History Main / ArtistDisillusionment

* Creator/AlanMoore -- despite being considered one of the granddaddies of the "modern" comic book superhero genre with his seminal works ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', ''ComicBook/SwampThing'', and ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'' -- ultimately doesn't look fondly of his purported influence on the genre. On top of [[CreatorBacklash personally disavowing]] ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'' [[CreatorBacklash as not being a particularly great story]], he's overall annoyed by how the industry took away lessons that charged the medium into [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks a vastly darker, grittier direction]], despite [[MisaimedFandom failing to understand the nuance, intent, or context behind his example]] (''Watchmen'' is effectively [[UnbuiltTrope a preemptive rebuttal against the gritty "deconstructions" of superheroes that it would inspire]]). He moved away from superhero media pretty quickly (it may come as a surprise that [[BrieferThanTheyThink his tenure was only a five-year-long period in the '80s]]), and [[https://deadline.com/2020/10/alan-moore-rare-interview-watchmen-creator-the-show-superhero-movies-blighted-culture-1234594526/ he's gone on as saying]] that he thinks superheroes in general have overstayed their welcome, finding them serviceable children's entertainment, but have become something grotesque from their need to [[DarkerAndEdgier be made "for the adult world"]].

* A few notable UsefulNotes/RPGMaker content creators and scripters clearly dislike the community and newbies and [[DisproportionateRetribution tend to]] [[BerserkButton react very harshly]] if people ask them questions about their content.

* Ben Harclerode left Music/{{Whitechapel}} and music in general because he was tired of touring for a living, was burned out on heavy music, and had wanted to quit for some time, but had stuck around solely because Whitechapel paid his bills and gave him a comfortable standard of living. It wasn't until he got serious with his then-girlfriend (who owned a gym) that he could afford to leave the band, and he stated in no uncertain terms that he was at the point where he was so tired of being a professional musician that he was doing a disservice to both the fans and his bandmates by staying in the band.

* Due to building ValuesDissonance between young American gamers (who like action-packed, violent, and cinematic games) and Nintendo (who prefer simple games that are fun for the whole family) which ended up hurting sales of the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube, [[http://web.archive.org/web/20130819010845/http://www.notenoughshaders.com/2013/08/15/the-struggles-of-marketing-the-gamecube Nintendo began to feel contempt for Western gamers]] toward the end of the [=GameCube=] era. One of the biggest factors in this was the [[OvershadowedByControversy infamous]] reaction to the reveal of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheWindWaker'' and its [[BrokenBase harshly divisive]] [[CelShading cel-shaded]] art style.

* Just stick around on Creator/HidekiKamiya's [[https://twitter.com/PG_kamiya Twitter account]] and you're bound to see his irritation in a good fraction of his tweets. Asking him questions he has been asked repeatedly will often be met with a link to a tweet asking followers to check and search his tweet log, and pestering him with fan dumb comments (e.g. complaining about ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta 2}}'' being on the UsefulNotes/WiiU or questioning his English skills, never mind that English is not his native language) will be met with a "fuck off" at best and a derogatory comment in Japanese followed by a block at worst. Furthermore, all of his replies are public, so being a nuisance to him is a one-way trip to being humiliated by other followers. He makes it no secret that some of his fans piss him off, and whenever a major news site reports on him or his games, which is when his account takes a big jump in replies from followers, you can expect tweets along the lines of "Idiots rushing in..."

* LetsPlay/LewisBrindley, in response to constant badgering about ''[[WebVideo/YogscastMinecraftSeries Shadow of Israphel]]'', has said that he's ''really'' tired of it and that he actually feels demotivated to do it. This, on top of a lot of the old creation team no longer being available and the LetsPlay/{{Yogscast}} in general being busier, means that the show's hiatus is unlikely to end anytime soon.

* Ian Flynn would vent his frustration with shippers after an incident where he was flooded with requests to confirm various ships in ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogIDW'', only to get backlash when trying to explain that he could only vaguely allude to character sexualities rather than confirm any pairings, due to Sega mandates preventing him from explicitly doing so. For example, he highlighted that confirming the Lesbian Pride flag colors where indeed behind popular shipping pair Whisper the Wolf and Tangle the Lemur in one comic panel is as far as he can officially say on the matter. The same thing happened even earlier in his ''Sonic'' career with ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedehogArchieComics''.

* Ian Flynn has recently gone on to vent his frustration with shippers, after an incident where he was flooded with requests to confirm various ships in ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogIDW'', only to get backlash from them when he could only confirm various vague sexualities of characters and not direct shipping partners, due to Sega mandates preventing him from doing so (for instance, confirming the intentional Lesbian Pride flag colors behind popular shipping pair Whisper the Wolf and Tangle the Lemur, but unable to confirm that they were in a relationship proper)... a nightmare he experienced earlier in his Sonic career with ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedehogArchieComics''.

* IanFlynn has recently gone on to vent his frustration with shippers, after an incident where he was flooded with requests to confirm various ships in ''Comic/SonicTheHedgehog(IDW)'', only to get backlash from them when he could only confirm various vague sexualities of characters and not direct shipping partners, due to Creator/Sega mandating him from doing so (for instance, confirming the intentional Lesbian Pride flag colors behind popular shipping pair Whisper the Wolf and Tangle the Lemur, but unable to confirm that they were in a relationship proper)... a nightmare he experienced earlier in his Sonic career with ''Comic/SonicTheHedehog(Archie)''.

* When the Music/{{Carpenters}} first began performing, Karen Carpenter, who had been drumming since school, took charge of the drum kit but also sang. As her amazing voice made its mark on the growing audiences, she came under increasing pressure from managers and promoters to stop hiding behind her drums, glam up, and become the [[FaceOfTheBand lead singer and frontwoman]] - none of which she wanted to do, and all of which made her uneasy. When her hand was eventually forced, the resulting stress, and the various stage fright coping methods she tried, all contributed to her mental and physical health issues and, ultimately, her untimely death in 1983.

* On ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Bart imagines life as a rock star performing a hit song called "Me Fans are Stupid Pigs". The audience loves it. He also dealt with artist disillusionment when hired on to the Krusty the Clown show as a one-line wonder, complaining about the hollowness of his catchphrase.

* The failure of ''Series/TheJimHensonHour'', then the latest in a string of flops, combined with the stress of managing his own production companies, keeping an eagle eye on [[DoingItForTheArt quality control]] and issues in his personal life (he had separated from his wife a few years prior), left Creator/JimHenson seriously burned out in its aftermath. The result was him nearly selling the Muppets franchise to Disney so he could focus solely on creating and performing, which only didn't go through because he died during the negotiations.

--> "REPEAT: BEFORE ASKING SOMETHING, CHECK MY LOG http://twitpic.com/aittfy OR SEE MY PROFILE OR GOOGLE IT OR [[RunningGag ASK]] [[CatchPhrase YOUR]] [[YourMom MOM]]."

* Markus "Notch" Persson has had a notoriously fraught relationship with [[SleeperHit his one man project-turned-global phenomenon]], ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}''. In the lead-up to him selling {{Creator/Mojang}} to {{Creator/Microsoft}} in 2014, Notch admitted he'd become increasingly distant from the game due to the stresses of keeping up with its sudden and ever-increasing popularity, as well as its increasingly vocal fanbase with a myriad of opinions, claiming that starting from 2011, he mostly let other Mojang developers take care of the game while he focused on his own personal projects. After the acquisition (fully relinquishing all developmental involvement with the game), he admitted that the move was done in part to preserve his sanity, and vowed to abandon any future project he worked on that looked like it was going to start getting popular the way ''Minecraft'' did. Starting from early 2020, he found himself more at peace with the game and able to assess the game as just a member of the audience, though this hasn't stopped him from [[CreatorBacklash being critical of the game and its direction since his departure]] (including tweeting in response to the ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' DLC in 2021 "Minecraft's a little bit dead.")

* Perhaps the second most famous example of this is Music/LaurynHill. As the most notable member of Music/TheFugees she became a star thanks to their album ''Music/TheScore''. When her solo debut ''Music/TheMiseducationOfLaurynHill'' came out, it was both a critical and commercial success. Even when listened to today, it hasn't aged that bad, mostly because Hill made it more of a {{Soul}} album than a HipHop album. But Lauryn didn't like the way the music industry worked, putting a ridiculous amount of effort into maintaining a personal vision without the burden of ExecutiveMeddling, and in the end, decided that she wanted to focus more on her family. Not helping matters is that, a few years ago, she was convicted of tax evasion and has had quite a few financial setbacks as a result. Barring an Unplugged album that was released in ''2002'' and the occasional tour, she doesn't seem all that interested in bringing out new material, making a revival of her music pretty unlikely nowadays.

* Hideaki Anno was reputed to be resentful of the MisaimedFandom of ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'' as well as the death threats his fans sent him after the GainaxEnding of the series that he created [[TheMovie a film that more or less replaced the last two episodes]] as the true ending. Without giving anything away, it was the ''exact opposite'' of what many fans of the series wanted and, in some cases, expected. The truth is this was the original ending before executive meddling, and with the exception of one or two scenes, the work was not intended as a [[TakeThat jab]] against the fans. He did show the death threats sent to him ''on-screen'' after the movie was over, and a certain scene of FanDisservice is interpreted to target some of the fans. However, according to [[https://wiki.evageeks.org/End_of_Evangelion_Death_Threats various translations]] of the quick-flashing letters in the live-action sequence, most of them are actually fairly supportive letters, some from middle-schoolers (the same age range as the main character) telling Anno how much ''Evangelion'' inspired them and helped them in their own lives. Only two of these, the more negative and threatening of the lot, can really be considered "death threats".

* Occurs in ''WebVideo/CommentaryTheMusical'', halfway between parody and TakeThatUs: Joss Whedon's song, ''Heart (Broken)'' is a meditation on postmodernism and fan interaction so depressing it makes everyone else flee the room. Also has a killer refrain.

* In the ''Anime/LittleWitchAcademia2017'' series, the author of the ''[[Literature/{{Twilight}} Nightfall]]'' book series is revealed to be a LegacyCharacter, with the most recent one wishing to pass on the role due to being a target of internet trolls. Lotte (the one who she tries to pass the role on) convinces her instead that for all the people who insult and mock her, there are many more who love her writing and genuinely appreciate her, which leads to her continuing the role.

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* ''Film/TheAgonyAndTheEcstasy'': Michelangelo starts painting the Art/SistineChapel ceiling the way Pope Julius said he wanted but Michelangelo quickly becomes disillusioned with how the work is turning out. He destroys what he completed and goes into hiding for a time, during which he comes up with [[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/07/CAPPELLA_SISTINA_Ceiling.jpg a much better design]] for the ceiling.

* Creator/AlanMoore -- despite being considered one of the granddaddies of the "modern" comic book superhero genre with his seminal works ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', ''ComicBook/SwampThing'', and ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'' -- ultimately doesn't look fondly of his purported influence on the genre. On top of [[OldShame personally disavowing]] ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'' [[OldShame as not being a particularly great story]], he's overall annoyed by how the industry took away lessons that charged the medium into [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks a vastly darker, grittier direction]], despite [[MisaimedFandom failing to understand the nuance, intent, or context behind his example]] (''Watchmen'' is effectively [[UnbuiltTrope a preemptive rebuttal against the gritty "deconstructions" of superheroes that it would inspire]]). He moved away from superhero media pretty quickly (it may come as a surprise that [[BrieferThanTheyThink his tenure was only a five-year-long period in the '80s]]), and [[https://deadline.com/2020/10/alan-moore-rare-interview-watchmen-creator-the-show-superhero-movies-blighted-culture-1234594526/ he's gone on as saying]] that he thinks superheroes in general have overstayed their welcome, finding them serviceable children's entertainment, but have become something grotesque from their need to [[DarkerAndEdgier be made "for the adult world"]].

* ''WebVideo/TheMysteriousMrEnter'' admitted in a video post that he wants to take a break from reviewing animation. While he has no ire towards his fans, he's emotionally burnt-out over having the flaws of his older videos (including those that were made years ago and were [[OldShame apologized over]]) [[NeverLiveItDown constantly brought up]] even when he's trying to improve himself as a content creator; the situation went as far as losing a friend over the videos.

* Creator/LindsayEllis retired from [=YouTube=] and content creation as a whole at the end of 2021, citing this and her increasingly confrontational viewer base as to why. Ellis had very publicly held her earliest landmark work as WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick with [[OldShame contempt]] ever since she retired the title in 2014, having disliked Website/ChannelAwesome's management and [[CausticCritic the "criticism via angry ranting" format]] it helped propagate. However, with her venture into content under her own name, her coverage of more overtly political topics drew increasing controversy, with her subject to a massive targeted harassment campaign by Neo-Nazi sympathizers in 2019, and a tweet of her criticizing ''WesternAnimation/RayaAndTheLastDragon'' sparked up a similar smear campaign in 2021 that attempted to paint her as anti-Asian. In her announcement of retirement, she concluded that [[CelebrityIsOverrated being in the public eye was ultimately a losing game]] and that the most recent experiences convinced her she was "eminently expendable."

* Andrea Caprotti, who worked as an animator in the Rooster Teeth shows ''Webanimation/RedVsBlue'', ''Webanimation/RWBY'', and ''Webanimation/GenLock'', said so many {{Troubled Production}}s [[https://twitter.com/andicdayo/status/1581564753138552832 traumatized her]] to the point she abandoned that career and instead became a teacher in Japan.

* Andrea Caprotti, who worked as animator in the Rooster Teeth shows ''Webanimation/RedVsBlue'', ''RWBY'', and ''Webanimation/GenLock'', said so many {{Troubled Production}}s [[https://twitter.com/andicdayo/status/1581564753138552832 traumatized her]] to the point she abandoned that career and instead became a teacher in Japan.

* Creator/LindsayEllis retired from [=YouTube=] and content creation as a whole at the end of 2021, citing this and her increasingly confrontational viewer base as to why. Ellis had very publicly held her earliest landmark work as WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick with [[OldShame contempt]] ever since she retired the title in 2014, having disliked Website/ChannelAwesome's management and [[CausticCritic the "criticism via angry ranting" format]] it helped propagate. However, with her venture into content under her own name, her coverage of more overtly political topics drew increasing controversy, with her subject to a massive targeted harassment campaign by alt-right sympathizers in 2019, and a tweet of her criticizing ''WesternAnimation/RayaAndTheLastDragon'' sparked up a similar smear campaign in 2021 that attempted to paint her as anti-Asian. In her announcement of retirement, she concluded that [[CelebrityIsOverrated being in the public eye was ultimately a losing game]] and that the most recent experiences convinced her she was "eminently expendable."

* ''Varg Vikernes'' has a lot to say about modern BlackMetal fandom and [[CreatorBacklash the new BM bands too]], nothing nice.

* Music/{{Keane}} went through a phase of major infighting, during which one member developed drug problems. They came close to breaking up, but managed to recover...and the fact that their arguing helped create the popularly DarkerAndEdgier album ''Under The Iron Sea'' didn't hurt.

* Horrorcore artist ''Sematary'' began building up scorn for his fanbase after his mixtape "Rainbow Bridge" attracted attention of Drainers and 4chan's /mu/, neither of whom he is fond of. This disdain forced him to go further and further away from RB's original aesthetic, and [[{{Flanderization}} eventually resulted]] in more loud and aggressive "Haunted Mound Sematary" we know today.

* Music/PearlJam dealt with this on almost every album after Ten. Blood, Leash, Rats, Pry.to, Corduroy, Hitchhiker, In Hiding... Vs. album was especially charged with that. It WAS named Five Against One for a short while, after all.

* Annie Proulx has had a ''very'' [[https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/brokeback-mountain-author-annie-proulx-says-she-regrets-writing-the-story-9949636.html negative reaction]] to ''Film/BrokebackMountain'' fanfiction, for [[FixFic multiple]] [[{{Rule 34}} reasons]], and says it makes her now regret having written the short story.

*** A similar one [[http://www.basicinstructions.net/basic-instructions/2013/7/25/how-to-explain-your-personal-feelings.html was related by the author]] of ''WebComic/BasicInstructions'', who had a cousin with muscular dystrophy attending a fundraiser, and Doohan, despite being at the height of his popularity, took it upon himself to spend the entire evening pushing her wheelchair and keeping her company.

* It's debatable as to whether or not he still loves the work he's done over his decades-long career, but Frank Oz, the Muppeteer from Creator/JimHenson's show and long-time comedy partner, never does any public appearances except for a few every several years, insists that fans see him as just another guy who happened to get lucky instead of a dazzling super-star, and publicly bashed [[Film/TheMuppets Disney's revival]] after reading the script and turned down the offer to work on it. When he ''is'' in a public event, he is very gracious to fans, thankfully.

[[AC:Web Comics]]

* A WriterOnBoard arc of ''WebComic/LivingWithInsanity'' deals with David's disillusionment after [[http://www.livingwithinsanity.com/index/?p=290 years of attempts not resulting in much success.]] [[http://www.livingwithinsanity.com/index/?p=295 This strip's note shows]] it wasn't just for him.

True artist disillusionment is when the artist just isn't having any fun at all anymore and is making no secret of that fact. They've given up being a SlaveToPR, and as such are rude and dismissive in public appearances and interviews, snap the head off fans who manage to fray their one remaining nerve, and generally come across as a grouchy, impatient jackass. Their work may even begin to suffer. [[CreatorsApathy They just don't care anymore.]] And this lack of caring tends to express itself through insults towards their audience and fans.

It's not all one way, however; unfortunately, the artist's fans can play a not-insignificant role in their idol's disillusionment. There's a reason some of them are called FanDumb, after all. Too many obnoxious or arrogant fans can turn the artist off their fanbase ''entirely'', fairly or not. Where the artist sees their creativity as just a job, the fan may see it as [[SeriousBusiness a holy way of life]], which can create tension if the artist isn't treating the property as seriously as the fan would like. The fan may believe that their devotion to the product means that they have part or even ''full'' ownership over it, and if they have no hesitation upon bluntly expressing their views about it to the artist, this is going to grate even if the artist doesn't have ProtectionFromEditors; the artist is the one who has to make the thing, after all. A {{Broken|Base}} or UnpleasableFanbase can also have this effect, since no matter what the artist does they're still going to have to listen to someone whine about it.

* Creator/AlanMoore -- despite being considered one of the granddaddies of the "modern" comic book superhero genre with his seminal works ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'', ''ComicBook/SwampThing'', and ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'' -- ultimately doesn't look fondly of his purported influence on the genre. On top of [[OldShame personally disavowing]] ''ComicBook/TheKillingJoke'' [[OldShame as not being a particularly great story]], he's overall annoyed by how the industry took away lessons that charged the medium into [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks a vastly darker, grittier direction]], despite [[MisaimedFandom failing to understand the nuance, intent, or context behind his example]] (''Watchmen'' is effectively [[UnbuiltTrope a preemptive rebuttal against the gritty "deconstructions" of superheroes that it would inspire]]). He moved away from superhero media pretty quickly (it may come as a surprise that [[BrieferThanTheyThink his tenure was only a five-year-long period in the 80s]]), and [[https://deadline.com/2020/10/alan-moore-rare-interview-watchmen-creator-the-show-superhero-movies-blighted-culture-1234594526/ he's went on as saying]] that he thinks superheroes in general have overstayed their welcome, finding them serviceable children's entertainment, but have become something grotesque from their need to [[DarkerAndEdgier be made "for the adult world"]].

* ''ComicBook/{{Marville}}'' was the brainchild of then-Creator/MarvelComics president/editor Bill Jemas, and became known as an infamous critical and commercial flop even before it finished its six-issue run (it had only got that far as by Jemas' own admission, his status as Marvel president gave him ProtectionFromEditors). Jemas attached an open letter in the final issue explaining his disappointment not only in the comic's failure, [[DearNegativeReader but in the comic industry as a whole]], claiming that only {{superhero}} comics sell well at Marvel (directly citing ''Marville'''s failure as proof that [[ViewersAreMorons their audiences only want superhero action, nothing more]]), Creator/DCComics avoids [[TakeThat "publishing anything that actually says anything"]], Creator/ImageComics [[TakeThat will leave you bankrupt, and independent publishers have no money or viewership]]. He was motivated to combat this by reinstating the then-defunct Creator/EpicComics imprint as a means of hiring and promoting up-and-coming comic creators with new, non-superhero stories. Sadly, [[ShortRunners it folded again one year later]], with much blame being put on Jemas' [[ExecutiveMeddling micromanaging]] and posing a rather confrontational attitude towards said potential talent -- despite the point of the imprint, Epic Comics' application guide blatantly admits that Marvel had little confidence in stories not connected with their superhero universe, and that they'd only be supported if Marvel as a whole had something to gain from it.

* The author of ''Literature/ReZero'', Tappei Nagatsuki, is a unique case in that not only does he despise modern day NEET {{otaku}}, but he also despises the {{light novel|s}} industry itself, particularly generic [[TrappedInAnotherWorld Isekai]] stories, in general, hence many of ''Re:Zero'''s [[TakeThatAudience jabs toward the audience]] being the result of this. Nagatsuki has even stated outright that the reason his characters suffer great pain that is a little too close to home for many of these Otaku is that he feels modern Isekai LN authors aren't gutsy enough to put their main characters through real hardships.

** A notable aversion was Creator/JamesDoohan, who absolutely loved the convention circuit and went out of his way to accommodate fans. On numerous occasions he has told a story about a fan who wrote him a letter that was [[https://youtu.be/COJuF7n9gGA basically a suicide note]]. So Doohan called her and invited her to a convention in Indianapolis. He then pulled a Scheherazade and told her that he expected to see her at the next convention, and the next, and the next, and it apparently worked. It worked so well that he had struck up a correspondence with her and acted as her mentor. After a while, he stopped receiving letters from her and was concerned that she had fallen to depression and suicide, and he hadn't kept hold of her address to reach out to her. Eight years later, he received another letter from her apologizing for the silence -- she had returned to college and had gotten her Master's degree in Electronic Engineering.

* Music/PinkFloyd suffered from two major bouts of this. The first affected Music/SydBarrett, who found himself increasingly uneasy with their growing exposure, audience sizes, and TV appearances, and didn't want the group to become any more famous. None of the others agreed with this, their rising fame was impossible to halt, and Syd sought greater and greater refuge in drugs, leading to his downward spiral into paranoia and insanity. (This was later commemorated in the album ''Music/WishYouWereHere1975''.) Roger Waters also suffered from the vast audiences and changed audience composition brought by their mainstream success following ''Music/TheDarkSideOfTheMoon''. While their old psychedelic fans tended to be quiet during the numbers and appreciative at the end of them, the new mainstream fans, though very appreciative, were also very loud and rowdy, and usually spent [[IconicSongRequest the whole set calling for]] [[BlackSheepHit "Money"]]. This culminated the infamous incident during the ''Music/{{Animals|1977}}'' tour where Roger spat on a particularly loud and rowdy fan (and the fan ''loved'' it). This lead to the jokey suggestion that they needed a wall between him and the audience, which led to ''Music/TheWall''.

* Music/GeorgeMichael emerged from [[TheEighties 1980s]] British BoyBand Music/{{Wham}} in 1986, releasing his debut solo album ''Faith'' a year later. Though critically acclaimed and one of the top albums in 1987-89, making Michael a megastar as his own artist, he still felt his image as a sex symbol (a holdover from his Wham! days, but slightly more geared to an adult image) belied the artistry and craft he put into ''Faith'', and he longed to be taken as a serious, even topical artist. Moreover, he was discovering [[StraightGay his homosexuality in private]], which contradicted the macho, girl-crazy image he projected since the Wham! days, his parents and gay lover were both dying and he was having troubles with his label Sony. Soon, more serious-minded, less danceable and pop-friendly albums like ''Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1'' and ''Older'' emerged. Michael also appeared less and less in his own music videos, one of which, "Freedom '90", symbolically showed an image of his ''Faith''-era leather jacket, blue jeans, and archtop acoustic guitar burning in a closet. His arrest for "lewd conduct"(i.e. exposing himself to an undercover police officer) in a public toilet in Beverly Hills in 1998 led to his eventual self-outing. This, and his consistent arrests for drunk driving and/or drug possession stunted his career, and he ended up never reaching the heights of his ''Faith'' days again.

** Porter largely got his groove back after the release of ''Nurture'', which continued his introspective, indietronica direction and served as the end of a creative drought he experienced from 2015 to 2017. Much of ''Nurture'' was inspired by him rediscovering how to make music for himself to express honest feelings instead of doing it to be productive or successful. This change in perspective was also aided by his work with Music/{{Madeon}} on Shelter, nostalgic late-90s/early 2000s dance music side project Virtual Self, and the start of his curated music festival Second Sky, all in 2017. During the 2020 version of Secret Sky, the virtual counterpart to Second Sky, he threw a bone to ''Spitfire''-era fans by performing [[https://www.1001tracklists.com/tracklist/2k82n27k/dj-potaro-secret-sky-festival-2020-05-09.html a full electro house set]] as his mascot character Potaro complete with some of his deep cut remixes and an unreleased song from that era.

* Frank Mertens of German pop trio Music/{{Alphaville}} left the group in December of 1984, not even a year after their debut single released that January, and just three months after the September release of their first album. One major reason was anxiety brought by the fame and attention. Frank barely speaks in any interview footage from 1984, and one of the only written interviews with him available on the Internet in English is from a Swedish music magazine called Okej, in which he explains, "I am shy and I don't like to talk. I prefer to look and listen. Marian and Bernhard talk quite enough." According to lead singer Marian Gold, Frank approached him during a stop at Frankfurt Airport and told him that being constantly recognized by strangers was too much for him to handle, and that he would quit the band as a result.[[note]]For the record, band member Bernhard Lloyd remembers things differently. According to him, for private reasons Frank wanted to leave the Nelson Project, the art commune the members of Alphaville were living with at the time. Since in those days Alphaville was vitally linked to the Nelson Project, leaving the Project meant leaving the band as well.[[/note]] Frank would later form a band called Lonely Boys with his girlfriend Martina Richter but continued to shun interviews, and Marian has suggested that Lonely Boys' few single releases were more to honor Frank's recording contract than to generate commercially successful material. Lonely Boys disbanded in 1987 and Frank Mertens gave up being a professional musician, focusing on art and sculpture instead.

* In the 19th century, Russian playwright Creator/NikolaiGogol wrote a often cited letter about how he was disappointed by the way the actors played the characters in ''Ревизоръ'' (''The Government Inspector'', aka ''Theatre/TheInspectorGeneral''), completely misinterpreting his intentions and failing to give them proper depth. He was generally quite prone to such [[CreatorBreakdown breakdowns]], though.

* Just stick around on Creator/HidekiKamiya's [[https://twitter.com/PG_kamiya Twitter account]] and you're bound to see his irritation in a good fraction of his tweets. Asking him questions he has been asked repeatedly will often be met with a link to a tweet asking followers to check and search his tweet log, and pestering him with fan dumb comments (e.g. complaining about ''VideoGame/{{Bayonetta 2}}'' being on the UsefulNotes/WiiU or questioning his English skills, never mind that English is not his native language) will be met with a "fuck off" at best and a derogatory comment in Japanese followed by a block at worst. Furthermore, all of his replies are public, so being a nuisance to him is a one way trip to being humiliated by other followers. He makes it no secret that some of his fans piss him off, and whenever a major news site reports on him or his games, which is when his account takes a big jump in replies from followers, you can expect tweets along the lines of "Idiots rushing in..."

* LetsPlay/LewisBrindley, in response to constant badgering about ''[[WebVideo/YogscastMinecraftSeries Shadow of Israphel]]'', has said that he's ''really'' tired of it, and that he actually feels demotivated to do it. This, on top of a lot of the old creation team no longer being available and the LetsPlay/{{Yogscast}} in general being busier, means that the show's hiatus is unlikely to end anytime soon.

* The state of the LetsPlay/HatFilms subreddit has gotten to the point that the Sirs have expressed their irritation; while admins are now working to tidy it up, the trio are a bit fed up of people posting walrus pics and going "this looks like Trott" [[note]]Trott's ''Minecraft'' skin is a walrus[[/note]], ignoring their AMA and asking the same questions repeatedly and behaving in a slightly stalker-ish manner by reposting all their Tweets. They've also expressed their irritation at people ''genuinely'' insulting Trott, failing to realise that Trott's TheChewToy because the group are VitriolicBestBuds; they are, however, aware that people are just copying what they see and not genuinely trying to be mean, so this is a DownplayedTrope.

* Justin "Amnaeon" Bonitz Was a very talented Metal Vocalist and Website/YouTube performer, his rise to fame was in part due to the song covers he would do on request. However, as of April 11th, 2015, he experienced a massive CreatorBreakdown, in which he mocked and insulted his FanDumb and in fact all of his subscribers, due to the constant stream of cover requests overshadowing his other work. [[TakeThatAudience He then removed over 3 or 4 years worth of content and left only the breakdown video and another one titled "I quit" and changed his channel banner to a collection of insults aimed at anyone viewing.]]

* Creator/LindsayEllis retired from [=YouTube=] and content creation as a whole on the end of 2021, citing this and her increasingly confrontational viewerbase as to why. Ellis had very publicly held her earliest landmark work as WebVideo/TheNostalgiaChick with [[OldShame contempt]] ever since she retired the title in 2014, having disliked Website/ChannelAwesome's management and [[CausticCritic the "criticism via angry ranting" format]] it helped propogate. However, with her venture into content under her own name, her coverage of more overtly political topics drew increasing controversy, with her subject to a massive targeted harassment campaign by alt-right sympathizers in 2019, and a tweet of her criticizing ''WesternAnimation/RayaAndTheLastDragon'' sparked up a similar smear campaign in 2021 that attempted to paint her as anti-Asian. In her announcement of retirement, she concluded that [[CelebrityIsOverrated being in the public eye was ultimately a losing game]] and that the most recent experiences convinced her she was "eminently expendable."

* In one issue of ''ComicBook/{{Riskhospitalet}}'', a news anchorman is saying all kinds of nasty things during a show broadcast in real time. As he finishes his speech with mooning the camera, his staff receives a phone call from the hospital - explaining that they mixed up the lab results and that the anchorman is in fact not dying.

* The film ''Film/GalaxyQuest'' is all about this phenomenon and about the disillusionment and sense of lost opportunity that can result when an actor has to spend a large chunk of his/her life [[IAmNotSpock trapped by the popularity of a single role]]. The [[ClassicallyTrainedExtra Shakespearean-trained]] Alexander Dane (Creator/AlanRickman) seemed to suffer the most out of all the title show's cast members since he had given up a respectable stage career to play a [[RubberForeheadAliens Rubber Forehead Alien.]] Of course, the experience is revitalized for all of them, and the illusion restored by the end of the movie.

* A big plot element in ''Webcomic/{{Megatokyo}}'' is actor/fan relations. Among the main characters is former idol (and BrokenBird) Erika, who found that her idealistic dream of being a voice actress was destroyed by fan obsessiveness, the negative impact her job had on her personal life, and her own disillusionment - that resulted in nearly killing her best friend. Her experience at the height of her fame has only left her aloof and cynical ([[spoiler:until Largo comes along...]])

* On ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', Bart imagines life as a rock star performing a hit song called "My Fans are Stupid Pigs". The audience loves it. He also dealt with artist disillusionment when hired on to the Krusty the Clown show as a one-line wonder, complaining about the hollowness of his catchphrase.

[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
* This is why Creator/SarahPolley walked away from Hollywood and acting in general in order to become a writer and director in her native Canada. In [[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/14/opinion/sunday/harvey-weinstein-sarah-polley.html an op-ed]] she wrote for ''The New York Times'' in 2017 after producer Harvey Weinstein was exposed as a sexual predator, she described her experience promoting the 1998 Creator/{{Miramax|Films}} romantic drama ''Guinevere'' that involved her being [[SexSells sexed up for a photoshoot]] even though her character in the film was "an awkward girl, bumbling, in fact, who wore sweatshirts and jeans, and had little sense of her sexual power", and how Weinstein pulled her aside to make his now-infamous CastingCouch offer to her. She said that this experience was the moment when she realized that acting in Hollywood wasn't worth it as a profession. As a director, she found that she was able to clamp down on the amount of sexism that flowed on the sets of her films, which made her even more disillusioned with acting when she tried to go back to it only to once more encounter all the sexist abuse that she did before. TheLastStraw was when a producer on an unnamed film (implied to be ''Film/{{Splice}}'') brushed off her concerns about [[spoiler:shooting a rape scene because twelve-year-old Creator/DakotaFanning had shot a rape scene in ''Film/{{Hounddog}}'' and wasn't affected by it]].
[[/folder]]

* This was a major factor why Creator/DaveChappelle pulled the plug on ''Series/ChappellesShow'', as [[DiscreditedMeme he'd grown sick]] of all the people who would walk up to him saying lines like "[[MemeticMutation I'm Rick James]], [[ThisIsForEmphasisBitch bitch]]!" (once, while he was with his wife and children!), also believing they [[MisaimedFandom missed the point]] of his show's sketches. In one live concert, Dave chewed his fans out: