Trying to be optimistic about the state of art online feels impossible. Even making it has become so much more emotionally taxing as of late - the combination of NFTs from last year, non-artists' entitlement to our work, and now the abundance of AI images made of stolen art... it's fuckin exhausting. Not to mention that social media in general usually makes me feel like shit regarding my art. I don't blame any individual people (especially not on twitter since that algorithm is made to let artists down) for the lack of attention my original pieces get, but it feels pretty fuckin bad when something I spent 20+ hours on and am super proud of gets. like. 10 notes MAX. My fandom-related pieces do a lot better - I'm glad people like them, don't get me wrong, they just don't tend to be the pieces I care the most about. Especially my old critical role stuff. I'm not into CR anymore for LOB centric reasons (if you know you know), I don't post that kind of stuff anymore so I don't feel like the people who follow me for my CR pieces will stick around or care about my original works. It's not anyone's fault that this is the case (if I thought it was I'd be a hypocrite bc I also have a tendency to RB or RT fandom pieces more than original works, though I'm making an effort to boost more original art when I see it), I think it's just the nature of social media that original works tend to do worse than fandom works attention wise.

So normally this whole original stuff not getting much attention wouldn't bother me so much, but just... the combination of everything I've just said, plus one other thing which I'll explain in a second, makes me feel incredibly discouraged from posting any illustrations online anymore. The other thing is that when I posted my piece "Mercy" (this one):

It not only got barely any attention, but I'm pretty sure a couple of people unfollowed me for it for some reason?? So that hurt. The unfollows totally could've been a coincidence but it felt bad regardless. I want my original art to get attention, and I don't think that's a weird or arrogant thing to want.

Oh I also got tendinitis again and my right eye's eyesight has gotten slightly worse. So I'm incredibly frustrated right now. I wish everyone who uses AI image generators a very die painfully.