I Won’t Envy is a new podcast series by Vivek Shraya co-produced with Buddies in Bad Times.
Episode one, featuring drag artists Denim + Pythia, drops November 27 (and in the meantime, you can get tickets for Denim + Pythia’s Oraculum, which premieres at Buddies December 5).
Listen to the podcast trailer and subscribe here.
I Won’t Envy is sponsored by the Queer and Trans Research Lab at the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies at University of Toronto.
In preparation for the launch of the podcast, Buddies’ Marketing Manager Katie Clarke talked to Vivek about the upcoming podcast, her fascination with professional jealousy, jealousy across artistic practices, social media self-comparison, and more.
Vivek Shraya’s Long-Term Fascination With Professional Jealousy
Katie Clarke: What made you want to explore jealousy in this format?
Vivek Shraya: I have been drawn to this theme of professional jealousy for a very long time. I think I would say I started to name it to myself maybe 10 years ago, which is sort of like midway into my career. And I found it very difficult to have conversations with other artists about this. So instead I channeled my feelings of shame around it into incidentally a song called I Won’t Envy, which is the name of our podcast, and then also a novel I wrote called The Subtweet, which is about two Brown musicians in Toronto navigating the music industry.
The thing that kept coming back for me is the desire to talk to other artists about this feeling, if only as a way to skill share. I think the thing about jealousy is there’s so much pain that you tend to internalize, and you feel like you’re a bad person. And I wanted to know how other artists manage this feeling — if other artists manage this feeling. And actually 10 years ago, when I tried to have a conversation with another artist [about jealousy], it was immediately shut down. They were immediately like, “no, that doesn’t happen to me. I don’t feel that way.” It was almost like my coming out. And when you have a bad coming out experience, you’re like, okay, I’m back in the closet for another 10 years!
With [I Won’t Envy], I finally had the courage to start having some conversations with people and then also wanting to share those conversations. A podcast format just felt perfect for these conversations, and it’s so shareable — because on some level, it also becomes a bit of a teaching tool to other artists, and cuts through some of that shame that I experienced when I was in early in my career.
How Does Jealousy Change Across Art Forms for Multi-Hyphenate Creatives? (Hint: It’s Always There)
KC: Why did you pick this group of artists in particular to interview?
VS: Well, I really wanted a range of perspectives. On top of gender diversity and racial diversity, I really wanted to talk to people working in a range of different creative mediums, because I do think the way that jealousy traffics in TV and film, for instance, is different than literature.
As I’ve been dipping my toes into acting, one of the things that’s really occurred to me is the vulnerability of having to audition all the time. You’re constantly putting yourself out there. And often actors don’t even know if they got the role until they find out who got cast on social media, or IMDB. So there’s also this publicness to not getting work or being rejected in the acting business, which I think is so different than, for example, the music industry. Like, if no one wants to come to my show, that’s just between me and me.
Or if nobody’s interested in my record, that’s between me and me. But with acting, I just feel like the rejection is so public and so constant. So I think that’s why it felt really important to speak to people in different artistic practices, if that makes sense.
That’s not to say that I haven’t experienced a ton of jealousy as a musician. I definitely have. And I certainly talk about that with Sara Quin in our episode, but it’s more like, as a musician, my job is to write songs and put them out. And no one’s being hired to sing those songs. Whereas with acting, you’re kind of a vessel for somebody else’s work.
I think there’s just more room for a different kind of rejection [with acting]. But listen, I think that all art industries are terrible in different ways and breed jealousy in different ways. That’s the thing about the podcast — I really wanted to get to the specificity of where it stems from. And what are the common themes between artistic practices? And what are the things that are so unique to each practice?
Vivek and Alok on Jealousy as a Teacher
KC: What did you learn about your own relationship to professional jealousy through these conversations? Were there any light bulb moments for you?
VS: One of the things that started to come up and felt most direct in the conversation with Alok was this idea of jealousy being a teacher. That our jealousy actually — if we’re listening to it — tells us what we want. It tells us what our desires are. And once you know that, that desire can potentially give you a path, if something you desire is within your control.
If it’s not within your control, then, you know, that path becomes a little bit more murky. But I’ve never thought about jealousy being a teacher or a compass. In that way, for me, jealousy was always something I had to, shun, or get through, or put away, or reject or, you know, reclaim. And so that was really exciting, thinking about jealousy as a compass.
I think, for me, what’s complicated about that is that when I’ve tracked artists who I have been jealous of in various times in my life, a lot of them have been white.
And thinking about whiteness as something to be, or the way that whiteness can facilitate the kinds of success or things I have been jealous of, it becomes a lot more convoluted. It was exciting to speak to Paul [Sepuya], actually, about race specifically and how whiteness may or may not play into these conversations.
One thing that feels clear is that jealousy for better or for worse is part of the job. It is part of the day to day. And so again, these conversations were validating in that respect to be like, yeah, there are going to be moments where this comes up and a lot of it is out of my own control. Social media was a theme that came up almost consistently in every episode in the way social media impacts our feelings around professional jealousy or creates feelings of professional jealousy.
And given how embedded social media is in all of our day to day lives and increasingly expected in all of our jobs as artists, it’s hard to get away from, right? You go online and then there’s immediate comparison, which then can often lead to jealousy. And so I think it’s useful to be like, okay, this thing, this is part of the work.
And also it is not my fault.
[Social media] is part of a broader system that artists are unfortunately susceptible to. So I think in some ways [these conversations have] also given me a little bit more compassion for myself when I’m feeling jealous, if that makes sense.I Won’t Envy in the Online World
KC: Can talk about your relationship with self-promotion and jealousy a bit more? I feel like we live in a world where artists, especially marginalized and queer artists, are pressured to post really vulnerably and intimately online to feed this kind of algorithmic hunger for realness because people are so desperate to see themselves represented. Do you feel a pressure to promote yourself as a product, rather than promote your work, and how do you find that interacts with jealousy and self-promotion?
There’s a part of me that’s quite comfortable with the necessity of self-promotion and I think that, without getting into the murky side of social media, it feels always important to acknowledge that I’ve been able to reach people I’ve never been able to reach before because of social media.
[However], I think exposure — as always — in whatever format becomes weaponized against artists and it’s like “well you know you need to be on such and such a platform and be posting this this and this if you want people to hear about you…” and I think it’s those pressures that feel really hard.I think the older I get the more it’s about setting boundaries about what feels acceptable and manageable to me. I’ve been in the cycle of about four or five years of working on and promoting what started as a play and then became a TV show called How to Fail as a Pop Star, and it’s been interesting how often I’ve been asked “have you thought of getting on TikTok? You should be on TikTok.” It’s like the answer to the problem of how to fail as a pop star is apparently within TikTok and and the fact that I’m not on tiktok is also the reason why I failed as a pop star.*
I’ve had to just draw a line for myself — and that’s not to say I’ll never be on TikTok — but I know for my own mental health that like all of these platforms actually make me feel terrible. So on one hand I’m quite grateful for mediums that allow me to share my work but I’m also constantly questioning socials and how bad I feel about myself [when I use them].
You Might Like I Won’t Envy if You Like…
KC: Why should people listen to the podcast?
VS: [Jealousy] is a theme and a feeling I’ve been so interested in [for a long time], and I feel like despite my own excavations and explorations I learned so much from every single person I spoke to. And when I was experiencing jealousy, I just felt so lonely around that experience. And I’m really hoping the podcast can be a gift to other artists, to unburden themselves of the shit that they might feel.
I also think that the podcast is relevant to non-artists. There are ways that jealousy appears in the workplace regardless of whether you’re an artist or not, and I also think that culturally, as art lovers and as audience members, we do have a bit of a fascination with art making and what it means to be an artist. I think I Won’t Envy is a podcast for anyone who enjoys process, and the sort of “dark side” of art making — this podcast is juicy in that way.
You can listen to the first episode of I Won’t Envy wherever you get your podcasts on Wednesday, November 27, 2024!
*The editor of this blog would like to note that it is their opinion that Vivek has not really failed at being a pop star.
About Vivek Shraya
Vivek Shraya is an artist whose body of work crosses the boundaries of music, literature, visual art, theatre, TV, film, and fashion.
A three-time Canadian Screen Award winner, Vivek is the creator and writer of the new CBC Gem Original Series How to Fail as a Popstar, which had its international premiere at Cannes. She has collaborated with musical icons Jann Arden, Peaches, and Jully Black, and was nominated for the Polaris Music Prize. Her best-selling book I’m Afraid of Men was heralded by Vanity Fair as “cultural rocket fuel,” and she is the founder of the award-winning publishing imprint VS. Books, (featured on CBC’s Canada Reads) which supports emerging BIPOC writers.
Vivek has been a brand ambassador for MAC Cosmetics and Pantene, and she is a director on the board of the Tegan and Sara Foundation.