The Old Roads
Added 2019-09-27 02:00:06 +0000 UTCYesterday I decided to leave Twitter.
While I realize a great deal of folks here didn't even follow me on that platform (You weren't missing anything, all art is posted here primarily). Some, however, did follow me there and would sometimes use it as a way to catch when I put an update out.
The reason for leaving was primarily noticing that it had a reasonably large impact on my day-to-day mental health. I had fallen into it like a rabbit hole and started checking the site multiple times a day. It was starting to become how I saw the world in general and if anyone has ever had to deal with the Hellscape that Twitter is, they know that it would make for a pretty dire veneer over what life really is like.
More specifically, I had seen a few things that made me finally hit the wall of 'Okay, this is actually affecting me, this is causing inordinate amounts of stress).
Its as simple as that. I didn't have any drama there, I didn't get into the middle-school equivalent of a digital screaming match, and no one person did something that made me wish to leave. It was just the general power-creep of unfiltered anger, wholly ineffectual crusading and unhappiness that became a wall of.. well, misery. And I don't want to lean on that wall anymore.
There were good things about the platform that I will miss. It will be harder to see the art of various artists, writers, and musicians that I followed there. It will be slightly harder to pick up on news of various interests I have, and most of all, it will feel a little more 'lonely' not seeing what is going on with folks in general. But there are ways to keep in touch, it will just require more of an effort on my part.
Where I'll be posting
In addition to FA, I'll be posting more here. Not just the art I've been putting in the paid section but art and writing posted to the free section (known as 'all patrons') here as well. I don't know how well this will serve as far as writing goes, but it can essentially act as a blog for all the random things I might want to write, or general images I want to post. I can't post every picture to the all-patrons stream, but anyone following will at least get the general bits of art, probably a lot of world lore, and just general updates.
If I can find a better place for writings and art all in one, I'd let everyone know. So far only Wordpress seems like it isn't run by an algorithm so awful it flags its own posts, But I still need to see how much writing I'd post to make a monthly fee worth it.
It was mentioned that I can still post to Twitter and not read it, but that's not exactly easy for me. The temptation is always there to scroll down. Its ingrained, its habitual, and I haven't found a third party site that would allow me to post there without glimpsing the sorrow-wall, so for now I'll just wind things down there over the next couple weeks, and see how things go.
So that's about it. It was probably quite boring as its just online social presence. I hope posting the watermarked art here for the all-patrons section doesn't get too spammy for folks. If it does, I'll try to find another avenue. Priority will be to getting the high-res, non watermarked out to patrons of course, as well as starting up sketches again next month.
Hope the coming weekend is kind to you all.
-T.J.
Comments
It had a really great use for keeping up with a large swathe of people in one place. When I followed a few artists and only used it to send notification of any posts I made, it was a brilliant tool to just do little updates in a limited amount of characters. But as I followed more people, from broader creative fields, it started to fall apart. Suddenly I was scrolling for over an hour to keep up with art posted, or music, or people's lives. I'd been talking with a friend who said the best thing he ever did to survive that place was to cut who he was following down to a few friends and favourites, and to utterly cut out celebrities. He made a very good point that the most well meaning were the 'celebrities', because they wanted to use their visibility to shine light on things going wrong. But they were the absolute worst for that as well, because it would draw out the most venomous people. Once he cut all celebrities from his feed, he said he could catch up in 20 min. and not think about the site again. In the long run, this will be good for my brain I think. I'm already feeling a lot less anxiety each day, which has itself caused a huge uptick in what I do creatively to fill the time. So far it seems pretty good :)
Tim J.
2019-09-29 19:33:33 +0000 UTCFor all of its faults, Twitter did have one very good use: Quick updates to a broad audience in one place. I started using it to literally let people know when I uploaded an update here, or on FA. This quickly deteriorated when I started following more people, and then reading the 'feed' to see if any artists I followed posted art/updates there that inspired me. Celebrities were the worst to follow. They tend to be bullhorns about social and political wrongs. I can't fault them, they do have more visibility they can shed on these issues, but it quickly boils into a wall of 'wars you should fight'. These days we are presented not with just a handful of problems from a handful of people, it is every 'war' that every person insists you need to scream about at all times. The problem is it becomes a blur when they all try to scream louder than the other. The straw that broke for me was watching people literally unloading the most vitriolic, loathesome, mentally-and-criminally insane screaming at a child. They were screaming things that any rational, sane, normal person wouldn't scream at another adult, at a child. I guess I'm far too old for the 'social' media these days. There isn't anything social about it. There is only screaming. Constantly. Not conversations, just a room full of people trying to yell louder than the others, because their cause is more righteous, and their opinion is the only perspective that matters. It turned people into the most socially isolated echo chambers I have ever seen in my years. In the end, I just don't need everyone elses war. I have my own to fight, and I stopped being interested in the false sense of selfishness that is bred into us if we stop running from fire to fire. Plus I've been getting so much more done during the mornings without scrolling around on that site.
Tim J.
2019-09-29 19:25:06 +0000 UTCI had pondered finding one of those 'template' sites that I had seen being bantered around a few years back, but found that many were very geared towards business or 'generalist art' and abstracts. The couple I had narrowed down to had rules against posting anything with nudity in it (Which is their right, they have to cover themselves to ensure no legal action be taken in case some idiot goes to far). While little of my work has adult subject matter, it does feature nudity from time to time (What can I say, I grew up on 70's and 80's fantasy, which had a lot of that). I used to just make my own sites over a decade ago, which was fun, but these days I'm so behind on site coding and time that it just wouldn't be feasible unless I hired someone, or found a site that just offered up a template. Tumblr was a good choice until they decided to swing to far into 'burn everything' territory. For now, though, Patreon seems pretty good. While they ask that nothing controversial or 'not for general audiences' be posted in the non-patron feed, they do offer a way for me to post in a blog-like fashion, at least until I find an alternative.
Tim J.
2019-09-29 19:10:21 +0000 UTCI think the only social media I've ever actually liked was Google+. largely because you could put literal limits on what you would see, and people couldn't 'retweet' anything. So largely the subject matter was on a more personal and observational level. Twitter is just this giant chamber of screaming, and retweeting the worst of society I found. Either way, here's to calmer days going forward :)
Tim J.
2019-09-28 20:23:58 +0000 UTCGlad you got off that site and are supporting your mental health. Good job! Good luck on figuring out where and how to post. The most stable and reliable source I've seen is getting your own website, but that's not always an option. Good luck and keep being the awesome artist we all know you are.
Tygepc
2019-09-27 22:42:37 +0000 UTCI could never get into social media, as it tends to quickly become way too anti-social. I fully support your decision and hope that you are now able to live a happier and healthier life for it.
Jonathan David Shukert
2019-09-27 16:51:06 +0000 UTCI can respect that. I only use it to for keeping up to date on musical (and related) interests.
David J.
2019-09-27 03:45:14 +0000 UTCI think you'll be happier for it. Best wishes for a brighter future!
Soba
2019-09-27 02:33:14 +0000 UTCI support this decision. I don't twitter because I'm not a <i>twit...</i>
Perfesser Bear
2019-09-27 02:18:06 +0000 UTC
