I'm so sorry to hear this, I hope you will feel better soon!

Personally I've also gotten quite the scare from the recent developments and have decided to simply upload my art to more websites side by side. I'm not a fan of deviantArt or Twitter, so I went to BlueSky and Cara as a Twitter alternative and SoFurry and Weasyl as a furAffinity/deviantArt alternative.

From what I heard there have been issues in the past, but furAffinity is still here so I am hopeful it will stay that way, but it's always good to have multiple options :)

I'm doing everything in my power to fix the situation!

Hmm, I've heard a bit about it, but how good are these alternatives? Is it difficult to rise to the level that is currently available on native platforms? I've been using blueskay for a while, but Twitter has given me a bigger boost and activity 🗿

Exactly! I think the same way, but I am careful about transferring and creating the alt version.

I've used both Weasyl and SoFurry back in 2015 and only started back up recently, but from what I can tell they are both a lot less popular than furAffinity, so it would definitely be difficult to get the same numbers there.

Funnily enough I have had a lot more success with BlueSky compared to Twitter, so if that type of social media works for you that could be a good additional place to post for you!

In any case, I think it would be good to stay on furAffinity as well :)

I'm sure things will pick up soon. Summer is alway a hard time for us internet artists because the people who watch us between classes have... other things to do (such as going to conventions...seriously why is there so many?) but as they return to school, they also return to the internet.

I can unironically recommend Bluesky. It is more active than Twitter now and really does feel like Twitter used to be (the good and the bad). I know a lot of people like Discord but I personally ...don't (it creates mental load for me, i know this surprises people).

The DA algorithm is helpful, and DA now allows you to opt out of the "feed the AI machine" option (and if you use an upload manager like posty-birb, that checkbox is always on by default!)

Something that helps me sleep sometimes is writing a story. It's no cure-all (indeed, sometimes it backfires and I stay up trying to get all my ideas down on paper) but it gives me a place to go in my sleep that isn't the harshness of reality. Sometimes you don't need to find your happy place, you just need a place that will keep your mind distracted.

Your work is beautiful, and i'm always deeply moved with every piece of yours I see. I envy your ability to manipulate light and anatomy (you make it look so easy!)

I know it's hard, but please don't give up!

Oh! Thank you so much for such a detailed message, I read it with special interest ❤️
I think there's something I can use....

And thank you for such a lovely feedback on my work! No matter what, drawing is literally my life, it's what fills me with the desire to live - to live to create and share it with the world.
And words like yours really inspire me to continue, even if I don't have commissions.

I think BlueSky and Telegram channels are probably the best options for alternatives, since Xitter is as unreliable as any platform under the rule of a ketamine-addicted fascist manchild. Don't post things and then delete them, that just makes you more depressed and would potentially confuse and annoy your followers.

If you feel exhausted, it could be the best option to step away for a bit and partake in other activities that you enjoy more. Taking a break is good.

AHAHA omg, in your words about "ketamine-addicted fascist" for some reason, I laughed wildly. This is so to the point
Ehh, I know-I know, but when I see my profile with audience of almost 5k people and I have 5 likes - IT LITERALLY hurts and sometimes a repost or a repost helps to increase activity, but lately there hasn't been a single piece of art that has been trending (maybe I miraculously caught some kind of blocking or ban?). I see how everyone writes about how good bluesky is and I really led it a couple of months ago, but as I wrote earlier, in another answer - Twitter was a lot more active for me at one point. Although I see the point in trying to posting arts in BlueSky during the week and see what happens

Yeah, it's true...Thank you!

I am sad to see you worried. I'm just hoping that it is just a slow period in the market for freelance art. I've seen this "slow down" from other artist as well recently. It seems like you did a lot of engagement on the recent raffle though!

X/Twitter is a different animal when it comes to art though. Based on how the layout and UI is it does seem like art that is really character focused receive the most attention. Since this type of art is something a viewer can look at "quickly" it becomes easier to engage. So illustrations involving large detailed scenes are often overlooked. I've seen more engagement on fanart as well (whatever popular character is the flavor at that time). But this should not discourage you from drawing and posting what you want. Whether or not hashtags still help or not is unknown.

Telegram and Discord servers are always nice but I always think something like this would pull away from Patreon. Since Patreon is paid for I feel like it should be special for customers. It's a strange balance on which platform/community is more prioritized.

Discord is a great idea if you have Patreon. Many of the very popular artists I follow link their Discord servers to their Patreon and give their Patrons special access to channels that free followers cannot access. Things like sneak peaks, special discounted slots, early access to YCH and Auctions, etc. They seem to be a very popular choice.

I think staying on FA, TWT, and TH are good but I see many people going to Bsky as well. DA is gross aha, please don't go back. x.x

For your sleep problems:
You maybe need a sleep study but you can try some things!
Melatonin for sleep is very common for people to take.
You can also try some insomnia techniques!
Sometimes being too hot or too cold can make your sleep bad as well.

I wish I could help more but if you ever need to talk you can gladly note me. 💛

I would honestly finish the commissions you're currently working on and take a break.

But on view count, I assume this is on Twitter that platform unfortunately doesn't reward people for posting content, I've seen more than a few artists just top out at a certain follower count and only got like 100 likes or less when they have a few thousand people following them and the accounts never grow, its like they get walled in to a certain area of Twitter and they're never allowed leave it.

It's a pretty miserable situation.

I feel you. Those pesky sleep issues is definitely making things order of magnitudes harder

About whole web development right now, well, it definitely seen better days, eh? I personally feel like predatory algorithmisation/optimization is going to lead to people to dig down from general social media to a more closed, practically gated communities such as discord servers, telegram channels and what not. It's blooming sad that big corporate people ruin things after years of internet being place for everyone at once, thought is granted I guess.

And I also think that aside from being able to push back on bots and other scum, closed communities are going to be rather healthy mentally too. Just think of any artist you've been suggested to feed or algorithm vs one that you've found yourself. Maybe you've been looking through archive of some sort, or found them through friends and talking. And think what is more exiting and revarding. And to me FA is exactly that - an archive where you have to do things manually. And I can't be arsed to post things on media that pressures you to be consistent or do stuff for engagement in order for you to be afloat. It's just a burnout simulator at this point those algorithms that is.

To sum up, there's definitely a light shining in the darkness, and as a team can we get through

I do not think forcing yourself to create content in an attempt to appease the Algorithm™ is a good idea. That's a recipe for burnout and disappointment. Take some time to yourself, take a break, get some sleep, and return with a fresh mindset.

Twitter/X is on life support. The platform is becoming increasingly more right-wing, meaning most normal users are fleeing, if they haven't already. It's why I personally left. I would not put much meaning behind your posts underperforming considering many of your followers are likely bots, and the engineers who wrote the promotion algorithm you're trying to appease are underpaid and overworked. Hence why I don't think Twitter is worth losing sleep over.

I see most people recommending BlueSky. I think it is the most viable alternative, though it does not have the maturity Twitter did at its peak. I do think it will improve in time, however, as more adopt it.

Regarding Telegram, the founder and CEO was just arrested today. In my opinion, this does not bode well for the future of that platform. I would not be investing much energy into Telegram right now, personally, not until I was more confident it's not going to get shut down.

The vast majority of the western audience I know are on Discord. It is where I live, personally.

For what it is worth, if you desire to set up a Patreon Discord server, I have created several Discord servers, and I am currently the admin for an art commissioning server with over 2,500 users. I would be happy to help you create your own server if you would like, since I know it can be overwhelming if you're unfamiliar with the platform. Please let me know if you would like assistance in this area.

Hope you start feeling better. I know times are stressful. You will be in my thoughts. <3

On one hand I do think, realistically, it hurts visibility to stop posting things. Followers decay over time, losing interest, leaving their accounts, and so on. Having a steady activity level, even if not super high, is good to keep things growing or at least not shrinking. A lot of visibility comes from how much visibility you already have, with followers boosting the initial reach of your posts, so it's useful to keep that from backsliding.

This is something I observed a long time ago, even on sites that aren't as algorithm-heavy as they are today, and decided that for me it wasn't sustainable: to keep posting at that rate meant I'd be churning out things I could do easily, and avoid harder or more experimental work I kind of need to do to learn. Of course the flipside is, if you rely on it, there's more of a cost to disappearing. I never did art as paid work so it was easier to make that choice—all I lost was not appearing on the main page of stuff like DA anymore, which felt good when it happened but didn't really mean anything. So maybe there is some value in figuring out what a steady, but not crushing level of activity would look like for you, just to stay visible.

On the other hand, this doesn't have to be commissions, necessarily. So you could take a break from that, and maybe still keep up some posting of less intense personal work, studies, that kind of thing? Even if it was like once a week.

And I do think if you rely heavily on twitter, it's probably a good time to be branching out. I've seen a lot of people say their engagement there is now even lower than sites where they have a much smaller audience, so the numbers may make the site look more useful than it truly is. Especially since now, it's less visible for people who don't have it. For example, for me with no account, I sometimes can't see someone's account at all. If I can, their posts appear in order of popularity (this is what I see on yours btw) so their newer ones are hard to find. So if an artist is primarily or exclusively active there, and you're not on the platform, it's as if they fell off the planet.

DA is uh... I'm not really sure. Ever since eclipse my engagement there fell, to the point that by the time I stopped using it, I had gone from hundreds of favourites on uploads to at most dozens. They've taken away so many of the old ways it used to sort things, and now on top of that, it's flooded by AI you can't get rid of because DA will not enforce that people identify it as AI. I wouldn't exactly have high hopes for it.

At the moment I'm using bluesky personally, but I haven't been super active there so it's hard to confidently say how easy it is to build an audience. It does seem to be working for some people I see on there though, so there's that. For how long though? Who really knows. It feels like we're going back to the era of hopping from one site to another as each one fails in turn.

Certainly rough. I struggle with insomnia, and it's never fun, so I really hope you get it under control. Maybe consider a sleep study? That's helped me a little bit in the past.

Anyways, here's the thing I will say, coming from someone who streams on Twitch and makes some youtube content...or at least damn well tries: I get it! It sucks when you work so hard, yet nothing seems to come of it. It is incredible demotivating, you get inside your own head, and you wonder why you're even creating. The hurdle I had a hard time getting over and didn't understand for a long time is that despite having goals in mind, you're not always going to meet expectations and need to learn where to settle. I have up so many times because I was never getting viewers and was wondering why I was wasting my time...but every now and again someone would pop into stream, or a video would well, and it reminds me why i'm doing it! It's not because i'm trying to get popular or make a living off of it, or chase the algorithm, no. I do what I do getting next to zero viewers because it's fun to do, and so long as one person tunes in or watches a video once in a while, it means that the effort I put in wasn't wasted. (FYI, i've been streaming for 5 years, and still regularly get zero viewers.)

I guess the TL;DR is don't draw for the sake of engagement, or gaining followers, or whatever. You'll only get frustrated in the chase, your exhaustion and burnout will compound, which potentially leads to depression. Instead, draw simply because you want to and because you have fun doing it! If things aren't working out, don't break yourself trying to force things to happen. It's ok to step away for a while and come back with a fresh mind.

I hope that I was maybe of some help and that you can get it all figured out! You're a terrific artist, and you'll get through it. *Big hugs!* ^^

Чудово тебе розумію, сам зараз в схожій ситуації. /обійняв/
Зовсім не розумію, що відбувається, актив настількі хаотичний в соцмережах, що дуже важко вгадати, як воно працює. Іноді здається що тебе як прокляли й намагаєшся шукати хоч якийсь натяк на те, чому все катиться у безодню.

Маю надію, що в тебе є змога хоч трошки відпочити. Дискорд сервер це дуже гарна ідея, особливо, якщо постиш нсфв контент. І можна буде трішки попіарити його в своїх соцмережах, щоб людей побільше прийшло. Буду радий приєднатися, якщо його створиш. <3

Бажаю тобі сил з усім впоратися, ти чудово малюєш, буквально кожен раз в захваті чекаю на нові твої роботи.

Never stop drawing, the longer you take break, the harder it will be to come back. Especially on social media with algorithms and activity. Please keep drawing! Don’t go for too long.