How The Blue Bird (and other platforms) Screwed Internet Art
I don't think we need to suffer on Twitter. The popular social media platforms make internet cultures become more of a hollow shell and more alienating, especially with the art communities. It all started with DeviantArt's bad updates, but the real shit-kicker was Tumblr's own burning of the Library of Alexandria. Because of that dreaded moment on December 2018, people were forced to moved to Twitter where instead of neat tidy blogs, custom themes, and support for uploading audio; people get doomposts, unfair DMCAs, bots, and Orange Satan. 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 pessimism, 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.
Twitter's lack of creativity stifled art a lot where one would see the same kind of styles for most posts that has big numbers. Don't get me wrong, there are some people who have actual unique styles, but they're crushed by its algorithm and all this fame crap. Even the fads lack a lot of the fun compared to back then; they just quickly come and go. How many can actually remember the black dress meme or something like "evil container"? 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.
While there is an obvious alternative being BlueSky, I'm a bit concerned about it, cuz not only it has the same issues with the doomposting and other stuff Twitter has, its moderation staff isn't the most useful one could expect since that whole "WAFFLES" fiasco. As for Instagram, it's worse too for many various reasons omoulo had addressed.
https://omoulo.com/artists_vs_social_media
These platforms can be suffocating for artists and creativity while pigeonholing the communities into one blurry mess making it harder to find micro-cultures or international communities. 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. If so, then I'd totally recommend you n' others to check out these platforms and see which one works best for you.
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. However, this is for those who are 18 and over as part of maintaining peace in the community.
Newgrounds
You and everyone else already know this. Why should I explain it.
ComicFury
Way better than Webtoon or Tapas. It's an actual good website for sharing comics and reading various kinds.
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 like the currently 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. I think it would be nice to give these other platforms some more life as a way of helping more people have options to migrate to.
So why the heck you want to repost terrible news or write vents or spend hours on useless internet drama? That ain't fun. Instead, u should take the time to create something that makes you happy.
further reading: https://torrent-empress.leaflet.pub/3m37b3rvq4c22
https://omoulo.com/artists_vs_social_media
These articles are from torrent-empress and omoulo.