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Champion the ones who didn’t write their own songs:
While telling those who did that 'they aren't real artists'. Classic tunnel vison move!
The internet in 2026 has been a wild, neon-soaked circus.🤡 One minute it’s endless AI debates, the next it’s 2000s-babies art gatekeepers trying to purity-test anyone who was making things before they could walk. They’re out here drawing new lines in the sand, deciding who gets to stay in “the creative community,” and attempting to gently (or not so gently) push older artists toward the exit for failing their latest vibes-based entrance exam. Cute.👶🏻
I never submitted an application to join their club. I’m not trying to. I’m aiming for the actual music lovers: you know... the ones who hear 80s-inspired synthwave and faith-filled tracks and devour them like hotcakes fresh off the griddle. But by all means, keep the hot takes coming about how I’m “not a real artist.” It’s free entertainment. 😁
Some of them even went the extra mile and started calling my original music AI… just for kicks. Never mind that over half those songs were written and recorded before a good portion of the comment section existed. Details, details. Why let a little thing like a timeline get in the way of a good pile-on?
I gotta hand it to this era: artists today are facing a completely different set of hoops. Back when I was a teenage dreamer in the late 90s and early 2000s, the doors were locked, the industry was a small gated club, Spotify was science fiction, and the internet was still learning how to walk. Getting heard was the near-impossible part.
Now the distribution is wide open, but a new sport has been invented: discrediting the people who actually did the long work. Different decade, different obstacle course. But here I am, the same stubborn girl who kept writing anyway.
The script is almost predictable.
In 2026, as I head on into publishing my "Rainbow of Promise" CD and Vinyl release with a 12 page colorful booklet, I can see it now. They'd be screaming the same "AI slop" insult while pointing at it (and everything else about me). Even though most of these skeptics have shown they have no idea how to tell the difference.
So, for kicks and laughs, I decided to re-design my original neon-soaked synthwave art pieces into the style of AI. Who wouldn't get a kick out of confusing the daylights out of the anti-AI trolls?
I'd be making my original art look just like my Facebook memes and visuals for social media, which would make it even harder for them to be able to tell the difference. It only proves just how weak their argument is. 😁 It's good medicine for those who only show up on your page to complain about the graphic. That's how you troll the trolls.
Although I've been very transparent about the AI synthwave memes I post, they are indeed separate from my music and original art portfolio.
I came across a comment that stated:
((Music artist who use AI to make their album art are cheap and it cheapens their music. I would be less likely to listen to them.))
Sure, today's indie music artists are using AI to assist their album covers. But what were artist doing before that? And mainstream artists? Taking straight photos of themselves or relying on professionals to do the work for them? But they get the credit and praise, right?
Before AI tools, plenty of musicians used very simple, low-effort, or purely practical album art:
A straightforward photo of the artist,
A basic studio portrait,
A stock-looking landscape or object photo,
Minimal text on a plain background,
Something quickly thrown together by a friend or the label’s in-house designer with limited budget.
No one seriously claimed those choices “cheapened the music” or made the songs less worth listening to.
The music was judged on its own terms. Album art was understood as packaging and presentation... sometimes elaborate and artistic, sometimes purely functional.
A bright, highly stylized lyric page like this: glowing clouds, butterflies, neon stairway, rainbow borders, fantasy city of Zion... is exactly the kind of visual that triggers the “AI slop” reflex for these critics, even when it’s a hybrid, or purely created by the artist herself.
The pattern is consistent:
I write the lyrics.
I shape the overall concept and composition.
Some elements are built or refined manually.
Other parts use modern tools (including AI enhancement for old pictures and added elements) for speed or specific effects.
To the purity-focused crowd, the presence of any AI-assisted element often overrides everything else. They see the polished, colorful, dreamlike style and jump straight to “this is AI, therefore it doesn’t count,” without caring how much of the writing, arrangement, or manual work is yours.
The irony, again, is that lyric sheets and album booklets have used decorative, illustrative, and digitally assisted graphics for decades. Fancy fonts, stock illustrations, Photoshop composites, and quick digital effects were normal. The objection tends to appear mainly when the tool is the newer one. 🙄
It's come to a point where I now expect this reaction to anything and everything I do, even with my manually produced works. It can get frustrating. 😩
And the accusations are never original, either. The same selective standard that gets applied to my album covers would likely get applied here: the hybrid nature gets ignored, the original 3D art and photos get called 100% 'AI' generated, and the visual style becomes the excuse to dismiss the whole thing.
The lyrics themselves are clearly about a faith vision: longing for Zion, the stairway, the new earth, the everlasting kingdom. That’s the core. The presentation is secondary packaging. But for some, the packaging is enough to start the outrage cycle all over again.
The "art purity police" script is a copy and paste predictable reaction at this point. 🥱And I've given up hope of even reasoning with any of them. My music journey is not to be compared to anyone else's because it's unique. It may not always satisfy everyone. 🤷🏻♀️
When the Internet Tries to Gatekeep My Art.😂🎨
Apparently, some early-2000s babies have decided they're the Supreme Court of Art™, and they've got opinions about which tools I'm allowed to use for social media, on my OWN page. 😂😂😂😂
The funniest part?
The fact that teenagers and young adults born in the 2000s, who grew up with smartphones glued to their hands and algorithmic feeds telling them what to think... are trying to gatekeep a creator who has been producing art and music since before they were even a thought is genuinely hilarious.
It is incredibly rich for a generation that heavily relies on automated filters, auto-tune, and instant digital gratification to tell a classically trained Full Sail graduate to "give up on art" because she uses a tool they don't personally approve of. That's comedy gold! 😂
I'm a Full Sail graduate with years of experience in creative production, game art, music, and digital media. I've been making things long enough to remember when "going viral" meant somebody actually catching the flu.
So let's clear something up.
1. Every Generation Freaks Out About the New Creative Tool:
This isn't exactly a new phenomenon.
Back in the 1980s, people were saying synthesizers and drum machines weren't "real music."
Then came the 1990s, and suddenly digital audio workstations and sampling were supposedly cheating.
Now we've got people clutching their pearls over modern visual tools.
Apparently every generation gets its own version of:
"THAT ISN'T REAL ART!"
Meanwhile, I'm over here thinking:
Have we learned nothing since the invention of the synthesizer? 😂
Creative tools change. Artists adapt.
I'm using modern digital tools to make social-media content, promotional graphics, memes, and visual storytelling. That's marketing.
I am using a modern digital generator to make fun, fast promotional memes for a social media feed... which is exactly what social media is for: rapid content creation. It has absolutely zero bearing on the years of writing music, arranging MIDI, producing tracks, learning software, studying visual design, and building actual creative projects, lyric writing, and keyboard arrangement I poured into the actual audio tracks of Rainbow of Promise.
A promotional image isn't the same thing as the finished album.
2. Apparently My Facebook Thumbnail Is Now Being Judged Like the Sistine Chapel.
They Conflate Marketing with the Masterpiece. The gatekeepers are looking at a thumbnail on a Facebook grid and using it to judge an 11-track physical vinyl record. They don't have the attention span or the industry literacy to separate marketing content from the actual artistic product.
They just see one promotional image in a Facebook feed and suddenly think they've performed a complete forensic investigation of my artistic career.
Meanwhile, I'm wearing approximately 24 different hats. Here are a few:
🎹 Musician
🎨 Artist
🎮 Game developer
💻 Digital creator
📱 Social media manager
📈 Marketing manager
🎬 Content creator
🧠 Professional Troubleshooter of Random Computer Nonsense™
And yes, sometimes I use tools that make the marketing process faster. Because here's a revolutionary concept:
I would rather spend my limited creative energy making music than manually spending 6 hours making one Facebook meme that people will just scroll past in 2 seconds.
That's not "giving up on art." That's called working smarter.
3. I've Been Doing This Since Before the Algorithm Had a Personality.
I didn't wake up yesterday and decide, "Hey, I think I'll become an artist because TikTok exists." I've already established a creative foundation that predates the internet: the fundamentals of game art, composition, and production, all before algorithms ran the world.
I've been creating for decades.
I've watched technology evolve from physical media and early digital tools into the enormous creative ecosystem we have today.
I've seen software change.
I've seen platforms come and go.
I've seen entire genres of music go from "that's not real music" to influencing the mainstream.
And I've learned something along the way:
The tool doesn't replace the person using it. The artist still has to decide what they're trying to say.
And Here's the Xennial take:
I survived dial-up.
I remember when computers didn't politely explain why they were broken.
I watched technology go from floppy disks to smartphones.
I learned creative software when YouTube wasn't sitting there ready to give me a 14-minute tutorial called
"EASY FIX!!! 2026 UPDATED!!!"
So I'm not particularly interested in taking artistic career advice from somebody whose childhood computer was an iPad. 😂
Use the tools. Learn the craft. Make something meaningful. And if somebody doesn't like the tool I used to make a social-media post, they are absolutely free to keep scrolling.
Meanwhile, I'll be over here making music. 🎹🌴💜
The gatekeepers can guard the gate.
I've got places to go. And I've got another synthwave album to finish. 😎📼✨
Why are indie artists held to a different standard than pure performers in mainstream music?
They were given the whole crew, while I had only myself, a Karaoke machine, and a keyboard in the beginning. But I managed to create my own songs from scratch with no help from a crew, anyway. But who gets the 'artist' label revoked? Of course, the indie artist who writes and performs her own music. Why is that? It really begs the question. 🤔
This isn't to bash mainstream artists, or to say this applies to all young artists. Let me make myself clear on this. I'm simply pointing out the double standard take of the "purity art police" who keep showing up on my page only to complain about the graphics without looking at the portfolio or listening to the original tracks. Move on, dudes!
For kicks, let's just imagine for one moment that Retro Sonya showed up at 'America's Got Talent' and auditioned. And she brought her original songs with her. Simon would question her. It would go a little like this:
Simon: ‘How old are you?’
Sonya: ‘43.’
Simon: ‘Why hasn’t it worked out yet?’
Sonya: ‘Because I had to learn every single hat in the business myself while your last contestant got a maxed-out production team at 15. Also I built my own 3D doppelganger for fun. You should check it out.’
She sings her original songs, amazes both Simon, and the audience. Get's her foot in the door (what an idea), and later, she posts an original song she actually wrote, on her Facebook page; and the comment section still says: ‘This is AI.’
Ma’am/dude, the woman just explained on TV that she spent decades learning production the hard way. The only thing artificial here is your attention span. 🙄 Your ADHD is on full display.
Meanwhile, pure performers are being called 'real artists' by these same people. Like Justin Bieber, PureNRG, Brittany Spears, Stacy Orrico, and Jump5. Many of them wrote little to none of their songs, and had professionals design their visuals for them. But they are championed by the mainstream media and millions of fans. Meanwhile, I share an AI meme on FB and get branded as a fraud. The internet in 2026 has really been something. 😏
They championed the kids who showed up and sang what someone else wrote. I showed up, wrote it, recorded it, designed it, modeled a 3D version of myself, and still get the ‘is she even an artist?’ energy. The 90s called... they want their gatekeeping back. 🥱
Here’s a clear list of the many “hats” indie artists typically have to wear to get their songs produced and into the hands of fans (drawn from the common breakdown these kinds of videos cover): Creative / Production Hats:
Songwriter – Writing lyrics, melodies, and arrangements
Performer / Vocalist / Instrumentalist – Singing and playing the parts
Producer – Recording, arranging, and shaping the overall sound
Recording Engineer – Handling the technical side of tracking
Mixing Engineer – Balancing and polishing the tracks
Mastering Engineer (or budgeting for it) – Final loudness and polish for distribution
Visual & Content Hats:
Graphic Designer / Artwork Creator – Album covers, lyric pages, social graphics
Photographer / Self-portrait editor – Creating or editing promotional images
Video Creator / Editor – Music videos, lyric videos, Reels, Shorts, TikToks
Content Creator – Ongoing posts, stories, behind-the-scenes, etc.
Business & Release Hats:
Business Manager – Budgets, taxes, planning, decision-making
Copyright & Admin – Registering songs, handling metadata, publishing setup
Distributor – Uploading to DistroKid, CD Baby, LANDR, etc., and managing releases
Marketing Manager – Planning campaigns, ads, pitching to playlists
Social Media Manager – Daily posting, engagement, community building
Email / Newsletter Manager – Building and communicating with the fan list
Live & Sales Hats:
Booking Agent – Finding shows, negotiating with venues
Tour / Live Manager – Logistics, travel, merch for gigs
Merch Designer & Seller – Creating and selling physical items
Customer Service – Answering fan messages, handling orders, support
Meanwhile, a 90s kid did the entire pipeline herself and still gets ranked below the ghostwritten ones? I wear all the hats in this, but sure. Tell me more about how I'm not a real artist while cheering on these mainstream personas as if they did all the work themselves!
((You're a nobody, Sonya. Your not famous! We only care about those who are. And you're still a loser.))
These are the types of comments I've been getting lately. What is this, a Jr. high school cafeteria? I must have missed the memo. Or am I talking to a teenager? This isn't high school. This is the internet. And if you are a real artist, as you claim; then wouldn't you be too busy working on your own art portfolio than spending hours a day trying to figure out ways to make other artists feel bad?
These kids don't have a clue. They really don't. 🤨
Try actually becoming an indie artist, who wears all the hats in the production process, and you'll find out about the unrealistic expectations for indies. Why? Who brought all of those expectations? Look no further than the mainstream media, and their artists with corporate teams behind them.
Real artists who are serious about their own work don’t usually spend hours inventing new ways to make other creators feel small. They’re too busy making things.
Indie artists already carry an unrealistic load. They write, produce, design, market, distribute, and promote with little to no team. Mainstream acts get full corporate machinery, professional writers, designers, publicists, and budgets... then the same people turn around and judge independents by the polished results of that machine.
Fame has never been the measure of whether someone is a legitimate artist. Plenty of “nobodies” have made work that outlasted the famous names of their day.
These kinds of comments say far more about the person typing them than about the target.
They’re trying to enforce a hierarchy where only the already-visible get to matter, while ignoring how most of those visible people got there with massive support systems the average indie never had.
If one Facebook meme makes me a 'loser', while the pure performers with full teams remain untouchable legends... it really makes you question the hierarchy the world tries to measure you with. Apparently, a 'nobody' is a non-famous artist who learned every skill and still gets called fake by the 'original art police' in 2026! 😎
Truthfully, I could’ve just said ‘I’m 43 and I did the entire pipeline myself,’ but instead I have to defend the existence of a Facebook meme while singing songs I wrote before half the accusers were born. Peak 2020s, my dudes!
I’m being measured against artists who had entire crews, while I’m the entire crew.
And somehow I’m the one missing the ‘artist’ badge. Peak irony.
So here I am hitting on the exact core of the hypocrisy, and it highlights how completely backwards internet outrage can be. The double standard applied to indie creators compared to manufactured pop acts comes down to a few major cultural biases:
1. The Separation of "Performance" vs. "Production":
The internet treats mainstream pop stars and teen pop bands like Jump5, PureNRG, or Justin Bieber as "performers first". Because they belong to the traditional music industry machinery, audiences expect them to have a team of studio ghostwriters, producers, and choreographers behind them. They are judged entirely on their execution, vocals, and stage presence. [1, 2]
But because Retro Sonya markets herself as an independent, self-made producer, the internet holds her to a vastly different standard. Her critics view her through the lens of pure authorship... meaning they expect her to personally handcraft every single byte of data she touches, entirely ignoring the fact that she has actual receipts proving she wrote and tracked her songs long before generative AI even existed. [1, 2, 3]
2. A Total Lack of Technical Literacy:
The average internet commentator cannot tell the difference between:
To the casual observer passing by her timeline, "AI art = AI person = AI music." They collapse her multi-faceted technical skill sets into a single, lazy category because clicking a link to look at her actual workflow or music history takes more effort than leaving an angry comment. [1]
3. The Shift in What "Fraud" Means:
The definition of artistic fraud shifted completely. For decades, standard music industry "fraud" meant lip-syncing or taking credit for a song a team of Swedish producers wrote for you. People normalized that. [1]
But online, the terror of "AI slop" has completely eclipsed old-school corporate manufacturing. The hyper-fixation on generative AI means that sharing an AI-generated meme gets you branded a fraud faster than signing a multi-million dollar record contract for music you had zero hand in writing. [1, 2]
And this just cuts the cake, doesn't it: the current climate isn't actually about protecting the labor of the artist. If it were, an independent woman manually tracking her own synth tracks would be celebrated, and corporate-molded acts would face the scrutiny.
Instead, the internet attacks the easy target because it's a way to feel righteous without doing any homework.
((You say you shouldn't compare yourself to other artists, but when you do, at least their content is professionally produced by actual human hands and they don't use AI like talentless losers like you do.))
Bold logic. Meanwhile, I spent decades learning songwriting, production, graphic design, video, marketing, distribution, and 3D modeling… but some 15-year-old with a Max Martin song and a stylist is the ‘real’ artist? Okay, boomer… wait, wrong generation. Okay, zoomer.
Let's also make the comparisons then. Challenge accepted. Let's also make the ones you forgot to make (or didn't even think of), such as the primary composer, the graphic artist for the album cover, and the support system backing them. And again, you've got to understand that many of these young artists you champion created little to none of their own songs or art, especially just starting off. Facts don't care about your feelings. Let's examine this further with some well-known young artists that are widely championed:
Music Artist | Age at Debut | Song Writing | Primary Composer | Album Art | Support System | Notes |
Britney Spears | 16–18 (1998–2000) | Very low at first | Professional hitmakers (Max Martin & team) | Professional design teams | Major label (Jive) + full team | First real writing credit on "Dear Diary" (2000); co-writing increased later |
Stacie Orrico | 12-14 (2000–2003) | Moderate | Mix of co-writes + professional writers | Professional | Label support | Co-wrote several tracks including "Stuck"; still relied on outside writers for big hits |
Justin Bieber | 13–16 (2009–2010) | Low | Industry writers (Tricky Stewart, The-Dream, etc.) | Professional | Usher + major label machine | Minor co-writes early; became more involved later (e.g. Purpose) |
Jump5 | 11–16 (2001–2004) | Almost none | Professional CCM songwriters + covers | Professional | Sparrow Records + parental/management | Rare co-write (e.g. Brandon Hargest on one track) |
PureNRG | Pre-teen/ early teens (2007+) | None | Professional CCM writers (Matthew West, Ian Eskelin, etc.) + covers | Professional | Fervent/Curb + management | Operated purely as performers |
Connie Talbot | 6–12 (2007–early 2010s) | Very low at first | Mostly covers + outside writers; some later originals | Professional | Label + management | Early albums were largely covers; began writing more as a teenager/ adult |
Retro Sonya | Started writing in the late 90s. Adult release of material begun as a teen (published 2020/2024) | Full – writes her own songs | Herself (original lyrics & music) | Hybrid: significant self-created art + some AI-assisted elements | None – self-taught, independent | Years of self-taught music theory, production, 2D/3D art, motion graphics; music remains fully human-authored and copyrightable |
And as I have been shouting from the roof tops... the artists you’re holding up are the same artists who, in their early years:
Had professional songwriters feeding them hits,
Had entire design teams and photographers handling every visual,
Showed up, sang, looked cute for the camera, and went home.
This the gold standard of “professional” and “talented” you wish to champion? Meanwhile the independent artist who actually writes her own lyrics, performs her own vocals, spends years learning music production and visual skills, and then uses a modern tool for one part of the packaging gets labeled “talentless.”
Now that's what I call a “I only respect art when a corporation paid a team to make it” argument.
Nothing says ‘authentic artist’ like not writing your own material and having professionals handle the artwork. Nothing says ‘fraud’ like actually doing all of it yourself and using a modern tool for the clouds. The logic is airtight. 🤔
My work doesn’t need your seal of approval. It wasn’t made for the purity-test committee. And you can keep your 'hot takes'.
If the measure of talent is “how little of the actual creative work the performer did themselves,” then sure, those early teen-pop and CCM acts win by a mile. They outsourced the songwriting and the artwork. Peak professionalism, apparently.
But if the measure includes writing the songs, owning the material, directing the vision, and still putting in manual work on the visuals (especially when AI can’t even legally touch childhood or youth photos without human editing), then the ranking looks a little different.
Funny how the second an independent artist uses a tool for social media and video backdrops, the purity police show up. But when a 15-year-old has a whole industry machine writing and designing for them, it’s suddenly “so talented, so professional.”
Selective outrage is doing backflips on this one. 😅
The Star That Took Decades to Reach!
It’s wild how much of yourself you can pour into a project and still hear almost nothing but the same flat questions.
You spend years writing, learning, producing, designing, bleeding the songs out of real life experience… and the loudest replies are “Is this AI?” or “We don’t want your slop.” Funny thing is, most of those voices were never going to support the work anyway.
They have no idea about the teenage dreamer that got battered by the storms of life, or the blood, sweat, and tears that went into every track. They don’t know the long education, the solitary practice, the nights of figuring it out alone because there was no production team, no industry backup, no open door. It was just me and the God who actually backs me.
That’s the strange new normal: artists are suspected by default. Which is exactly why I said in the last post that it’s time to stop 'proving yourself' on the never ending treadmill, and start serving. Your real supporters are the ones who matter. The original art police are not your audience, they are the anti-AI crowd that only shows up to complain and leave bad reviews. And as an indie artist who is doing it alone, my best advice is to block them. DO NOT ENGAGE. Stop focusing on the people who don't like or agree with you. Here is what is important:
At the end of the day God sees the whole story... the unseen labor, the persistent heart, the offering itself.
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” (Colossians 3:23).
It was always between you and Him. It was never between you and them, anyway.
Using my teen picture on my first album cover represents the beginning of my journey. My goal isn’t to measure up to the packaged teen-pop or CCM model, or to win the approval of people who only respect art when it comes with a corporate team attached. It’s to stand in my own unique, God-given purpose... the one I actually had the opportunity of building with my own creative vision in mind. It took years to lay out this firm foundation.
After all, I did write the songs. I developed my own sound. I steered the wheel. I carried the vision from the young girl who first dreamed it to the adult who finished it.
As an indie artist, you create the art direction and do the manual work, using tools where they help without surrendering authorship of the music itself.
My path was never supposed to look like theirs. It was always going to be slower, more self-reliant, and shaped by the tools and limitations of the eras I actually lived through. Trying to force it into someone else’s template only creates the exact frustration I've already outgrown.
Standing in my own unique music journey means I don’t have to fit into someone else's box. I don't have to justify the timeline, the hybrid visuals, or the independent process to people who are still using a different scorecard. The work is already my own. The songs are already my own. The continuity from that younger dreamer to the present version of me is already real.
That’s enough. I'll keep walking on my own unique music journey! And it will go right to the people who need it!
So here’s the final neon note for anyone still reading!
Fans and fellow creators alike: If your work doesn’t fit neatly inside the latest box the gatekeepers are pushing, you’re not broken. God-given purpose is what ultimately matters. You are valued, not because of what you can produce or how perfectly you perform for the crowd, but because of who you were created to be.
Obedience was never meant to be handed out to every loud opinion online. You are under no obligation to live the life everyone else wants you to live.
As an artist, there will be days when staying true to the message and the vision God placed in you will not satisfy the people watching. That’s okay. Keep creating. Keep dreaming. Keep fulfilling the purpose that was written for you long before the purity tests and the hot takes arrived. Not everyone will understand it. Not everyone has to.
The ones who are meant to walk with the music will recognize it. And the One who gave you the vision already does. Keep walking down the road less traveled. The neon dream is still yours.
If you like what I do, be sure to sign up for my "Synthwave & Faith" newsletter and got 2 free 80s-inspired songs written by me! Plus you'll be notified when I post a new blog, video, or song! Enjoy the music, and stay synth!
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