Am I Too Old to Be an Emerging Creative?

I am approaching 30 and have spent the best part of my life wanting to get involved in the creative industries, not just out of curiosity but for it to form my career path. I’ve dabbled in various areas: graphic design, television production, writing and even the performing arts. Regardless of the path I choose, I come up against a number of barriers.

Being South Asian and autistic has also shaped my experience of this.

What I Wanted to Be Growing Up

I grew up in the UK in the 2000s, and the television programmes that stood out to me growing up were those that were quite heavily centred around performance or creativity. As I entered secondary school, I developed a fascination with becoming an actor.

As an 11-year-old, I was perhaps largely drawn in by the allure of it all; more the glamour than the sheer amount of work and determination needed. Singing was another huge one. Both of these somewhat stalled in that I didn’t pursue them in further education (which I somewhat regret).

Instead, I fell into graphic design, which I studied at school, sixth form and college. It was not the smartest choice I’ve ever made, because I wasn’t drawing or designing in my spare time; therefore, it wasn’t a passion. It just felt like the obvious thing to do, even though the signs were there early on that this was not going to work out for me long-term. Sure, I can work my way around Photoshop, but it doesn’t mean I enjoyed it.

When I was 22, I fell into working as a runner in the TV industry. I did a few productions and saw myself progressing. I saw my future as a development producer as I already enjoyed coming up with ideas for new formats. The TV industry has found itself in a massive slow-down over the last 4 years; that, coupled with my diminishing passion for this area (professional rejection isn’t going to sting any less than personal rejection), meant that it just wasn’t going to happen.

I’ve been doing editorial writing for 4 years. It wasn’t a particularly wild side-step – even going back to school, I always enjoyed the English lessons where the brief was simply “write a story on a topic of your choosing”. The signs were there.

I decided more recently to pursue it more readily – looking into things like magazine journalism, communications and content writing – but as for how? That’s another matter.

It feels like an area more vulnerable to companies preferring to use AI. Not the greatest timing on my part.

Am I Too Old?

It feels that way. There are plenty of youth-focused schemes designed to actually get people into the creative industries proper rather than a three-month training programme that lightly promises a job at the end of it (which never comes about). Unfortunately, they’re pretty much all capped at 25 (or even 21), and I firmly fall outside of that age bracket.

I sit somewhere in the middle – I’m not an established mid-career professional, but I also don’t lack experience. I am experienced enough to have something to offer, but I haven’t found the opportunity to build on it.

I don’t have a degree, and I am inevitably competing with people who have them. One could argue that when it comes to editorial writing, experience outweighs a degree, especially when you have a sizeable portfolio (which I do), but someone who possesses a degree is understandably going to be a safer pair of hands.

I think a lot about missed opportunities over the years. Would life have been different if I grew up in London and had the opportunity to attend the BRIT School? I don’t think there’s any doubt.

I’m too old for that now, and while I theoretically could aim for a drama school - given that singing remains my other creative passion - it’s all about timing. Right now, that timing doesn’t feel right.

The barriers around being South Asian

Approaching 30, trying to pursue a career in an industry that’s also very difficult to explain to your peers, is an unfortunate combination.

There are many ideas around stability, success and what you should have achieved by a certain age. There’s not a universal South Asian attitude towards creative careers or anything like that, but from my experience, it’s not something that has ever felt particularly encouraged.

The arts in general aren’t considered a viable career, and this isn’t even something people who are exclusively South Asian have discovered. Those from lower income/working class backgrounds will have also found this to be a drawback.

There’s a lot of competition out there, and the creative industries are not known for being a stable career. The success rate is generally quite low.

It would be fair to say that South Asian parents – particularly those of first-generation immigrants – who also reside in Western populations are more likely to push their children down more of an academic route. Many of my peers could attest to being expected to be a doctor or a lawyer.

The barriers around being autistic

I have previously described the world of work as being like performing a dance – like a highly-scripted charade with fairly obvious routes. I think that’s true if you’re going straight down the middle with your career path, such as customer service, warehousing or anything that can be filled via a three-stage interview process.

With creative work, however, so much of it depends on informal processes that are very much “unwritten”.

Networking, approaching people, knowing who to contact, how often to follow up, trying to understand ambiguous responses, selling yourself, turning conversations into opportunities and so forth. There’s also the matter of AI screening when it comes to applications – if you have a slightly unorthodox approach to things, it’s not the friendliest process to go through.

When there’s nothing bridging the gap between experience and employment, it can be painful to navigate. I’m having to work out not only what I want to do, but how to get through the door - be it the front or a hidden side door.

I’ve crossed paths with many people who express interest in helping me get to where I want to be. I realise quite quickly that I’ll never hear from them again – it wears you down over time, and I’d rather people were honest from the outset.

I never expect anything to be handed to me on a plate, but there’s no shame in taking a leg-up if offered one. We all would.

My experience is that since turning 18 just over 11 years ago, I have been in paid work for eight months in total. The statistics around the number of autistic people who are unemployed do not lie, and there are reasons for that, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t wish to break out from where I am presently.

And yes, I have considered job roles that are adjacent (or completely unrelated) to where I want to go, as a means of getting a foot on the ladder. The resulting outcome? I last about a day because my brain is just not equipped for it.

I am in a fairly comfortable position in that while there is urgency (most of which I place on my own shoulders), I have not branched out into the adult world so much that living costs are at the forefront of my mind. Not yet, anyway.

What is the solution?

I still feel like I’m “starting out”, but am I? Or are the systems designed to help people out just not available to me anymore?

What happens to people who might be a bit slower to come to a realisation of what they want to do? Because while many change careers later on in life, it feels like it’s becoming harder and harder to navigate that. I can’t help but largely blame that on the open secret that is the disastrous UK jobs market.

I just want to be given a chance.

For someone to believe in me.

Something that disproves my belief that my time has passed.

More of Hassaan’s work: https://hmtowers.substack.com/