Internet art didn't have to die like this
It may not be technically dead, but internet art looks more of a hollow shell with a very dim light close to burning out. It all started with DeviantArt's biggest flops and Tumblr's own burning of the Library of Alexandria.
DeviantArt was unique for having groups, categories and support for SWF. It used to be customizable as well. Tumblr was amazing for art because the hashtags were actually tags that didn't clutter the post, there was the archive feature, and there were sub-blogs and various people with various hobbies from writing to motion graphics to anything else. It also used to be customizable. But ever since the two decided to screw everything up, people were forced to move to Twitter, a way less artist friendly platform. With Twitter, people are unable to post audio nor longer words, hashtags are now on the body text instead of the footer of the post, some videos are more likely to get DMCA'd, and there's more risk in getting suspended. People no longer have a space to meet and greet human beings, instead they have brand accounts, douchebags, fake bots, and Orange Satan (currently in office making lives worse)
There are so many things wrong with Twitter. It's a giant shitshow to browse art with. For every single actual art post, there's hundreds and thousands of unrelated retweets, unavoidable doomposts, and inseparable obnoxious gif replies to scroll through.
Because of the platform's polluted nature, artists and everyone else are more likely to catch various bad influences. They lose their true selves and replace them with an influencer personality or worse, mask themselves with suffocating layers of irony. Others became more puritanical than before due to the nonexistence of grey morality there; they're caught up in the web of drama and callout posts rather than creating something meaningful. The rest who use the platform are too distracted with infinite scrolling.
As Twitter prioritizes popularity over creativity, along came trends that gradually became more pointless than they already are. How many can actually remember the black dress meme or something like "evil container"? Next year, most people won't remember that the Brooklyn Sweater fad happened. Even something like those strip games are all based on getting numbers. The only acceptable exceptions are those for telling payment processors to stop screwing with adult art and preventing bad internet bills using phone calls and mails as the mechanic, because there is an actual benefit behind it. Character fan-arts have similar issues where people would draw Makima, Loona or anything Family Guy related for the sake of clout over drawing their actual favorite characters or the more obscure ones.
Another bigger issue is the monetization of everything on the internet. It became more prominent as jobs became harder to find or to get hired along with COVID making life worse than it needs to be. Most artists need to eat so they find ways to get paid through various means, which is reasonable considering the economies their countries have. However when it comes to exclusive stuff, it's a gray area. For the SFW artists' side of things, it depends on how they do it. It's fine if they use them for bonus sketches, blog posts, behind-the-scenes, WIPs, demos, etc. Even selling things like comics and the like on Itch or Gumroad can work, similar to how artists would sell their work back then, and even now with convention booths.
The NSFW side of artists could've taken notes from how SFW artists sell their works, but instead most prefer to tease the viewers than to be sincere, and it gets old real fast. They would do this by cropping or censoring the full image, or only showing the first part as a way to advertise their Patreon or Subscribestar or whatever. The more explicit image alts are even paywalled, and sometimes the artists end up having to do more than 10 or 40 alts which can be very tedious to make. Others would tease people way worse such as posting the "full" animation then censor the climax to advertise their membership. What makes things more complicated is that artists may host their most explicit works in the highest expensive tier, sometimes only viewable on a Discord server. And with this tactic spreading fast like other trends, it would be hard for one to balance their budget with monthly subscriptions of ten to fifty artists in a hypothetical sense.
YouTube had a worse problem with monetization. Since the policy changes in 2017, YouTubers were forced to sand out the edges and censor anything that isn't "advertiser-friendly". Even the "creative" side of things on YouTube don't have the zest it used to have back then because of the sanitization of it all. Most indie animation there doesn't even feel special nowadays regardless of things; most of them are too focused on having a high production value compared to the simple yet charming ways of animating on Paint or GoAnimate. However, there may be some positive things about this.
It might be better letting indie animation get the most support; merchandise such as plushies are more prominent than most industry-led productions these days. Even a jester, a drone and a demon princess were able to get into a streaming service; it's such a unique case where shows from YouTube get the chance to be on Netflix or Prime. It's very clear that millions of viewers watch them over what's produced for TV and streaming. It sure beats watching horrible reboot abominations that try to be hip with the modern demographic, or a bad sequel to the worst piece of commercialized half-baked horseshit that ever hit the silver screen. A big benefit to indie is to be able to survive from tax write-offs and executive meddling.
But still, it could've been way better if online animations and the rest of YouTube were to stop censoring things for ad-revenue and instead use more viable options that people used before such as Patreon or SubscribeStar or PayPal or whatever. It would make them worth watching compared to whatever the hell the other YouTubers are doing with those unnecessarily long video essays. People stopped creating things and instead started talking about things for hours on end, and the titles would go for the same cliche’d phrases; most of the time one or two verbs are set in all caps. Both Running Shine and Drevonor talk more about this and YouTube's sanitization.
https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkx52pX51oOQ-HbKB8Nr7iKESUQSIzCMrfy
https://web.archive.org/web/20231005024659/https://razorback95.com/news/commentary-crisis
As YouTube got worse over time with the algorithm and shitty moderation bots, so did Twitter unsurprisingly, and the ownership change didn't help either. It’s why people moved to BlueSky, but not even that was perfect due to the whole "WAFFLES" fiasco. Tumblr got worse with the incident of banning a trans staff member. And for Instagram, that has its own problems from image compression to not allowing artistic nudity or anything explicit. DeviantArt also got worse when it got bought out by Wix.
The platforms' new policies and deterioration is suffocating the people and the creativity of art. Everyone had said they hate these platforms yet they still keep using it because everyone is there and it seemed like there was nowhere else to move despite a few alternatives existing. The centralization of the internet has trapped them, and it's becoming harder to find micro-cultures on the internet lately, especially when it comes to art. They all have to share with puritans and assholes. Even independent foreign internet communities are either extinct or are pigeonholed into the same platforms.
Nearly all of social media is incompatible with art. The way they're set up makes a lot of the art feel like nothing, even the ones that had a lot of effort put into it, they all become disposable images to scroll through in between the memes and other unrelated posts. What all these platforms have in common is that they have millions of spam bots and AI shills that are somehow not moderated against.
This is not normal.
This is not fine.
All of this shouldn’t be the desired places to post art.
People should not have to suffer on Instagram with the image compression and dealing with moderation bots that don’t allow explicit stuff, especially that this platform is owned by Meta.
People should not have to suffer on Tumblr with porn still banned yet the bots that spam porn get away while TERFs shit up everywhere.
People should not have to suffer on Twitter with Grok generating CSAM while tolerating AI shills and human-rights hating assholes.
People should not have to suffer on DeviantArt with the communities diminishing and becoming more hostile while the platform shoves AI garbage.
People should not have to suffer on YouTube creatively limiting themselves for ad revenue, while the platform makes every update worse than the last.
People should not have to suffer on Bluesky with a staff that won’t ban a KiwiFarms user and other harmful people while having one of the moderators reply “WAFFLES” over a serious issue.
People should not have to suffer on ShitTok for everything.
This hurts a whole lot seeing people have to tolerate all this.
This would make a person go insane if they learned about all the bad things these platforms have done.
This should never be normal.
This should never be fine.
This should never be okay.
This should never be the reality.
And I’m so fucking tired of it.
There exist alternatives that treat artists better.
You should never ever have to suffer like this.
Blorbo.social
I’m aware this is a Mastodon instance. I’m aware that the fediverse has problems of its own. But the reason I picked this is because it’s an artist-friendly place with a good enough moderation that’s better than Twitter or BlueSky.
Newgrounds
You and everyone else already know this. Why should I explain it.
ComicFury
You shouldn't be using Webtoon or Tapas. An actual good website for sharing comics is right there. And there exists various kinds of good comics.
Itaku
Another good enough art site.
Weasyl
Yet another good enough art site.
Lethallava.land
The UI is very similar to Twitter. But hey, at least it’s not actual Twitter.
Wafrn
Another platform. It’s at least artist-friendly.
Pillowfort
It’s not really that active. But hey, at least it’s not TERF-ridden Tumblr.
Making your own website
You should go back to a website. Neocities and Nekoweb exist for that reason.
I’m not really expecting a lot of you to leave social media because I know for whatever reason you’ll come back. BUT, it’d be nice to have people make their accounts on the alternatives or make their own websites. No, not like sharing art via PostyBirb and never interacting with the sites. I want you to go talk to people and do something active there. No exceptions nor excuses.
I really have nothing else to say so imagine this final sentence saying something meaningful.
further reading: https://torrent-empress.leaflet.pub/3m37b3rvq4c22
This one's from torrent-empress.