateful for the journey.”

I’m one of the older ones.
I’ve run out of patience for journeys, brands, and platitudes.
I’m here for the work.
I’m here for the archive.
And I’m here for the odd handful of people who actually get it.

So where does this leave the creative?

Here:

Stop feeding the Consumers with your life force.
Stop trying to compete with the secretly-advertising Producers.
And stop fearing the Decomposers, they’re doing the necessary rotwork.

Instead, operate like a mycelial network: