Creativity is too hard
Buzzsaw had a good run, working hard to create countless magazine issues for the last 20 years, but all good things die in their own time. We should have guessed that the strain would be too great, and now we’re left experiencing burnout like never before.
It’s time we moved back to our roots. Many of you may have forgotten, but before we were a magazine, we were the best darn travelling sales team for saws in Tompkins County. We sold chainsaws, handsaws, circular saws, saws with wide teeth and saws with no teeth at all. We’ve pretended to love the magazine life, but there’s no denying that saws are in our blood.
Besides, it’s hard to ignore how little we’re leaving behind. First of all, it’s far easier to express yourself through saws than it is through creating art or carefully articulating necessary journalism. You’re angry? Big table saw! You’re humming with delight? Tiny electric saw! You want to express the complexities of modern youth and the fleeting attempts at connection in an increasingly virtual society? Hand saw! Saws are just easier to understand than writing. They just get us.
Plus, who even reads Buzzsaw anymore? Who are we really reaching? Travelling around, selling saws to people who need them, seeing them cut things, carving things into buildings and tools, cutting down perfectly healthy forests to make paper, aiding in chainsaw massacres, removing diseased trees to keep fungi outbreaks from spreading – now that’s influence we can map.
I don’t actually remember why we changed over to being a magazine. Why the fuck did we think we would benefit from trying to be creative? It obviously wasn’t worth our time. The Imposter Syndrome, debates over formatting, journalism ethics, fact-checking slog, frustrating photoshoots, redraws – and for what? Feeling like no matter what we create, it will never be good enough? Like we’ll never leave an impactful stamp on the world? Like we might as well have never been born in the first place?
Today, youth culture is obsessed with having a voice. Maybe all of us would be happier if our opinions were drowned out by sound of saws. Maybe all of us would be happier if we just listened to the saws, and like, let ourselves drift away. Let the saws lead. Yeah, that… sounds…. nice…. so easy… so — sorry! Sometimes I just get hypnotized by those rotary blades. But anyway, it’s been a good run. We’re resigning, and we hope you do too.
If you’d like to join Buzzsaw Inc. and help us reclaim the title of Saw Kings of Tompkins County, we’d love to have you join us. If you hire four people to work for you, and they each hire four people, then we’ll spread in no time. If that’s too confusing: email us! We’ll send you a three-dimensional pyramidic infographic explaining the details. We guarantee you’ll saw those student loans in half.
Isabel Murray is a third year Writing major. If you’re interested in buying any buzzsaws, chainsaws, hacksaws or any other kind of saw, reach them at [email protected].