kradeelav: Dr. Kiriko (Default)
[personal profile] kradeelav
whyyy did i stop posting on forums, they're so freaking nice and warm and full of redic helpful and knowledgeable folks let alone me already reconnecting with several dA-era acquaintances!  The experience to twitter has been literal night and day and I'm still cackling that I accidentally made a straight full loop back to my very first online haunts. 

Or at least dA era type of profile; post sleezy as hell artwork, maybe make a journal or two, play FE9, go on said FE forums, and that's it.  Pair that with getting some absolutely lovely private comments about my latest art being so validating and I'm convinced this is exactly the kind of low content-and-consumption-split-profile I want.

God I really feel for the kiddos being inundated in all kinds of bullshit on socmed. it doesn't have to be - was not - like this.

(no subject)

Date: 2020-09-24 12:14 am (UTC)
lukadian: Current Splash Art for www.trsatsuki.net (Default)
From: [personal profile] lukadian
"It was not like this" resonates man. The internet has always had awful things, but it didn't feel like... the norm, or rather you had to seek out those festering hives. discourse was regulated moreso to insular or culty communities, it wasn't the mainstream way to interact. It was immediately recognizable as crazy (Toxic, we'd say now), people had enough time to devote to parsing it all, processing it, breaking it down, from "roasting marshmallows" over flames to simply finding a different forum or hitting the back button when you saw something you didn't like.

One can still, arguably do those things, but it feels so much harder now with how the internet is...oriented. Watch one hateful video out of morbid curiosity and the algorithm throws another one right in your feed and its called click "bait" for a reason, many people take it.

You have less one on one with people, follow and friend lists or readers are more potential "customer" base and you are the commodity. Your art, your daily postings, maybe even your own cycle of outrage and despair or incredulity at how bonkers this all is.

Glad you've found some nice forums though, forums are so nice, I should look for some to join! :3

(no subject)

Date: 2020-09-24 01:56 am (UTC)
lukadian: Current Splash Art for www.trsatsuki.net (Default)
From: [personal profile] lukadian
Exactly! Like, the whiplash is *real* disorienting, I think I first encountered it as such a powerful mental health disrupter back on tumblr, I'd search ship tags and they'd be treated like *forums* AND personal vent spaces, not....content filtering, which is *what a tag is*. It "tags" content to be filed and sorted through. How quickly causal browsings would spiral from "Cute art, fanfic rec, oh doujin!" to public shaming, call outs or even blanket accusations of criminal intent or paraphillias was, really, just so incredibly upsetting and triggering. I don't have a regular therapist any more but boy my last one around that time sure got a work out trying to do damage control after I'd inadvertently taken like fifteen steps back after finally coming to "Oh, it's GOOD ACTUALLY to explore these things in fiction? It's DOCTOR RECOMMENDED??"

It's almost worse on twitter and no amoubt of blocking and filtering has helped, back on tumblr I became a strong advocate for using filters but, it's to the point where I try not to look at my twitter feed at all any time I check messages, discourse is so inescapable because that's just *become* how people interact in fandom these days the same way we'd all go to ED articles or 4chan or drama comms on lj. Like you said, back then we sought that out because a some point all of us are little gremlins with low empathy but it was...a willing dunk in the scum tub. Now you're barley touching the floor in an ocean's undertow of constant outrage, IRL disaster, awareness posts and the dissolve of fandom into..just petty nonsense.

We need these hedges and we need these walls, not just for community safety and curation (for instance, keeping kiddos and trouble makers out of adult spaces and vice versa)but for our mental health too! Scroll consumption of social media is so exhausting, we weren't really meant to handle it, we shouldn't need to handle this kind of overload of constant negativity.

Custom Text