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Not a furry future we should want. bad artist choices
5 months ago
Recently I happened to explore the works of an artist whom I knew back in the early days of the furry internet. One named Hammytoy They did a lot of animation on top of digital art. I remember when he first appeared on the fanart scene years ago and showed of a really good level of skill that impressed all of us!
I have not seen any new work of his in a long time. But today I went looking. Hes been very productive apparently and has really gone in on the animations. However... if you want to see his stuff its all now teasers with full content hidden behind Patreon. And hes also on many DNP lists.
I want to express some thoughts about how this kind of thing affects our community. I am aware that times are not easy for people. Its hard to survive. I struggle everyday with making ends meet. Sometimes i take commissions. But I never have considered hiding all my best work behind a paywall.
I dont have the money to afford it anyways. Having all these mini subscriptions would break me financially as im allready on small means. Which hilights another problem with this system. It basically means no art for the poorest of furs (which is kinda a lot of us so you know!)
I want this to be a community. I do this art to expand my furry experience and meet friends and inspire others the way they inspired me. Sometimes fans would gift artists with funds too. But old internet has changed, and now with everything being monetized, this kind of behavior is turning our furry culture into a pay-for-access system. where were now introduced to the idea that the best work must be done as a business. On top of that its not like your taking home all the earnings for your work, we all are using patreon now to fund the whole affair and patreon is making bank off your work with the big cut they take. And like any business they will start taking larger cuts as Patreon gets bigger and they will begin to try and direct the content you make for 'maximum engagement'. At this point, this is introducting the idea that your art is now not directed purely by your own imagination, but now by commerce. Do you create what you want to see? Or what you think others want to see?
This pay to play system is going to have a dettirmental effect on our community. I dont want us to be this. Another business venture. I want this to be a living community of people that support each other and have a love for what they do. This is why ive never done the paywall system for my art. And never will.
And even then now they figured out AI and how it can just mine art for free and make content off that.
Does everything in the human experience have to be about what it can be sold for?
I have not seen any new work of his in a long time. But today I went looking. Hes been very productive apparently and has really gone in on the animations. However... if you want to see his stuff its all now teasers with full content hidden behind Patreon. And hes also on many DNP lists.
I want to express some thoughts about how this kind of thing affects our community. I am aware that times are not easy for people. Its hard to survive. I struggle everyday with making ends meet. Sometimes i take commissions. But I never have considered hiding all my best work behind a paywall.
I dont have the money to afford it anyways. Having all these mini subscriptions would break me financially as im allready on small means. Which hilights another problem with this system. It basically means no art for the poorest of furs (which is kinda a lot of us so you know!)
I want this to be a community. I do this art to expand my furry experience and meet friends and inspire others the way they inspired me. Sometimes fans would gift artists with funds too. But old internet has changed, and now with everything being monetized, this kind of behavior is turning our furry culture into a pay-for-access system. where were now introduced to the idea that the best work must be done as a business. On top of that its not like your taking home all the earnings for your work, we all are using patreon now to fund the whole affair and patreon is making bank off your work with the big cut they take. And like any business they will start taking larger cuts as Patreon gets bigger and they will begin to try and direct the content you make for 'maximum engagement'. At this point, this is introducting the idea that your art is now not directed purely by your own imagination, but now by commerce. Do you create what you want to see? Or what you think others want to see?
This pay to play system is going to have a dettirmental effect on our community. I dont want us to be this. Another business venture. I want this to be a living community of people that support each other and have a love for what they do. This is why ive never done the paywall system for my art. And never will.
And even then now they figured out AI and how it can just mine art for free and make content off that.
Does everything in the human experience have to be about what it can be sold for?
Aside from that, it's plain to see that the great majority of artists are not putting their art behind paywalls... so I don't think it is quite the epidemic that is implied here.
The closest thing i had to something positive was the space in early internet where we used to just share out of an utter zeal for our art. and viewing others art. It was an escape from a world where everything you do must have a fiscal value to it, your job and your property. But art in this area felt more like a charity or a religion where this was all about advancing our ideas and socializing with others, and learning new things. I dont want our culture to say... go the way of comic book culture or video game culture where megacorporations drive mostly everything. Yes im sorry were all struggling to make ends meet. Doing horrible jobs. I think the only thing that might possibly change that or relieve the misery of that is an increase in charity.