Eves Karydas: 'It Was Either Write That And Address Ugly Emotions, Or Quit'

Eves Karydas shared the news that she is moving to self-manage her career last week in an essay, "On social media, the music industry, and my experience as a woman within it all", that condemned the music industry for feeding off impressionable young people, pushing popularity propaganda, and using social media stats as goal posts.

Speaking with The Music from an Air B'n'B in Stockholm during a writing session, Karydas revealed that she felt there was no other option than to be self-managed and speak out about how she felt using Instagram.

"It was either write that and address how I was feeling with all these ugly emotions or quit," she says matter-of-factly. "I was feeling at the end of my rope. I was like, 'I don't actually want to do this job if this is what it means.' I also felt like I owed it to people who followed me for a while to help them connect the dots to see how I have definitely changed the way I use the platform over the last couple of years. 

"It made me deeply uncomfortable to think that I would just continue on without stating my thoughts and setting the record straight and starting with a clean slate."

She says that writing the Instagram post and going independent wasn't easy, but it was necessary. "It felt like the only thing to do. There was no other option. The other option was to quit. I was just like, 'fuck this industry, man. It makes me so depressed.'

"Going on my own self-managed road was a big thing as well; that happened a couple of months ago. I needed a couple of months to let it stew, ruminate, and think about what I wanted to do next. Do I want to get a new manager? And then I realised, actually, no, I don't."

Karydas post received much attention from her fans and many women in music. Not all of it was positive, though. "I could release this EP, and I could be wearing nothing but underwear, and my essay would still be valid. The whole point of that essay was me taking back my power. 

It's not about being a prude or covering up and wearing a potato sack. A couple of people took it that way, and I got some pretty bad trolling, saying super nasty stuff about the music video for [new single] Last Night When We Were Young, and I was just like, 'are you serious? Like, did you miss the entire point of my essay?'"

Karydas did not expect her essay to resonate with people the way it did; she wasn't expecting anyone to read it. "I was talking to my partner an hour later and asked him to check my post and to see if it had any comments, and he was like, 'this has gone off.'

I couldn't believe it. Seeing all the other women in music DMing me and commenting, it was like, everyone feels the same. It's such a fucking nightmare with the pressure. It was very gratifying."