entry #7, 6/23/2024 6:31AM

rant that isn't too serious, just kind of pisses me off. so i'm a digital artist and i post my art online, as most usually do nowadays. i've been doing this since i was maybe 13 and i'm 19-20 now. the way i got started out was by drawing fanart of my favorite youtuber at the time, not expecting it to get any attention at all, just gently kissing my drawing and sending it into the vast sea that is the internet. the youtuber reshared it, and even complimented it in the comments. since he was pretty big back then, it got a lot of likes, and it has done near irreversible damage to the way i view my art and posting online.

i'm not blaming this guy by the way, this is no fault of his whatsoever, just that i probably shouldn't have been posting anything on the internet when i was that young, especially with how neurotic i was (and still am).

now, i hadn't realized the damage this had done until much recently. through the years, i'd only ever drawn and shared fanart, either of creators i liked, or for fandoms i was in. every time i had an oc, i'd keep it to myself, because i knew that the majority of my followers weren't here for my original characters, but for the fanart. so, i'd usually only ever draw fanart.

this became something of a problem, as my entire followerbase was built on something i didn't create, and i was placing too much of my self worth in my follower and like count. it got even worse when my ex left me, because it was all i had to make myself feel better. "my ex may not want me, but at least these 200 strangers do". (yes, i was going nuts about 200 followers. at the time, it was actually just barely even 200, it was something like 192).

so, i became a fanart machine. i'd churn out whatever garbage got the most likes, not that i didn't enjoy making the garbage, but it was starting to become something i had to do every other day, lest i lose relevancy and get booted out of the algorithm. at first, my follower count slowly grew since i had more time to draw fanart now that i was pretty much by myself all the time, but it (somewhat) skyrocketed just a few months later, and i had gotten to 400 something followers, which was an insane number to me (it sort of still is, because think about a room full of 400+ people). 

it made me feel good that so many people liked my stuff enough to follow me, that wasn't even accounting for all of the likes i got. some of my art would get 300+ or 500+ likes, a few even went beyond 1000+, and it just kicked the dopamine into overdrive, so much so that i would not indulge in creating ocs or original stories anymore like i used to, because if it wasn't getting me numbers, then there wasn't a point in them.

it was a very fucked up mindset to have, in my opinion, since i used to enjoy creating worlds and characters from my brain, and telling stories about them, but i hadn't done much of that since i was 14 or so. not only that, but if i lost even a handful of followers, my mood was in the toilet, because it meant that those few people disliked what i made enough to unfollow, even though i still had hundreds of followers behind them, i somehow took it personally. it got to a point where i'd constantly check my numbers, and if i was missing even one follower, i'd whip something up and put it out there, so i'd replace that one follower with 3 more, like some kind of follower hydra.

it was only earlier this year, somewhere in january or february, when i decided i needed to take a break from posting online, because i'd realized how obsessed i was with followers and likes, that it was making me depressed. so, for the whole break, i only used my artistic ability to create original things, along with the occasional fanart just for myself that time. it felt good to finally be in touch with that side of me, to be making up original stuff again like i used to when i was a kid.

when i got back from the break, i was hesitant to post my oc art, but i forced myself to do it so i wouldn't feel so bad about sharing original stuff anymore, and i was expecting them to get maybe 10 likes, most of which being my friends. but, as it would turn out, a lot of people do like ocs as well (no shit). so, it made me more comfortable in creating and sharing my ocs, because people actually liked them. i'd lose a couple followers here and there, but i tried not to let it bother me so much, because it really wasn't personal at all. 

so for a while, my posts were a mix of fanart and original characters, with a (sort of) even amount of likes going towards each, even though i shouldn't be posting for the likes, but for myself to be able to go back and look at my art in the future, or just whenever i want to really.

i had a thought at the beginning of writing this, but it kind of got lost in me remembering. just, if anyone is reading this and you find yourself in a similar situation, where you base your self worth on the likes and followers, or you draw only for numbers, just try not to do that. it isn't good for you and it isn't good for your art either. be the creative you are and let yourself make a character, make a world, make a story (if you truly want to). 

it doesn't have to be great, perfect, or good. it can be silly, weird, and unpleasant. allow yourself to be bad at something. did you come out of the womb knowing perfectly how to walk? just indulge for yourself sometimes. don't think about your page/blog/profile as a numbers machine, think about it more like your heart, a personal art gallery, or your house. "this is my house, i can decorate it how i want. if the people don't like it, the door is over there." that's how i try to see it nowadays, posting my ocs and stuff.

and also, we all die someday. we don't get a lot of time to live, so spend that time doing what makes you actually happy, not what makes the most dopamine rush into your brain.