Social Media and Productivity.

i've been havin a problem lately. well more like for a very long time but its only gotten worse since i haven't properly dealt with it. the title makes it pretty obvious about what it is.

i'm gonna skip around a lot because i am currently extremely out of it and i don't even feel alive write now while i'm writing this so it prolly isn't gonna make much sense.

my experience with social media has always been really unhealthy. well idk about always, but for a very long long time. it aaaaaall started on Google+. anybody remember that shit? yeah good times eh? i was just another eddsworld fangirl posting my little eddsworld art and sometimes i got likes! honestly i dont remember it being bad for me but then again its like im pretty sure i got attachted to the little bit of attention that i did get. but that was cuz occasionally people would interact with me, and as an artist the interactions were like the best part. so i could understand little me from 2015 getting a little bit too attached to the 100 or so followers i had from G+. then there was my YT account (i had another one but it got deleted so it is literally lost to time :() which i also dont remember it being too bad. i was sad when i didnt get views though but i was a kid so that shits normal. so like in the beginning it wasn't all that bad. it was pretty wholesome and i was havin fun. i made a bunch of terrible animations, gaming videos long before i made videos with toys. it was fine. that was like 2014-2016 i believe. at some point i stopped caring about maintaining a YT audience and went on indefinite hiatus and of course google plus fuckin died so then what's next? instagram. this is when it gets bad.

in May of 2018, i made an instagram account. why? i dont remember honestly. but i did that. and it was fine. i posted art but it was like not very well executed originally. but whatever. the little details dont matter. i actually dont know when it started to become unhealthy but i remember specifically in 2019 being super sad because i started really hating my art and i ended up archiving just about all my old post and taking a break. i dont know how long that break was but it prolly wasn't long enough. 

so the whole "being really sad and hating my art" thing is kinda the main reason why i am writing this. because that happens A LOT still to this day. and it's really really bad. it has only gotten worse since the first time i recognized it in 2019. of course at the time i didnt realize just how bad this would be for me. i became so over obsessive with other artists art styles which is like the worst fucking thing you can do as a young artist by the way. and so i would constantly try to switch my art style to be more like the type of artists i liked at the time. and this terrible learned habit has haunted me ever since. because i never realized that constantly comparing myself to artist was REALLY FUCKING BAD FOR NOT ONLY MY MENTAL HEALTH BUT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF MY ART SKILLS. it has now become a natural thing for me to compare myself to every fucking artist i see and make me feel like my art will never be that good and all that stuff like that. it is currently 2023 so yeah this mindset has been festering for a fucking WHILE. now it's hard to get rid because i've been thing this way for so long. and i know how to fix the problem. at least i think so. the problem is actually a very easy fix. just taking a fucking break or quit social media all together. it sounds so easy when you put it on paper but i'm not a silly kid with 400 followers anymore. i multiple platforms that get more attention than i've ever gotten in my life. and the thought of giving all that up is really upsetting. plus, i'm unemployed right now, and the only way i can make money is through commissions, so i feel like i constantly have to get art out in order for people to see what i'm capable of. art that i don't even think is that good because i keep FUCKING COMPARING MYSELF TO EVERY ARTIST ON PLANET FUCKING EARTH. i kinda forgot where this was leading. but basically, it should be an easy fix right? step away for a while. a REALLY REEEEALLY LONG WHILE and focus on yourself. i wish it was that easy for me to do. and yk it's not just insta it's twitter aswell and also YOUTUBE which i didn't even realize was becoming extremely unhealthy until very very recently. and it's so weird because social media is so fucking boring. i don't even like PEOPLE. i don't understand why it's so easy to get attached to. 

then there's a whole nother level on top of all this that makes it even worse. the productivity portion. it is no secret that scrolling for long long periods of times makes it hard to get stuff done. it's a huge distraction. and it's even easier to be distracted when all you're working on is a personal project. at least for me. the second i start my day off with youtube or scrolling on something i already know it's gonna be impossible to focus on creating art or studing or literally ANYTHING. like i can have everything in front of me and i'll still be scrolling on yt lookin for somethin to watch instead of getting to work. it's really bad. and these last few days have been some of the worst of it. i cannot focus on SHIT. like i cannot sit down and draw anything because the second it's not perfect i wanna give up and do something else. it really fucking sucks and fucking hate it. i fucking hate this stupid fucking mindless cycle i've trapped myself in. it's all my fault. if i would've dealt with the issue sooner it wouldn't have ever gotten this bad. i dont know what to do. it feels like i can never get out of this hell.