Maddox - I Am Better Than Your Kids

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Gallery Books
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Copyright 2011 by George Ouzounian

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address, Gallery Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Gallery Books hardcover edition November 2011

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Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN 978-1-4391-8286-4 (print)
ISBN 978-1-4391-8287-1 (ebook)

To the only person I know whos had two books dedicated to him: Me.

These are the drawings of little 68 year olds! Of course they cant draw better than you, theyre kids! Whats your fucking problem?

Anonymous hater

Several years ago, I was waiting in a coworkers cubicle when I noticed the drawings she had on display, and I told her they sucked. She gasped and said, They were made by my four-year-old nephew! So I elaborated, Well, your nephew sucks at drawing. I decided then that kids had gotten a free pass for far too long. So on my website, I proceeded to grade a handful of childrens art, along with some pointed, but fair, criticism.

The response was overwhelming.

By the end of the month, more than 6 million people had read it, and tens of millions more have read it since. Ever wonder where all those emails that your friends forward to you come from? I happen to know, because I am one of the unsung geniuses whose work becomes the bastard child of Gmail accounts across the web. The email forward in which I graded crappy childrens artwork, titled I am better than your kids, went viral in 2002 and was the first introduction most people had to my writing. It circulated to the point where some of my friends unknowingly forwarded it to me, asking why I couldnt write anything that brilliant. I also received thousands of emails per day from supportive grade school teachers, who said Id given them voice, as well as from a few U.S. Department of Defense officials, who probably should have been doing something better with their time. The article had become a phenomenon.

Then came the backlash.

I got hundreds of thousands of emails, some of which criticized me for grading the children harshly. I was accused of ageismsomeone who discriminates based on age. The most common criticism I received was, How dare you criticize kids? Theyre children! Of course they cant draw as well as you can, asshole!

The irony is that, Im actually not being ageist. By using the same standard to judge a childs art as I would an adults, Im treating them with equality. If a kid wants to impress me, he has to draw something awesome, just like an adult would. Kids dont get a free pass just for being kids. In fact, the only way to treat kids fairly is to expect the same standards of excellence as you would anyone else.

Good Job

The two most dangerous words in the English language are: good job. Its a quick little lie that parents tell their kids to encourage them to keep trying. Parents are afraid that if they tell their kids the truth, theyll get discouraged and stop drawing. So what? More kids need to be discouraged. Since when is every kid supposed to be able to draw? Think about your own life for a moment. Of all the people you know, how many of them are artists, professionally? How many of them do something even tangentially related to art? For most people, that number is zero. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, fine artists (including painters, sculptors, and illustrators) held about 23,600 jobs in 2008. With the U.S. Census Bureau estimating 307 million people in the US in 2009, only .008% are artists. You probably dont know any artists. Statistically speaking, nobody does.

Somewhere between the time parents first gush undue praise and college, the law of diminishing returns kicks in. At a certain point, no amount of encouragement will make someone any better at art. Thats when something wonderful happens to these kids: they realize that they suck. Just as no amount of encouragement alone can make someone an airline pilot, mechanical engineer, or heart surgeon, kids come to realize theyre not actually artists.

So why art? Why is this the one discipline that parents feel necessary to push upon their kids? Why not mechanical engineering? Why do you never see parents handing a kid some graph paper, a calculator, and a copy of Newtons Principia? Oh, I know! Because encouraging kids to keep trying something they suck ator arent interested inis a waste of time.

The only exceptions to this rule are reading, writing, and arithmetic. These skills are necessary for communication and understanding of all higher levels of education that succeed them. Visual art is not. Painting and drawing are forms of expression, and disingenuous support gives the child a disincentive to become better. Creators who can endure critics are the only ones who deserve to be creators. That is, anyone whose resolve is too weak to weather criticism of his or her art, shouldnt be creating art. Ive read tens of thousands of emails criticizing me over the years, for everything from my writing, grammar, style, penis size, clothing, hygiene, friends (or lack thereof), family and my receding hairline, to my sexual prowess and orientation (Ive been accused of being a gay faggot, performing fellatio, and being a virgin all in the same paragraph). Ive heard it all. And yet, I still create, because its what I love to do. I dont need anyone to pat me on the ass and say good job to keep writing. In fact, both of my parents have begged me to stop. My mom even prayed that I would get cancer before going on my last book tour. She hoped that my book would fail, Id go bankrupt, and that my writing career would end in disaster. Ironically, nothing could have encouraged me more to succeed, because my success is the biggest fuck you to my mom, my high school teachers, the writing department at the University of Utah, and everyone whos ever discouraged me in life. By not criticizing kids, youre depriving them of the opportunity to become truly great, like me.

Whats worse is that all this superfluous praise is making the world a duller place. The phrase good job is the reason we dont have any more Mozarts or Beethovens today. Mozarts father never coddled him with heaps of praise when he didnt deserve it, and that hard-earned praise was part of what motivated Mozart to constantly push harder and to make some of the most enduring music the world has ever heard. In fact, Im not sure even