#i'm so bad at maintaining a social media presence

[nozomimi01]

i should just make an art sideblog where i'll post twice a year lmao

#i'm so bad at maintaining a social media presence #when i'm done drawing all my twitch stuff i'll make orv fanart I PROMISE #fun fact: yesterday was the first time that i made a digital drawing this year #the more you know 🌠 #time passes by so quickly... #also i'll make a talking tag for this blog #hopefully i won't forget #nozo rambles

[cupcraft]

I've been having some thoughts lately and decided to put it in a long post during my lunch break.

Cc's are not and never will be your friend. It's normal to engage and feel parasocial to a degree with cc's but it's important ccs and yourself create the boundary of "we don't know each other and thus are not friends/etc." This is important of the cc, because a responsible cc is aware of their impact, aware of the power dynamic, and sets healthy boundaries for themself. It's important for you in order to stay safe and engage with a fandom and cc with respect and to maintain a healthy mindset.

It is also normal for fandoms to defend their cc TO A DEGREE, especially when comments against the cc affect other people (this is a simple way to say it, theres a lot of nuance to this pt). But, you should never feel the need or actually try to parent or speak for a cc. For example, people being queerphobic to Ranboo is fair to speak up against particularly because the queerphobia affects other members of the fandom. However, feeling like you must speak on behalf of ranboo, be their parent, or protect them at all costs from "evil ccs and fans" is not only against their express wishes but just isn't a healthy or normal way to engage with a cc.

Because if you don't engage healthily besides breaking any cc boundaries, and hurting yourself and mental health, you really can hurt other people. If you're engaging in fandom and cc fandoms especially to a point in which you create yourself an echo chamber of toxicity that seeks to harm anyone in your path that is unhealthy behavior and you need srs help and I mean that genuinely like you need to talk to a trained professional or support group.

Like it's not normal to hate all ccs and people who are not explicitly positive about your cc at all times now and forever. It's not normal to make excuses for widely acceptable bad actions to the point you harm those affected by said bad actions. It's not normal to view holding a cc accountable as "just being an anti/hater/jealous" as you should always leave room to be critical of the content you consume especially if it's from a real person with real actions. It's not normal to dislike those that dislike ur cc so much (cc or fans) to the point you dedicate your social media presence to sending death threats, doxxing, harassment, gory images, etc as well as spending the majority of your blog screenshotting and vagueing and cyberbullying people. It's not normal to feel as though your cc is an infallible perfect idol figure that is in desperate need of an army protecting them at all times where you hang on their every word to dictate all actions, opinions, and morals to the point you will change your entire personality and ethics system just to maintain any ounce of being uncritical of someone. In simpler words, you might want to be aware the line of parasocialism and crossing over into being like a member of a cult (not to say it actually is a cult, this is an analogy)

And you might say to this post "this is a vague" but I'd rather argue that if you feel like this post applies to you regardless if you're mcyt or another cc/celebrity/real person based fandom you might want to realize that you need to do srs self reflection and understand how you got here, who you've hurt to stay there, and what things you've sacrificed for someone you don't even know. This isn't just an mcyt specific fandom problem.

Because why I'm making this post is I feel like something needs to be questioned when we throw away our kindness, empathy, ethics, and compassion towards people just because they are any ounce a tiny bit little bit critical of something a cc did. And it would be easy to say the people willing to suibait/send threats/harassment/slurs/etc toward someone over a cc and be happy about it and own it are people who "just don't care and won't change". But I'd like to think they got there somehow you know that they weren't always the kind of person to justify that. And that doesn't mean they deserve anyone's forgiveness, but it does mean I have concern for that person I hope they genuinely get help and feel the full weight of what they've done all for 1 person that doesn't know them.

As always with everything, please add on via rb if want, correct me on anything, and send asks if you wish. Stay kind out there though ❤️

#my musings #discourse #<- ig ?

[mylordshesacactus]

Your scale/graph of Anthro/Intelligent Animal Media brings up some interesting questions about how other furry-adjacent media fits in the system. Zootopia, for example, has enough modern human elements to reach a similar area as Robin Hood, but the characters being animals and the societal structure that creates is a big part of the main plot. Madagascar, on the other hand, has animals that can alternate between bipedal and quadropedal movement, use or even create tools and machinery but, while they can communicate just fine with other animals, in-universe humans can’t understand them, and they maintain the habits and social structure (or at least the general idea) from their IRL counterparts. To an extent that the zoo animals have idyllic aspirations of returning to “The Wild” and abandoning their more humanoid lifestyle.

Zootopia is non-euclidean furryspace! and was in fact the example I was thinking of when I said that if you go any further along the scale than Redwall, you are no longer writing anthropomorphic fiction, you're writing a normal story with anthro characters in it.

(Essentially, I have to respectfully disagree; the characters being animals isn't a plot point, because they're not "animals". They're furries. They are as much "animals" as humans are, ie, yeah but only in a taxonomic technicality. Their animalistic TRAITS are a plot point, but at that point, you're not writing a story about how animals navigate through and see the world, which is an essential part of writing actual anthropomorphic fiction. It's kind of in the name--when a story stops being about ANIMALS with PEOPLE traits, and starts being about PEOPLE with ANIMAL traits, you leave the "anthropomorphic fiction" genre.)

Madagascar on the other hand is a FASCINATING example!

Let's see. The Y axis, I'd place it--oh god dammit i JUST noticed that I never fixed a placement glitch/misclick. Somehow WD ended up further right than Black Beauty and Aristocats which is nonsensical. Fuck. That's gonna piss me off so bad--Sorry. Anyway.

The z-axis (degree of "talking animals" present) SEEMS like it would be the most straightforward. We see Alex trying to talk to humans and all they hear is roaring, so we already know that there's a lot of artistic license going on in terms of what WE see vs what IN-UNIVERSE HUMANS see. However they clearly don't realize this is happening, so I'd put it decently left of center--the animals understand and engage with humans to such a degree that they genuinely believe humans can understand them back.

The thing that makes its placement on the other axes tricky is the aforementioned translation convention. Like....it's obvious that what humans are seeing during Madagascar appears to them to be normal animal behavior. Presumably, they're NOT actually bipedal and that's just an artistic representation of how in-tune the characters are with their instincts at any given time.

On the X axis? Genuinely no idea--obviously they don't have a lot of natural behaviors, but that's because they're born and raised in captivity and have zero forms of natural enrichment in their unbelievably shitty enclosures (just saying). The presence of that translation convention where we KNOW that from a human perspective their behavior is interpreted as not outside the realm of believability makes it difficult.

That being said, the zookeepers clearly are aware of Marty's stash of birthday gifts over the years and Alex implies he was able to PURCHASE or otherwise request his own merchandise so I'm gonna put us pretty far left on the animalistic behavior scale.

This next bit would be easier if I'd phrased the y-axis better--I was genuinely struggling to put it into words, and I don't think I did a great job. Probably it would be better summarized as "animal culture replicates human culture" so we'll use that.

ALL the way at the bottom. It's made clear that there really is no "animal" culture. The zoo animals are fish out of water, but that's because they're New Yorkers dropped in a Madagascar jungle. The lemurs are not exhibiting what we're meant to view as natural lemur behavior; they even refer to Alex starting to exhibit natural behavior as "going savage" in a way they don't even seem to view the fossa hunters. So there's no unconnected, distinct animal cultures going on here. (Or, if they exist in theory somewhere, they are literally never depicted and their theoretical existence is actively denied at every opportunity.)

...

god im SO mad about that like. fraction of an inch off on WD's alignment on the chart this is going to haunt me for YEARS--

[firjii]

I just saw the Spotify might change their royalties model and that it would hit indie artists hardest. Are you posting your music elsewhere? I follow you on Spotify but now I'm looking into other places for music and want to continue supporting your awesome music!!

<3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

I love you and thanks for asking.

Except for a few covers that are limited by licensing restrictions, my stuff is on all major and some minor platforms (I do sometimes lag in putting things on Bandcamp because lazy). I'm not monetized on Soundcloud because that system is somewhat different and IIRC not as welcoming of truly small artists, so any of my tracks that you find there are either on my "just for fun" accounts or are someone's illegal reupload.

Reminder to the new folks: I'm Firjii everywhere but also started another artist pseudonym as Kathy Warnecke (which should also be on all the same platforms by now).

Tidal and Apple usually have the best royalty payout rates and Spotify is among the worst (but no platform has a guaranteed fixed rate). Youtube is all over the place but usually on the low end. Downloads always pay better than streams, but I know some people can't do this or prefer to continually support with streams over time instead of paying once.

I'm also gonna take a minute to FUCKING RANT explain things to the uninitiated since virtually all my listeners on tungles are freemium Spotify users. From what I understand, this change has been finalized and it's not speculation at this point.

The deal is they'll withhold royalties from a song in a given calendar year unless it's streamed at least 1,000 times ANNUALLY (not lifetime).

Although the change will only consider per-track stats (not social media-like numbers such as followers/listeners or a measurement of how established the artist's presence is), in practice, this will specifically demonetize small/niche artists and have little or no impact on medium and big names. It will also affect the payouts small artists get from distributors because many of those have their own minimum payout thresholds.

I need people to understand just how shitty this is.

Say you're a prolific creator or recorded some live shows from a tour and you released 150 tracks in a year. If each track only got streamed on Spotify 999 times that year, they're pretty much saying you'd get paid for.......yup, exactly zero Spotify streams, not the 149,850 you're otherwise owed. I have no idea if this will impact PRO (performance rights organization) payouts, but I refuse to believe it would be legal to also withhold that share of royalties.

In the Spotify world, 1k streams is a tiny achievement (and still translates to a very small payout, so the concern is: what's to stop them from raising that minimum even more in the future?). But especially when the hurdle is per song per year, this can be a tough goal for indie or specialty genre artists to reach or maintain, including me.

I have a long history of disliking Spotify in particular for many reasons, but I upload there because it's the only way some people will listen. I strongly encourage anyone who is able to use other platforms to explore their options.

I know a lot of folks are too broke to pay for music and Spotify is a notable example of a freemium option, but this change is so, so, SO bad for SO many artists.

#hey maybe I need to start a tag for my music industry rants lol #how about #music industry tomfuckery #yes good let's go with that #nerkierants

[littlemisssquiggles]

LittleMissSquiggles’ Summary of Art 2023

Honestly folks, I don't got much to say about this year. This might just be my shortest art summary to date since I don't have much to comment on this year's events.

2023 was a general mix of highs and lows but overall, not a bad year. You could say that this was the year I was more work-oriented.

I focused more on work especially during the early half of this year, between January and July and therefore didn't spend much time on personal projects; specifically 3D. That being said, I did end up getting back up to my art. Since I've been more focused on 3D for the past two years, I chose this year to get back into my 2D art doing illustrative work since I missed it.

More than that, I took this year to spend some well needed time improving my drawing skills, using tools and techniques from my 3D workflow in an attempt to improve my illustrative work and needless to say, I think it worked out great, even if the end results wasn't much.

---

Some squiggly good accomplishments I achieved in 2023:

Started the year employed and while I had to juggle two job opportunities which had its fair share of ups and downs in more ways than one, at least it allowed me the chance to earn the funds I needed to obtain my new workstation: a Lenovo Ideacentre 5 Gaming PC.

Learned about the almighty power of networking and remote desktops thanks to my contract job which allowed to me to transform my current setup into one that fully connects and maximizes the full use of all the devises in my arsenal. Basically I figured out how to connect my previous laptop to my new PC so now I work with a setup where my laptop acts as a third monitor for my PC while I'm able to access all my files from my laptop from my PC. Ontop of that, I also learnt how to connect my PC to my Ipad Mini, not just for transferring files for art but for also using it as a proxy computer device to remote into my main PC workstation. This may not seem like a big deal to most but for someone who didn't know a thing about most of this stuff up until this year, it makes a huge difference to this squiggle meister.

Gained a new four-legged member to the squiggle meister family household. A playfully mischievous yet adorable Husky-mix pup fittingly named Alaska or the "Wee Las" as I like to call her.

Experimented a lot with my art this year and while I may not have shared all of the fruits of my labour to social media, I have been making quite a few strides. ---- I spent the last couple of years pushing my social media presence and while I have benefitted from it from time to time, I missed out on just taking some time to myself; getting back to indulging in other activities that brought me joy; particularly the ones that involve truly honing my craft.

I hope to maintain this type of vibe moving forward towards the new year.

Even if my social media activity won't be as frequent as previous years, I do hope that those who have been following and supporting me and my work over years still continue to do so, even if it's to simply just check in from time to time.

To conclude my post, as always, I'm wishing everyone all the very, very best in their respective lives and daily endevours for the upcoming new year.

Let see what we got in store for 2024! Happy New Year folks!

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♦  PREVIOUS ART SUMMARIES  ♦

2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022

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LittleMissSquiggles (2023)

#art of littlemisssquiggles #art summary #art summery 2023 #artists of tumblr #onward to 2024

[decepti-thots]

I was in the tumblr tf fandom for a hot second a few years ago and i just wanted to ask, is it still really aggressive here? because back then there was a lot of shipping drama, there were a few callout posts going around (can't really remember about what) and just...a lot of bad stuff. I personally had someone tell me to kill myself because I liked one of the villains. guess I'm just wondering if, in your opinion, things have chilled out? Cuz I'd like to get back into it but I'm a little hesitant;;;

I'm going to try and give the fullest answer I can in the best faith to this! For context, this blog is a couple years old now, I have enough followers that I get a lot of active engagement on my posts etc, I am very active in TF fandom here, Twitter, and IRL, and while I did not used to be active I have been lurking in TF fandom as long as I have been on Tumblr.

There is absolutely still some toxicity; all fandoms have their bad faith actors, their drama hounds, their shipping Diskhorsers TM. I have gotten hate mail, I know folks who have issue with weird anon haters who are persistent, whatever. But no, it is not as bad as it has been in the past, IMO, not at ALL, and it is 100% possible to have an active, sociable and nice time in this fandom so long as you curate your engagement, with basically no drama at all. Many of the worst folks burned out and left when the fandom got less active and their shitstirring paid lesser and lesser dividends, IME.

People sometimes ask how I maintain such a vocal presence without falling into the still-there drama, and I have some advice that I promise you will mitigate like, 99% of the possible issues you could encounter:

Block whenever you feel like blocking. If you get a bad vibe, if you just don't personally like someone and don't wanna see them, if you see them throwing what looks like a temper tantrum you don't want in on, just block 'em. Remember: blocking is nothing personal towards the person you are blocking. It is not insulting and doesn't need to be 'earned'. Block every single person you think not blocking might even just theoretically cause stress or drama. (I am blocked by several people for reasons no more serious than 'I hate your OTP', and I commend every one of them for doing it and having a better time on this site!)

Delete any and all anon hate. Block anyone and everyone who sends you hate. No exceptions. No witty comebacks. No takedowns. Nothing. You see it and the actual literal second you do, you block and delete. None of it is worth one second of your time. Deprived of the oxygen, they will leave. And you won't be tempted to re-read it and stress out.

In that same vein, if it causes issues, just turn anon off! Turn it off. Personally I keep it on because I simply do not care about the odd troll, but if you care even slightly? Fuck 'em, turn it off, anon is a privilege your followers need to earn by acting in good faith.

Find people you like and follow them, ignore blatant shitstirring in the maintags (again: block people!) and try to curate content and follows and mutuals based on what you do like and not what you don't. Curate positive engagement; do not rely on the general fandom slurry, find what you like and hang out in your own corner of things that bring you joy. If the maintag stresses you out: don't check it. Check the blogs of folks you know are cool instead. Stuff like that.

Fandom should be fun. Fandom should be finding people you like and sharing good times with them, not stressing about avoiding folks you hate, or who hate you. Tumblr lets you moderate how you engage, when, and where more than almost any current social media site; now you can even turn off reblogs and oh my GOD is that a lifesaver function btw. If you want, you can make your blog unsearchable! It means you will need to be more proactive in making friends. But TF fandom is pretty tight knit these days, and folks want to talk a lot of the time. You'll still be able to engage with cool people.

There's way less aggro losers around these days, but more to the point, you can absolutely avoid the ones that still insist on being annoying and starve them out without much effort, tbh.

[kimikoyukiart]

Hey! Idk if you remember, I'd talked to you about making your aymeric x estinien housing art into ffxiv housing. Ever since then, I have really fallen in love with your art style! I am also a noob artist and opened comms recently, but I haven't gotten any yet haha do you have any advice and tips for me to help gain an audience and commissioners? Thank you and goodluck with your shop!

Hello again! Yes, I remember gosh thank you so much for enjoying my art! Also I'm always super happy to answer art stuff since I'm in love with it, but I will open with a disclaimer specifically for the growing audience bit cause for a long time I've primarily been an OC / original art artist and it wasn't till I became cripplingly obsessed with estimeric that I grew some semblance of a following so I'm a pretty small artist by most standards ;;; With that said, here are my tips and advice which I'll separate into 2 parts

Putting this under a read more cause it's LONG

Commissions (mostly about expectations, best practices, and organisation to make it easy on clients)

Have some kind of commission page (here's mine for example) to make it easy for your clients to be able to reference something and for you to direct new inquiries to. This can be anything from a website/carrd to even just a google doc/tumblr pg. Will there be clients who never read this? Absolutely. BUT it's also great for clients who are shy and/or who like coming prepared

Have a Terms of Service section!! In our current day and age of tech bros and assholes trying to exploit and scam creatives I cannot express enough how just having a TOS will deter these ppl! It shows you're serious and that you know what you're about, making you less of a target!

MOST IMPORTANT! Be kind to yourself!!! Opening commissions is exciting due to the prospect of making money from something you love and it can be very disappointing and demoralising when you don't get any! It's also a very "feast or famine" type of roller coaster, so don't feel bad if you don't get any, even super large artists struggle!

Building a following (from someone who's doesn't actually prioritise this so take it as you will!)

You've probably heard this before but fanart is definitely better at drawing a crowd than original art so I feel obligated to mention it. (I'm a pretty classic case study of this imo lol) And the reason for this is that there's already an established audience out there that loves the content you're making unlike original art where you're starting from ground zero. Does that mean you should give up making original art if you want followers? ABSOLUTELY NOT! And honestly most of my advise will be from the perspective of growing an audience via original art because you can apply the same principles to fanart so here we go!

Consistency is key. Being a constant presence on your existing followers' feed means having consistent chances for them to share/engage with a piece of your artwork, which means more chances for new eyes to see them which means more chances for followers etc etc. But what's the pace? Well that depends on how brutal you're interested in being with yourself unfortunately....if you die hard want to grow as fast as possible then once a day (i've seen some artist do more;;;) but it's something I would NOT recommend for all sorts of risks. (you can mitigate the risk ofc but that's like a whole thing in itself) I'd advice you to figure out a pace that works for you so that you maintain a healthy relationship with your art

Join events/zines/bandwagons. Whether it's things like drawtober, ffxiv art parties, or zines, engaging with community/communal activities (especially those with hashtags/promos) can help you engage with people who might not have found you otherwise. If you're a social person it's a great chance for you to make friends who have similar interests too! Making art related to a piece of media that just came out is also great way of engagement since people are probably looking for it (for example spidersonas or dressing OCs in outfits to watch the barbie movie)

Make it easy to find your art when someone visits your page. It doesn't necessarily have to be a full portfolio, but giving viewers a place to see only your art posts is crucial imo. Tumblr is great since it's tagging system is fantastic making this part easy but places like Twitter for example only have a single media tab; so making a thread for art post or keeping your media tab clean is ideal. (you've no idea have many artists i've chosen not to follow cause their media tab is 1 awesome piece of art then just 500 cursed memes/reaction images lol)

HARDEST BUT MOST IMPORTANT POINT! Make compelling art. I follow artists who post a piece of art maybe once every....I dunno 3 months if even that, but when they do they get thousands of notes, why? Because it is a compelling piece of art. Something that touches the heart or makes you gasp in awe or swoon from it's vision or die laughing. And this is the hardest point because what that looks like is completely unique to you. Basically it is your answer to the question of "Why do I make art?" which artists everywhere all around the world, regardless of genre or industry, are trying to answer themselves. The one thing you MUST REMEMBER while you try to figure this point out is that it must involve Love. That means loving the journey; the grueling failures, steep learning curves, and all, because if even you don't love what you're trying to create other won't either. And that's not to say you have to be happy about a piece of art not turning out right (I still cry from frustration myself all the time) but it does mean be kind to yourself when you fall so you can pick yourself up easier when you stand again

THAT WAS SUPER LONG WOW! With all that said tho those 1st 2 points for growing an audience is what I would recommend focusing on! The internet is all about engagement and you can't have that if there's nothing to engage with! Also because it just bears mentioning that sometimes it is just a skill thing and you just have to get better at drawing BUT that is not to say skillful=complex! Nonono take a look at webtoons like "My Giant Nerd Boyfriend" by fishball or "Sarah's Scribbles" by Sarah Andersen. Or illustrator's like loonpflug or mmeiccaa. It's not complex but it's some FKIN GOOD ART!

Ok I will stop my ranting here GOOD LUCK AND DON'T FORGET TO BE KIND TO YOURSELF!! You are more than how many numbers you make on the internet and I hope that you always remember that 💖

#asks #oh as a footnote i guess #pretty promo posts for ur comms will prob help #if you see comm promo posts that look pretty u can save them as refs for urself #just make sure they're clear #also luck #so much LUCK #so don't feel bad if it takes awhile #just keep at it #AND HAVE FUN!!! #also also the risk mitigation for consistent posting rlly is it's own post #so feel free to ask again if u'd like to knw more #or wanna knw anything in general lol

[makoodles]

OMG ENJOY ITALY!!! A friend of mine just visited and it looked GORGEOUS. It’s in my top 5 places I want to travel to!

Have such a great time!! Get some of that Mediterranean sun, take in the amazing architecture & vistas, eat some tasty food, drink some good wine (if you don’t drink alcohol enjoy some sparkling water then lol), and get some good Italian dic- dictionaries so you can interact 😉 with the locals.

But fr bestie have the best time and don’t do anything you don’t wanna. Don’t feel pressured to maintain a social media presence or update anywhere. Just have the best damn time and live your best hot girl summer on vacay!! 😘😘

AHHHHH THANK YOU THANK YOU !!!

i can't wait for it! i have celiac disease so i'm super excited because italy is like the number 1 place in the world for gluten free food (which honestly surprised me a lot??)

i've looked at some italian phrases for the trip too, but it sounds so damn bad in my accent 😭

but you are the SWEETEST ahhhh !! i think it'll all depend on my internet access and how much free time i get !

#asks

[veliseraptor]

I remember you mentioning you didn’t enjoy twitter, thus you weren’t on there? if you don’t mind, may I ask why it’s not your thing? like… is it about the app, the website or the people there? I’m trying to make up my mind if I should create an account there

oh man, anon, the answer is kind of "everything." but I guess if I want to break that down a little more

the most basic and possibly biggest factor in why I don't use twitter is just plain and simple that I can only really maintain one social media presence at a time and I chose this one. as for why this one and not another...

twitter feels like an emotional minefield. every week I'm hearing about a new twitterstorm. when I go on it for brief moments I almost inevitably run into something that upsets me. this is made worse by the "recommended tweets" thing, which inflicts things on me that aren't even from people that I want to hear from.

it just goes too fast. for someone like me who is somewhat compulsive about catching up on things, twitter is just plain overwhelming. I don't know how to keep up and then I get anxious and panicky about missing stuff that I'd want to see and it's only made harder by the fact that the feed doesn't go in a nice chronological order.

it's just...nasty. people have written a great deal about why that is, from the short format necessarily abbreviating conversations in ways that result in the removal of important detail, nuance, or context, the quote-retweet function, etc. etc. but whatever it is it's generated some of the most toxic behavior, I would argue, of the major social media platforms. like, tumblr has its share of bad actors, but I think a combination of (a) being able to more carefully curate your experience and (b) the fact that it's not perceived as important/central in the same way limits that toxicity in ways that just seem to have been entirely unleashed on twitter.

it just seems to...generate a lot of bullshit and wank that gets elevated to the level of news and I don't want that.

real people are there. this is a turn-off in more ways than one.

I couldn't be nearly this wordy on twitter. no, tweet threads just aren't the same.

pettily: there's something sort of insufferable, to me, about the way that Twitter has become The Center of the Universe Where All the Important Stuff Happens of the internet. so now I'm just being contrary, I guess.

like...sometimes I feel left out or like I'm missing things or like the Real Stuff Is Happening there, but ultimately it just...hasn't been worth it to me to try to push myself into using it; every time I've sort of tried I end up bouncing off it pretty fast. I've just accepted that I will only interact with twitter via screencaps and whatever my friends send me, and beyond that it will exist in a sphere outside my comprehension. and I'm okay with that.

but this is all...personal, and based on my own experience, and about my own particular foibles/anxieties/neuroses. it might work just fine for you; certainly a lot of people seem to find it does, and it's certainly where a lot of fandom activity currently seems to be happening (alas).

#conversating #anonymous

[sbbarnes]

So Stephen King went on twitter and compared criticism of cultural appropriation in literature to book banning. Oh boy.

I've known for a long time that if I am serious about getting my work published, establishing some sort of online presence on social media is an unavoidable evil. Not only am I ambivalent at best about the role social media plays in the world these days, I'm also deeply lazy about maintaining it. However, here I am, giving it by best effort.

Further than that, though, every time some new wave of discourse about a media creator breaks into my relatively small corner of the internet, my first thought is always "why did they have to share this opinion with the world?". Genuinely, sincerely, this post notwithstanding, even if my little cozy mystery about an academic and an auto mechanic finding love in the Hudson Valley does reach anyone someday, I would love if my opinions continue to interest no one at all.

Not that I don't think I have good opinions! They're mine, I'm partial, and I post them online more than is good for me or anyone else. And I'm not here to talk about cancel culture, smarter and more eloquent people have done that to little to no effect. I'm talking more about two things: Death of the Author and the twitter word limit and how they do not mix well.

Personally, I think this is a very bad take on King's part. Criticism is not the same thing as banning; people should be allowed to express when they think someone's ideas are bad or harmful. It's not the same as wanting to ban a book, not least because criticism lacks the authority to ban. Especially because book banning is often used to silence minority voices, and criticism of cultural appropriation in books is pointing out that the publishing industry these days elevates white voices and appropriation and thereby also silences minority voices. The comparison criticism and banning not only misses the differing intent behind the two things, it cuts out the structural elements of the industry being criticized and turns it into a "bad people want to ban books" discussion rather than "the system is discriminatory towards minority voices" discussion.

This kind of take has an origin, though. King is from a different generation than a lot of people reacting to his post, and his generation was deeply influenced by the first cultural backlashes to the horrors of Nazism. It created this very single-minded "all book banning is bad because the Nazis did it" type of discourse at the time, which perseveres in a lot of people. I see this a lot in my day job, where I interact with a lot of Germans in King's age group who were socialized to intensely reject anything perpetuated by the Nazis. Which is obviously a good impulse!

But it leads straight into the tolerance paradox where I then find myself explaining that it's not at all the same thing for young people of color to not accept being forced into reading literature in a school setting that uses racist language uncritically, or literature that uses racist language if that racist language isn't contextualized in class. This is a very different starting point for editing a curriculum - it's starting at a point of wanting to protect young, vulnerable people and to educate about and contextualize older texts that reproduce a colonial mindset. And because via repetition the "all book banning is bad" take has become oversimplified to the point of being an absolute, a lot of people aren't prepared to discuss it with nuance at all.

I have no idea where King stands on all these things, because he posted one tweet on the matter, which is a space that just utterly disallows for the nuance of the topic. And that one two-sentence tweet already has several thousand replies and far more people talking *about* it, to the point where any agent would probably recommend King say nothing more on the subject, because it will just create more discourse. Let's be real, King's career will not be affected, especially if he just ignores it for now.

But what I wonder is why he had to weigh in at all and why people had to engage and respond. Twitter killing death of the author is not news, but incidents like these are so starkly representative of how much easier it was to be a reader when you didn't have access to author's thoughts on everything.

#stephen king #racism #nazism #book banning #censorship #appropriation #cultural appropriation #discourse #twitter

[musette22]

Just saw your answer to the anon who asked you about Sebastian speaking on body issues and saw his IG post. And it made me dive in into his instagram and wow he was so open with people. I don’t know it made me think of two things specifically, there’s a post that’s gaining some traction on twitter and it’s a video of Sebastian running to hug fans at film festival/red carpet of some sort, and the tweet says “he used to love us so much” “how did we lose so bad”, and also in the Hot Wings interview, Sean mentions something to him and Seb replied “Do I talk about this things publicly?”.

Point is that sometimes I wonder if he regrets having built that kind of closeness with fans, or being that open himself. But I also think that Sebastian never thought he would end up getting this kind of famous, you know? It just makes me sad for him in a way, but also it makes me proud to see him making the choice to take a step back and protecting his peace and quite frankly everyone around him, partner, friends and family.

Also I know it’s wrong to group people but some fans also need to accept responsibility in their actions. Because in Seb’s case, this is not only on the hater’s, everyone has some fault in it.

Hello! Thank you for your message <3 I've discussed this quite a bit in the past, and I kind of feel like I've said most of what I have to say on the subject, but since you may well not have been follow me for the previous discussions, I'll just sort of summarize my thoughts, if that's ok!

You're absolutely right that Sebastian used to be way more open with his fans (he even called them 'friends' at some point), and that in recent years he's had to take a huge step back, on account of his growing fame and some 'fans' growing entitlement/insanity. He's talked about how it affected his life and mental health, so even though I miss his social media presence, I'm really glad he's looking after himself and doing what he needs to do to keep things manageable and live a happy and content life!

I couldn't tell you whether or not he regrets being so open with his fans in earlier years, but I kind of feel like he doesn't, and probably just regrets that it turned out to be impossible to maintain that kind of closeness in later years (and that some people treated him they way they did, and still do). He seems to really enjoy interacting with nice fans, even now, after a rough few years. It's just a shame not everyone is nice, or deserving of his kindness and attention.

So I agree with most of your message, except for the last bit. Yes, it was a a combination of circumstances which led to Sebastian taking a step back, but within those circumstances, I don't think anybody was at fault for anything, except for the people who were rude, entitled and often acted borderline insane. In my opinion, Sebastian wanting to interact with fans wasn't wrong (he's just a friendly guy and he enjoys talking to people), and fans wanting to interact with Sebastian wasn't necessarily wrong either (it makes sense to be excited about your fave interacting with you). But they should have observed and respected certain obvious boundaries, and some of them didn't (and still don't) and in fact started habitually and deliberately crossing them, and that was wrong.

So yeah, those are my thoughts on the situation, roughly! In any case, as much as I miss him, I'm so glad to see he seems to be doing so well now, and I can't wait to see him again once he starts promoting his new movies this year!! <3

#sebastian stan #minnie answers

[zigmenthotep]

With Twitter destructing faster and faster and people once again scattering to the wind it's hard to not think about how isolated most social media experiences are.

For example, I like the band @officialsteampoweredgiraffe Recently, I realized that I hadn't even thought about Steam Powered Giraffe in a long time. Why? Well, they've been focusing their social media presence more and more on Facebook and Instagram, two platforms I absolutely loathe. So their presence just kinda slowly disappeared from my Tumblr and Twitter feeds, and I thought about them less and less.

If Twitter destructs, I personally don't really have any following to lose, but regardless of whatever "As bad, but in a slightly different way" platform people flock to, I know that there will be creators who will just no longer be a presence in my life. Like, I'm not going to join anyone's Discord. I could follow people on Instagram, Pillowfort, Cohost, and other worthless platforms, but I don't use those platforms, so it's no different than just having a bookmark gathering digital cobwebs in some never-accessed folder.

Because here's the thing, the only platform I have seen Twitter refugees actually start using is Tumblr. And that makes sense, how long can you really keep posting to empty rooms on Bloober, MumpGump, Gripple, and Fishfuck before you just completely burn out. Maintaining a presence on 11 different platforms on the off chance that one of them might pull ahead of the pack is not a viable strategy if your goal is anything other than making the experience of being a creator as miserable as possible. But that's what you're expected to do if you don't want to completely lose access to both an audience and the creators you follow.

It's all just very exhausting and makes me not want to share, create, or even view content anymore.

#twitter #social media #musings

[ass-sassafras]

I know it's a long shot, but if anyone who can see my posts is going to be in Indiana, USA, specifically downtown Indianapolis next week (July 25th-26th), please know that the Supreme Court here is under the impression that there's going to be a very big protest when the general session of our Representatives opens next week. I'm a lowly paper pusher with the Court, and they're trying to make sure we work from home if possible during those days, but avoid the surface parking lots if we have to come in. Unfortunately, the State bar exam is next week so my office can't work remotely.

The communication we got predicted between 1 and 2,000 protestors and said there will be a "strong police presence" on hand to "maintain order and safety." I'm sure they're worried since Indiana is such a conservative state (I mean, we had Mike Pence in charge before he was VP) and it may be that Indiana will make decisions that will impact women very negatively.

Since I work for the state, we've already been officially reminded not to engage in any protesting or even having strong opinions about abortion on our social media since it may cast our agency in a bad light. I don't consider Tumblr social media b/c no one on here knows me.

If you or someone you know is planning to come to Indiana for the protests, please be careful and boost this post.

Thanks, all.

#protest #pro choice #abortion rights #abortion is healthcare

[juleskelleybooks]

Hello, and Welcome!

"My main author presence is on Tumblr," I said boldly while announcing that my Twitter presence was likely to drop off severely now that certain people are in charge of it--all while ignoring that I'm currently in a crisis of confidence about my role as an author and therefore largely ignoring both short- and long-form blogging.

It did result in some Twitter friends following my Tumblr, though, so I wanted to at least say hello. I reblog some inspo here, talk about and promote my work as best as I can, sometimes I talk about the craft (also as best as I can).

(Non-writing stuff goes to my main blog, which is also the one I interact from. Edited to remove the name of it because certain people found my post on Twitter that I don't want having my main tumblr name.)

It also makes a good excuse for me to blargh out some of the thoughts that have been rolling in my head for a while. I try to maintain a largely positive presence on social media, and not talk about the emotional downsides of things, and part of that is because I've seen a lot of young writers fall into only complaining, and it's not fun to witness or be part of and doesn't do any good--and part of it is because I didn't want anyone to think that I was trying to spur anyone into action to alleviate my negative emotions, because that's a cultural thing where I'm from.

But I also wonder from time to time if I'm doing people a disfavor. I'm not particularly successful as an author, but I'm not unsuccessful. I have an agent, a contract, some published works, a backlist even if it is out of print and in process of being reworked. I've moved on to a step that a lot of people who are just starting out aren't on. I'm not on anyone's bestseller list, but I've witnessed people I don't personally know referencing my work casually, and that's a thrill, let me tell you. ("Anybody have anything like Jules Kelley's "Swelter"?" I saw on Twitter once, and I have that thing screencapped.)

And I do know there's a place where people are in their writing journey where all that seems like it will feel good, and feel successful. And in a way, it does. But also, it doesn't stop me from feeling like a failure as an author.

I know I'm a pretty good writer, but as an author? Oof. I'm bad at marketing, I'm bad at identifying trends, I'm bad at identifying comps, I don't read nearly as much as I should, I almost NEVER read in my "own" genre -- hell, I can't even neatly be fitted into a genre most of the time because what I really like is "weird character development wallowy stuff with heavy romantic and sexual elements, in various settings." So it's very hard to actually get my work in front of the audience that might best appreciate it (a very narrow category of people, most of whom were probably X-Files fanfic enthusiasts back in the day), and it doesn't help that I HAD an audience when I first started publishing, and then had to go on a mental health break for ten years and came back with a new penname, persona, and quirky tropes that are offputting to a lot of people in that audience. (Did you know how many romance reader type people hate bisexual men who have a female partner, and polyamorous romances? It's a lot.)

So I spend a lot of time feeling like a disappointment to my agent and editors (whether they feel that way or not is unknown) and wondering if I ought to just cut them loose and only self-publish, so the only person I have to disappoint is myself. I already write primarily what I would like to read, so there's some satisfaction in putting that out there. I'm also thrilled at literally anyone who reads, reviews, or talks about my work -- I don't want to sound like I'm ungrateful. I'm just well aware my sales numbers are disappointing to the people who are paid on commission for my work, and who invested time and money into my work.

So anyway. Uh, welcome to my tumblr, my crisis of faith, and my inspo and ramblings for weird stories that maybe not a lot of people will ever read but that I'm happy to write.

[capriciouscaprine]

okay, ex roommate post tiem to get it out of my system

(feel free to be nosey that's why I'm posting about it on tumblr)

first of all, why not just TALK to someone about this? bc I don't like social interaction and I'm too busy to see anyone, but also bc my ex roommate is a self-employed traditional artist, so if social opinion about them tanks, that could genuinely jeopardize their income, and they didn't actually do anything worse than be a kinda crappy friend on the whole and a shitty roommate in their last few months of living with me

me obsessing over them and using them as my secret competition is bc I'm mentally ill, not bc they 'deserve it' or 'need to be taken down a notch' or should be 'cancelled' or anything

so, my ex roommate had a shit life growing up, right up there with being any given social worker's average case of a low income child who's dealt with physical abuse, neglect, and bouts of homelessness; then, they graduated high school and used student loans to go to university to get a degree in fine art, and finally experiencing reliable housing while they had that student loan money; they pick up food service jobs while in college, start building their social media presence, and take home every classroom art supply that isn't nailed down, just like any professional artist does at the start of their career

fast forward approximately five years after graduation

they're still only just building up their online presence and they've never held down a job for more than about 10 months at a time; all of their previous living situations have imploded and they're living with a family member who doesn't help them do anything and expects them to magically get a good job and move out any day now, even though they don't have a car and they live in the suburbs

enter me, the person who owns a crappy little house that (eventually) has a bedroom open up so they can move in and a job to recommend them to

(I'm cutting out a bit here to maintain plausible anonymity)

they start out strong, decorating the room, cooking and sharing meals (not a routine in our house, just something nice they do), and building up their art income while they make money from the job I helped them get; they even manage to get a car!

but then, as a year at the job approaches, they have a harder and harder time getting along with their boss, and it's unclear if the job really sucks that bad or if my roommate isn't communicating well; they also seem to be failing to balance art, their other job, and general life, doing things like going on art binges only to crash and get an hour of sleep and be late to work the next day; eventually, they experience a significant health event, and they get fired for being absent from their job for a month

they focus on their art business, talking about how they're gonna explore more types of social media promotion and showing off how much their income has grown since they were at their relative's house; I've started my masters degree at this point, and then the pandemy hits, so we spend more time hanging out, especially since my other roommate had moved out by this point so it was just the two of us in the house

over time, the cracks start to show; they're so positive and cute and bubbly when they have the energy, and they talk a bunch about effective communication and boundaries and all that, but when they talk about their other friends, it's like a constant stream of criticism about their life choices

oh, one friend has openly wept about being fat and not fitting into the cute clothes they both want to wear? well, sure, body positivity and all that, but then my roommate gets annoyed that their friend is annoyed by the regular attempts to invite them out for hikes or to a gym my roommate goes to, and is further annoyed when this friend won't 'just' tell them they don't want to go and that the friend simultaneously still talks about her dissatisfaction with her body; my roommate is flat out making 'pick a struggle!'-type comments about this 'friend'

another friend struggles with money; they were low-income, and now they make relatively decent money, and my roommate is FULL of judgement about how they spend their money and how they socialize at work and try to turn all their coworkers into their friends even tho that just isn't appropriate

any time they go to someone's house that is messy, there are several comments made about why they don't 'just' clean up as they cook or do stuff around the house, and if they see a roach that person is absolutely getting judged hard core bc my roommate 'has ptsd (jokingly)' about all the trashy places they've lived (we live in the southern US, btw, we have lots of thriving insects and small mammals all over the place)

they complain about how someone keeps talking about wanting a better, higher-paying job, but won't put in the time to get required certifications to get that better job

they constantly talk about the importance of 'open' conversation, harping on how they're happy to have a frank conversation about anything without blowing up over it

and yet

they do

ALL OF THESE SAME THINGS

they talk about wanting to lose w while binging on snacks with friends and eventually a new partner, complaining about wanting to go to the gym but also how sad they are no one will go with them and that's why they go less; their savings starts running out at the pandemy impacts their art sales so they go get a job after talking about it endlessly (another complaint about a different 'friend') and tries to make friends with all their coworkers and starts a room overhaul even though they admit they have no budget for it; they don't wash up after using a TON of bowls and pans to cook a single meal and even leave out tidbits 'for the cats' on the FLOOR that they never go back and pick up; they don't actually do any training on their own time to get promoted or improve their art business; and trying to give them advice and feedback or talk about something that makes you uncomfortable with them results in a near-immediate grumpy cold shoulder, let alone that they dominate nearly every conversation with their own personal interests and check their phone when you talk about yours

(I have to go to work rippp I don't want tumblr to delete this in drafts so I'm posting it now and will continue later)

#cc og #petty and/or negative

[tknblog]

#IFTTT #Tyler Knows Nothing