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The experience of posting art on the internet, or "RIP"
a year ago
Usually I don't write journals anymore because I value my privacy and just post art When It's Done ™ these days.
But I needed to chew on some thoughts due to recent events and just have to put them out there, just for some semblance of authenticity I guess. Oh well!
I owe long-lasting friendships and acquiring strong personal passions to FA's existence. Had I not been able to share my art on this clunky, sort of outdated site made for artists, I'd not have the sort-of-weird and fun life I live now.
FA's a weird, a bizarre corner of the internet and an antiquated relic of bygone times. I appreciate it deeply for that; ultimately it does what it does for all its flaws and issues. It's dated as hell, but that makes it so refreshing in contrast to how posting art on the internet feels elsewhere as of now.
I tire of the number games being played on social media, the algorithms keeping me from seeing the art I want to see, all in the interest of driving "engagement". I don't want to "sell" myself to get any attention or followers; that's the big reason I quit posting on Twitter a while ago. This doesn't even get into some things wildly out of everyone's direct control:
- Payment processors as well as big tech companies keep getting a stronger say than ever before on what content can be posted on some sites (hello, Patreon, and Tumblr's 2018 banhammer also counts).
- Techbros grift for venture capital after the entire world neither pivoted to crypto, web3 nor the metaverse. Trillions of dollars were dumped into colossal server farms that now flood entire sites and professions with genAI slop to the point of being unusable (hello, Pinterest, and many other sites).
- The upper echelons of Twitter are simply much more interested in generally being and pandering to outwardly repulsive individuals these days, instead of doing anything constructive about their site.
Clearly, it's a fun time to share art on the internet! The gardens are either destroyed, neglected or abandoned.
There's a genuine fear I have that the "classic" experience of posting art online on FA will vanish, now that Dragoneer has passed. I didn't know him personally but it's a shame how he died. No one should have to go through what he went through in his last hours.
Where else do you even go these days to get the same experience, onto an openly accessible website that was built to bring together a community and actually achieved that? All we have is ourselves and the bonds we have forged.
There are no clear answers to all of this rambling but in any case: RIP Dragoneer, thank you for making the internet a bit of a brighter place for many people.
But I needed to chew on some thoughts due to recent events and just have to put them out there, just for some semblance of authenticity I guess. Oh well!
I owe long-lasting friendships and acquiring strong personal passions to FA's existence. Had I not been able to share my art on this clunky, sort of outdated site made for artists, I'd not have the sort-of-weird and fun life I live now.
FA's a weird, a bizarre corner of the internet and an antiquated relic of bygone times. I appreciate it deeply for that; ultimately it does what it does for all its flaws and issues. It's dated as hell, but that makes it so refreshing in contrast to how posting art on the internet feels elsewhere as of now.
I tire of the number games being played on social media, the algorithms keeping me from seeing the art I want to see, all in the interest of driving "engagement". I don't want to "sell" myself to get any attention or followers; that's the big reason I quit posting on Twitter a while ago. This doesn't even get into some things wildly out of everyone's direct control:
- Payment processors as well as big tech companies keep getting a stronger say than ever before on what content can be posted on some sites (hello, Patreon, and Tumblr's 2018 banhammer also counts).
- Techbros grift for venture capital after the entire world neither pivoted to crypto, web3 nor the metaverse. Trillions of dollars were dumped into colossal server farms that now flood entire sites and professions with genAI slop to the point of being unusable (hello, Pinterest, and many other sites).
- The upper echelons of Twitter are simply much more interested in generally being and pandering to outwardly repulsive individuals these days, instead of doing anything constructive about their site.
Clearly, it's a fun time to share art on the internet! The gardens are either destroyed, neglected or abandoned.
There's a genuine fear I have that the "classic" experience of posting art online on FA will vanish, now that Dragoneer has passed. I didn't know him personally but it's a shame how he died. No one should have to go through what he went through in his last hours.
Where else do you even go these days to get the same experience, onto an openly accessible website that was built to bring together a community and actually achieved that? All we have is ourselves and the bonds we have forged.
There are no clear answers to all of this rambling but in any case: RIP Dragoneer, thank you for making the internet a bit of a brighter place for many people.
After the Tumblr purge and before that, there was a big shift which caused more downfall of different websites that isn't super controlled (there was stuff on Tumblr that wasn't good).
Social media isn't what it's was created for anymore and as I wrote above there are fewer places people can go to without being herder into the mainstream area.
The AI issue is that its a tool trained on other peoples work and that is not acceptable, but the people using it don't care and should be held accountable to theft.
Why can't we just AI it the areas that would be more helpful for future endeavors.
If we want to keep these things that was/is actual good when it comes to the internet even with its flaws around and working, we need to keep having it around and not let it go.
Just giving my simplified thoughts on the topics.
I obviously know that running a site like FA also incurs financial costs with server upkeep and that the money has to come from somewhere. But compare Twitter, which is only free because you are the product and it's primarily a platform for ads and social capital, with how FA runs ads as a community-run site.
Greed is a helluva drug.
Having a site like FA and other similar sites is much more approachable because it's more direct for what it is and is also community-driven. It does need money like any other sites for server upkeep and so on, but I would rather have this than twitter (again).
As it's been said, the new social media...just sucks
Where else do you even go these days to get the same experience, onto an openly accessible website that was built to bring together a community and actually achieved that? All we have is ourselves and the bonds we have forged.
It's not the same experience, but I enjoy operating a Telegram channel for my artwork. There is no algorithm and there is no timeline. It is just a feed of the images and messages I post, and a place for folks to comment if they should like. If people have notifications on, they will get pinged for each new post, just like the submission notifications for watched artists on FA.
Of course, that is where the similarities end. Telegram channels are not "openly accessible" in the way FA is. Telegram doesn't have a keyword search like FA's. There is no front page. You can't browse other users' favourites to discover new artists. It is, ultimately, a different platform with a difference experience. It's not FA, but it's preferable to posting on social media, at least for me. :>
But as you rightfully say, it's not a gallery site and openly accessible repository for people's art. But it's much preferable to the experience of social media (or walled gardens such as Discord servers) to me.
Also let it be known that your post made me realize I actually could enable comments on my posts in my channel. I didn't know that was possible for years! Oops!
There are a few hold outs of course, here, SoFurry, a couple automotive forums I still check.
So I like the gallery-based format of FA a lot - but its alternatives never drew me in. I did use Weasyl for quite some time, but that site ended up being too quiet and also effectively feels abandoned by the devs.
I'm likewise terrified that we'll all lose it. Between that and Dragoneer himself, I've been kind of a wreck ever since the news broke.
Let's hope this more classic experience to share art will remain available for this community in the future.
Which is why I never understood the appeal of Twitter and its clones (Bluesky, Mastodon...) for artists since all their content gets eventually dispersed and isn't even easily searchable. I never had a Twitter account and honestly it looks like I just spared myself years of non-sense drama that way.
I understand why people want such a style of social media these days, but I'm definitely not one of them.
I despise twitter and social media, I've long preferred forums and group-based communication platforms a la discord. I like the functionality of a website where you post art, host it like a gallery, and people can find and interact with you from there. I don't want a social media profile demanding constant engagement based around attention in an environment that subsists primarily on the misery and torment of others.
FA isn't perfect but it's a part of a dying internet we are gradually losing. And yet there is no alternative interesting enough for the majority to agree to migrate to.
Regarding Discord: It's a great platform to hang out with your friends and chat about your interest, and I use it a lot myself! But I think it's not a good repository for people's art like a gallery site such as FA as the servers end up as walled gardens that are not searchable or archivable from the outside. For instance, I've seen actual support relegated to Discord servers, which is a ticking time bomb if those servers ever vanish.
Point being not only do I dislike Twitter, but I prefer having a separate place/website for art and social media. Twitter is already miserable for someone like me, but if I wanted to use it for social media I would. Artists moving to twitter is like forcing the square block through the circular hole. Artists all moving to discord would be the same problem with different symptoms- I certainly was not suggesting that could work XD
And yeah that's why I generally kept to FA even as more sites came out. I detested tumblr for actually finding art, twitter even moreso. A lot of new sites look to drive "engagement" more than better fulfilling their stated purpose.
But then there was a realization that there was a lot of money in that, both from the sides of ads and social capital. Enshittification ensued.
FA feels a bit like holdover from that initial dream, at least due to its history. Which would be a huge shame if that was to vanish!