> You have been trained to require external validation for your work. Maybe it's a modern thing with upvotes and twitter and likes and whatnot.
And simply the fact that, nowadays, you have access to the production of thousands of other people, with which you can compare yours. And in most cases it will compare unfavourably; to make it worse, almost all those people are unknown to the general public, they are often not even professionals, they are just very ordinary persons with a hobby, and yet you can see in a couple of clicks that they get (much) better results than you do.
On may call this a self-validation based on external elements.
Perhaps, as it devalues your creations in your own eyes, it reinforces the need for external validation.
And simply the fact that, nowadays, you have access to the production of thousands of other people, with which you can compare yours. And in most cases it will compare unfavourably; to make it worse, almost all those people are unknown to the general public, they are often not even professionals, they are just very ordinary persons with a hobby, and yet you can see in a couple of clicks that they get (much) better results than you do.
On may call this a self-validation based on external elements.
Perhaps, as it devalues your creations in your own eyes, it reinforces the need for external validation.