It’s a common concept to believe social media has turned the art of living into an act of performance – however for @anakrutch, social media acts as a tool for her to express the struggles and emotions we all go through on a daily basis. These day to day mental conflicts are what make us human and Ana’s determination to bring people from around the world together on the basis of emotional vulnerability takes us back to our most basic need as humans – connection to others.
Ana Krutch is an artist and storyteller who creates and produces videos elucidating the unfathomable complexity of every individual on Earth. Her platform has been present on TikTok since 9th November 2022 and has since gained 245.1K followers who support her and wait in anticipation for her to release a new story. Her content consists of slideshows per post, where she introduces a character by their name and portrait, and goes on to reveal an intimate part of their lives where they may be struggling with a break up, depression, or any bit of life that isn’t so commonly divulged to society. This emotional exposure has created a community on her page where followers feel comfortable to relate with the characters and discuss these very real situations.
“When it comes to these stories, for them to feel right to me there needs to be a shocking amount of vulnerability, because otherwise one would not be saying anything new.”
Most think that creators with successful growth on a social media platform have invested all of their time towards their art, but Ana’s journey was a little different. “Basically I had been laid off a couple weeks prior and I worked in FinTech so it was a completely different industry. But I’ve been drawing my whole life so it’s just something I carry with me in every aspect of life, so after getting laid off I was applying to all these jobs and I had an interview here and there but nothing was really amounting to anything so I was like well I have the savings, I kind of want to invest in the art aspect.” Ana’s excess of spare time gave her the opportunity to spend her time working on her artistic capabilities – proving being idle can jump start a creative genius. “I never wanted to be straight up an artist, and I’d never really written before so I just tried my hand at it and actually my project had started to be completely different before I posted on TikTok, like I never thought that TikTok was going to respond the way it did so I just didn’t think to do it initially. At first I just wanted to do this huge really detailed painting of all these people in a grocery store and then do a separate painting for each person with a story underneath about what brought them to that grocery store that day, but then I showed it to my mom and she was like well what’s next? Art is meant to be looked at, who’s going to come to your apartment and look at this? So I was like alright let me try just jotting down some ideas on TikTok and then it kind of morphed into this and then the very cliche, I posted it – didn’t think anything of it – next day I’m like whoa what’s going on.”
Ana rapidly gained a following on TikTok due to the depth of emotion and unique experience represented in her characters. After all, to be a great storyteller and artist, it is essential to bring your own feelings and life experiences into your art. With that, Ana explained to me where these unfiltered sentiments rooted from. “They’re all little pieces of me with exception to two that I worked on with some friends because I want to start working directly with people to tell their stories. But as that process is evolving I realise that even with those two friends, when they shared their stories I saw mine through theirs, like a venn diagram. I’m the type of person, maybe it’s selfish, but I can only really truly understand things when I can put it to a prism of my own life experience, so when it comes to telling other people’s stories it’s like the venn diagram and then I see where parts of our experiences have met. But all these stories are like little sections of me that I sectioned off and put on paper so I can look at these feelings I have objectively.”
So why express such profound emotions through a fictional character instead of doing it through a personal account? After contemplating this for a while, I discussed with Ana why people empathise more with fictional characters than humans, where she gave a succinct answer. “I think that simply put it’s much easier to create a made up character with no responsibility attached to anyone real so that you can put it out there in the world and people can attach their own responsibility to it. There’s an ownership that you can claim rather than having it be forced upon you. I think that that dynamic makes it easier for people to find themselves and it makes it less uncomfortable because it’s their choice, it’s not being forced upon them.” This idea makes watching Ana’s videos feel so calming and inflicts a moment of self reflection.
Not only do people find it easier to empathise with fictional characters, but they also find an immense amount of comfort in them. When asking Ana if she too found comfort in them, she concisely put “Yes. My simple answer is absolutely yes, I definitely find a lot of comfort in fictional characters. Growing up I watched a lot of TV shows – obviously still do – and I remember trying to learn something from them. It didn’t matter if it was a documentary or a sitcom, I would study the people and their responses, and it didn’t make much sense because obviously it’s all fiction and every response is scripted, but it still rings truth so I found it interesting to learn about how people respond to each other in any circumstance. I found solace in fictional characters as a whole and then selected a few favourites.”
Everything we have spoken about so far all relates to one thing – social media. Saying it provokes a lot of different reactions, some positive, many negative. Social media’s reputation has been very unstable the past dozen years, with it being an incredible way to connect with others, to it creating an epidemic of chronically online people who’ve forgotten how to enjoy life outside of a screen. I was curious to understand Ana’s viewpoint as her project is centred around emotional vulnerability and is shared on the most dominating social media platform of 2023. “I think that the discomfort surrounding social media is fundamentally a discomfort with ourselves. Social media is a mirror – a tool. It’s about how we use it.”
While Ana continues to grow her page and community on TikTok, she explains her future plans for this project. “I really would love to compile these into a book – easier said than done of course – so I’m sort of seeing how that could happen.” Ana has moved forward with the future of her project as she recently launched an online journal for her followers and viewers, who will have the freedom to tell their stories and connect with both Ana and other followers. “I wanted to find a way to connect with the awesome people who have been reading what I’ve put out . Been reading their comments, teary eyed most of the time, and have been happily digesting the stories they respond with. Wanted to create a way for us all to connect, a way for us to learn one another’s stories – so the journal idea was born!”
Finding empathy and understanding on social media is pretty rare, which may provoke people to feel disinclined toward it, however Ana Krutch has subverted the idea of showing unrealistic lives on social media platforms, instead creating an artistic, engaging, and all in all beautiful way to connect with people all over the world over emotional vulnerability.
To connect with Ana Krutch and her followers, follow her on TikTok and Instagram.
