ELK64Despite the fact I'm slowly exploring this place, I still hope the tiny bird don't die. I mean, business and artistically wise (following a lot of people there, also nsfw stuff) it really is shitty 😥
I know number's isn't an all and in, but I could get to 50k, and a huge % of people on my kickstarter did came from the bird. Also patreon... 😞
Paeonygalaxy@elk64 While twitter wasn't a huge driver for me personally (I never scratched 1k there), it definitely could land me a little work sometimes. If it does go it definitely will still cause issues for a lot and it is worrisome.
Kinda sucks how the community has had to come to rely on these apps and things that are always at the whims of another. Cause yeah we can make our websites and all, but ya need eyes on it, you'd need to get the word out somehow.
@paeonygalaxy Yes it... I feel those place are both alienating but also tools that gave us some sort of freedom (be able to reach to direct client). Despite having various incomes technics, it's... frustrating.
I remember the time people were sending zine by dm on deviantart, but I remind it was also a pain to handle and not THAT interesting money wise.
@elk64 It honestly is, because it was getting some pretty okay (and sometimes great) results for everyone all around. How it can be easily destroyed by one person is pretty damn mind boggling tbh.
These apps also gather everyone in one place too, which can be pretty nice to find artists. Cause y'know not everyone used dA and all those back in the day (I had plenty of artists I had to purely find and save their websites specifically if I wanted to see their work, especially non-US artists).
@paeonygalaxy yup, deviantart was a nice place to start from and grow, but it felt definitively different to be able to reach to... random people if I can say so. (But I really miss the deviantart community feels, with people engaging and commenting. However I think it's not only an app problem, but because time get running out more and more...)
@elk64 Yeah, def was a gallery first and foremost, so probs felt to most people (who didn't do art in some way) that they shouldn't be on? That is kinda the downside of art gallery places.
I do like the community vibes here more. While I was on dA during it's heyday, I'm also very shy and had difficulty finding community there personally. So these newer places do allow one to feel like they can more casually comment (usually, haha, sometimes myself gets in the way still).
@paeonygalaxy ah well, when I started on dA I was very young, and had like... 10 favs on a drawing? Yet I could befriend people and definitively, lot of engagement in comment ! (mostly us teen writting nonsense however haha).
Mastodon definitively feels like a community, it remind me early deviantart and oekaki space (it's good and bad), so definitively worth investing in.
@elk64 I also was pretty young, haha, but I've honestly always had a hard time befriending people personally. It's both an online *and* offline problem. But for what it's worth, I didn't run into too many bad sorts on dA in my days. If I did talk to people they usually were pretty nice. But sadly for myself I had no real lasting friendships from it.
It is definitely a lot more cozy here! It's not perfect either, but I think it is still one of my faves around so far. :3
@paeonygalaxy I can completely understand the befriending problem 😅 live long problem, I've a few people I stayed in contact with. However the people that stayed on dA, it definitively went into hardcore mode to keep contact. Usually it's by meeting them on convention it did consolidate a bit the different thing (I still believe we were a bunch of people all with pain making friendship irl so we somewhat went along in early dA time)
@elk64 For sure. 😂 Still haven't quite figured it out, but ah well. It probably didn't help I left dA a fair few times (I almost thought about going back until the recent debacle). Even if I don't have connections there, it is always nice hearing about how others have kept in touch over the years.
@elk64 There's likely no perfect answer/solution to what we're all looking for, it's probably just a matter of finding ways to make places work I suppose. :\