35 Times People Spotted Such Delusional Artists, They Just Had To Shame Them In This Online Group (2024)

Art, Fails

We at Bored Panda have written about choosing beggars again, and again, and again, and still haven't even scratched the surface of their ridiculous demands—there are simply too many!

But this time, we decided to look at the other side—the one that does the offering—and see if we can find any opportunists among them as well. Pretty soon, we discovered the subreddit 'Delusional Artists' and it gave us exactly what we were looking for.

This online community of 514,000 members constantly shares pictures that expose people with a warped understanding of their prowess. Thinking they're the next big thing, these folks ask for thousands of dollars for their work, and probably expect that the Museum of Modern Art will give them a call any day now, begging to buy a piece for its collection.

I guess the key takeaway here is that people are funny. No matter where you look, someone will find a way to surprise you.

We contacted the moderators of 'Delusional Artists' and one of them, a Reddit user who goes on the platform as Wqzu, was kind enough to have a little chat with us.

It's not a secret that when subreddits get big, they attract more trolls, but the mod said this particular one isn't having this problem. (Knock on wood.) "Thankfully, the most common issue is reposts," Wqzu told Bored Panda.

"There are times when we have had to step in and control off-site brigades; the most infuriating one is 1-star review bombing self-published works on Amazon. Every now and then, some big drama will kick off, either publicly (like this) or in modmail when an artist finds out they've been posted here. It hasn't happened in a while though, unfortunately. Maybe I should stir the pot a little bit."

Putting a price on your artwork on the internet can be hard. As writer Julia Rittenberg, there are several important factors both amateurs and professionals should keep in mind when doing so that doesn't really apply to real life.

Take shipping, for example. "Since [it] can be prohibitively expensive for consumers, price your products to be more expensive to keep shipping costs down for customers," Rittenberg explained on Forbes. "It's a difficult calculation, but higher shipping costs tend to dissuade potential customers. If you keep shipping costs down, you might get more sales, even if the product is priced to be more expensive."

On the other hand, if you're selling digital prints and reproductions, you might want to keep costs down to get your products out to more customers. Only after you build a customer base, should you start to raise prices and consider special offers and shorter runs to incentivize your products as collectibles.

However, these things are directed toward the reasonable. And those who end up on 'Delusional Artists' are usually anything but; the creative type isn't exactly known for its rationality.

"I think part of being any form of artist (and I say this as a very amateur hobbyist writer that wasted over $33k on a creative writing degree) is being somewhat of a narcissist [who believes] the idea that what you've made needs to be viewed by other people," Wqzu said.

"Most people know that for every Picasso or Dali, there's a million people trying their own hand at it, and that gives you a big pool of people with the potential to be more narcissistic."

The moderator said it is also worth mentioning that a lot of the subreddit's members have never attempted to sell or buy art, and so their idea of what constitutes a reasonable price is normally fairly low.

"I'd say the community is split between people that like looking at bad art and like looking at delusional people having a meltdown," they explained. "I definitely fall into the latter category at least, and that's how the sub was when I joined around 7-8 years ago. If I had to group everyone together, I'd say that we are cringe-voyeurs."

'Delusional Artists' have been around since 2013 and has been reviewed by various big names, but the visibility comes with its fair share of challenges. "Every time the sub gets posted somewhere big, like when PewdiePie made a video on it, we get inundated with reposts, soapboxers, and brigaders that predictably whine in modmail after they get banned."

They would love for everyone to check out the sub, but ask that you read the shagging rules and search the shagging sub before posting and commenting!

Rokas is a writer at Bored Panda with a BA in Communication. After working for a sculptor, he fell in love with visual storytelling and enjoys covering everything from TV shows (any Sopranos fans out there?) to photography. Throughout his years in Bored Panda, over 300 million people have read the posts he's written, which is probably more than he could count to.

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