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PSA to new creators, don't let people bully you
a year ago
General
Greetings everybody, woke up to a guy of the named Flareclaw, flipping me off and cussing me out the other night apparently for being a snitch, rude, and told me my stuff sucked. This guy is pretty notorious for this behavior at this point and wasn't a surprise in the slightest. He's done this to lots of other people under numerous other usernames, figured he'd do it to me sooner or later and I just laughed and deleted the comments. However, it got me thinking about an issue I had a while back when I first started out and I've been seeing it happening to others as well. Well, this guy called me a snitch for..., some reason. No idea what that was about but I decided, yeah, I think I will "snitch" on this behavior and try to help my fellow content creators because this guy isn't worth my time, but you are.
I don't want to give this guy much more time in the sun, but a bit of context is needed; this guy isn't the only one who does this sort of thing but he's a recurring figure in it. I will say in advance, don't bother looking for him, he'll get his account banned for this behavior and just make a new one about a month later. He's not sorry for it, he won’t change, don't waste your time on this dude. He’s not worth it. Instead, just know about it. Basically what he does is harass writers and artists (he's rude to people wanting to RP too), especially new ones, for new content, DM them constantly, flood their front page, demand requests and free work be made, try to control your work if you don't make what he wants you to make (particularly the ending or direction of the story or characters), etc. He tends to target newer creators because of a little trap I find they fall into, wanting to make their audience happy and engage with them. Eventually they'll get frustrated with the guy and ask him to stop, ignore him, tell him to be patient, something like that; regardless of how nice or mean they are about it, he'll proceed to flip them off, cuss them out, spam them with messages like the ones I got, block you, etc. and go do it to somebody else (he's usually doing it to several people at the same time). Like said though, don't bother trying to find this guy, sure he'll be banned by the time this comes out and have made a new account by now. If not, it'll happen sooner or later. If he does or is doing it you, just report him for harassment and be done with him.
The real issue here is a camp I also fell into when I was new and it's the desire to be engaging and outgoing with your audience. You want to reply to all your comments, find ways to interact with and engage with your audience, be friendly and inviting to everyone, etc. It's optimistic, and it's admirable but you'll find older, more veteran creators tend to steer clear of this behavior and are much more direct with people, sometimes coming across as rude or overly blunt. When I was younger, I usually didn't like it when artists acted like this and thought you shouldn't act this way. Nowadays, however, I find myself feeling very differently about that and well, this is exactly why. For me, it started with requests. I started with requests because, at the time, I devalued both my time and my own worth. So, I just worked for free and requests became an absolute nightmare to deal with very quickly and a lot of it stemmed from this type of behavior. I would work on requests constantly, spending hours on them and always felt unappreciated and treated horribly. The day I decided to stop taking requests was a huge weight off my shoulders and I have never regretted that decision, ever. That's why I don't take requests anymore and likely never will again. Make no mistake, this behavior is manipulation, its abuse, and you do not have to accept or tolerate it.
If you find yourself in this situation or you're feeling like getting started with comics, writing, art, etc. Always keep this piece of advice in mind. Your time is valuable, your work is valuable, and you do not have to allow yourself to be pushed around or taken advantage of. I know building an audience can be very hard and the algorithm can also be very discouraging; the number one thing to keep in mind is an audience comes with the territory. If you do what you enjoy, I promise an audience who enjoys it for the same reason as you do will come. You will improve with time and with that time, you will have those who are happy to follow you on that journey. So just give it time and don't allow yourself to be taken advantage of or pushed around by people like this that have no respect for your work, your time, or you. They're not worth it and they never will be. The real person you need to convince though is yourself, so always remember:
Your time is valuable, your work is valuable, and you're valuable. Nobody has a right to abuse you and never allow anybody to make you feel like any of those three things are not true for any reason. It may be hard but trust me, if you don't believe any or all of these things are true, you'll be much happier the day you accept all three. I certainly did.
I don't want to give this guy much more time in the sun, but a bit of context is needed; this guy isn't the only one who does this sort of thing but he's a recurring figure in it. I will say in advance, don't bother looking for him, he'll get his account banned for this behavior and just make a new one about a month later. He's not sorry for it, he won’t change, don't waste your time on this dude. He’s not worth it. Instead, just know about it. Basically what he does is harass writers and artists (he's rude to people wanting to RP too), especially new ones, for new content, DM them constantly, flood their front page, demand requests and free work be made, try to control your work if you don't make what he wants you to make (particularly the ending or direction of the story or characters), etc. He tends to target newer creators because of a little trap I find they fall into, wanting to make their audience happy and engage with them. Eventually they'll get frustrated with the guy and ask him to stop, ignore him, tell him to be patient, something like that; regardless of how nice or mean they are about it, he'll proceed to flip them off, cuss them out, spam them with messages like the ones I got, block you, etc. and go do it to somebody else (he's usually doing it to several people at the same time). Like said though, don't bother trying to find this guy, sure he'll be banned by the time this comes out and have made a new account by now. If not, it'll happen sooner or later. If he does or is doing it you, just report him for harassment and be done with him.
The real issue here is a camp I also fell into when I was new and it's the desire to be engaging and outgoing with your audience. You want to reply to all your comments, find ways to interact with and engage with your audience, be friendly and inviting to everyone, etc. It's optimistic, and it's admirable but you'll find older, more veteran creators tend to steer clear of this behavior and are much more direct with people, sometimes coming across as rude or overly blunt. When I was younger, I usually didn't like it when artists acted like this and thought you shouldn't act this way. Nowadays, however, I find myself feeling very differently about that and well, this is exactly why. For me, it started with requests. I started with requests because, at the time, I devalued both my time and my own worth. So, I just worked for free and requests became an absolute nightmare to deal with very quickly and a lot of it stemmed from this type of behavior. I would work on requests constantly, spending hours on them and always felt unappreciated and treated horribly. The day I decided to stop taking requests was a huge weight off my shoulders and I have never regretted that decision, ever. That's why I don't take requests anymore and likely never will again. Make no mistake, this behavior is manipulation, its abuse, and you do not have to accept or tolerate it.
If you find yourself in this situation or you're feeling like getting started with comics, writing, art, etc. Always keep this piece of advice in mind. Your time is valuable, your work is valuable, and you do not have to allow yourself to be pushed around or taken advantage of. I know building an audience can be very hard and the algorithm can also be very discouraging; the number one thing to keep in mind is an audience comes with the territory. If you do what you enjoy, I promise an audience who enjoys it for the same reason as you do will come. You will improve with time and with that time, you will have those who are happy to follow you on that journey. So just give it time and don't allow yourself to be taken advantage of or pushed around by people like this that have no respect for your work, your time, or you. They're not worth it and they never will be. The real person you need to convince though is yourself, so always remember:
Your time is valuable, your work is valuable, and you're valuable. Nobody has a right to abuse you and never allow anybody to make you feel like any of those three things are not true for any reason. It may be hard but trust me, if you don't believe any or all of these things are true, you'll be much happier the day you accept all three. I certainly did.
I lost so much time to those people. . .
Sorry that you and others have to deal with losers like that. But you handled it awesomely, and for what it's worth, I think you're an awesome artist!
He's done that to lots of people, so it wasn't a surprise he did it to me too. Thanks!
They aren't always just bad and it can be somewhat refreshing to get confronted with ideas and characters that are out of your comfort zone. But it is still important to draw the line for things you absolutely don't want to do and say NO more often.
It was the people that are the biggest issue though. Because it is exactly like you've mentioned. There are quite some nice folks out there but also more then enough that treat you like you are their personal (unpaid) artist. You finish one thing the next one comes in. You don't do exactly what they want you to do they get mad at you. You aren’t fast enough they get mad at you. And some people just take the free stuff not even caring about it in the end (no thanks, No comments, nothing).
Especially if you are getting more known you just get flooded by so many requests it isn't even funny. It's going to grind you down! I personally got to a point when I didn’t even wanted to draw any more because of all the requests until I said NO!
Its a bummer that so many people don’t care or are straight up blind to see how much (free)time and lifeblood artists put into their craft.
I had all kinds of different clientele than but I've felt it took a big toll on me mentally, cost a lot of time and was underappreciated at best. Not a good place to be in any field but definitely bad in a creative field.
Hopefully this can help some people out.
indeed, as I've said it is like poison. It is rough enough to be in any kind of creative industry as is and dealing with people like that just is the topping.
I'm sure hearing that from a more veteran artist will inspire some people or at least show them that they aren't alone in dealing with something alike.
>>Your time is valuable, your work is valuable, and you're valuable. Nobody has a right to abuse you and never allow anybody to make you feel like any of those three things are not true for any reason. It may be hard but trust me, if you don't believe any or all of these things are true, you'll be much happier the day you accept all three. I certainly did. <<
That!
I haven’t always been the best at valuing my own work. But as soon as people started wanting stuff of their own, I decided I wouldn’t take on any project without some small compensation. And I think I dodged so many bullets in my early days.
But I’ve seen so many other good artists get bogged down by requests. Somehow, free stuff attracts some of the most entitled people. They’ll demand perfection, over and over, and then leave as soon as you think about charging a few dollars for your work.
If I could give new artists one tip, it would be: don’t ever take requests. It’s not worth it.
That said, it's not just the victims of this bullying that need to get over it and move forward, but we ALL need to do our part in stopping and discouraging harassment, especially in discord groups and telegram groups etc, where this kind of stuff happens most often, even by people who get mod priveledges so they can abuse thier power against people they personally don't like against the wishes of the admin. In the 90s when I grew up, there were many anti bullying PSAs all over, then around the 2000s they stopped appearing. I think they need to seriously come back...