My Posting Pains

I love to draw, I always have. But, over the course of this year, or maybe even longer, something happened. A lot of it is my fault. In any case, because of it all,

I don't love posting anymore. I don't feel safe when I do it, and shortly after I do, I tend to feel a lot of pain.

Andy Era

I'd thought posting sucked when I was a 300-Follower Andy on Twitter. But at least, during the time back then that overlapped with my UTAU/VocalSynth activity, I had my tribe, my group, my people. We were all weirdos. None of us was all that stellar at anything (especially then). We were all in it for the love of creation and collaboration. Even though my art and stories were rough and amateur, the friends I had loved me, so they engaged with my creative output (both on and off of Twitter) as an extension of me—the friend they liked—and it was nice. I wasn't even aware of my place within the greater Twitter population.

Along Came Bluesky

I don't know what it was. My feeds? My willingness to search for art and community tags by Recent instead of by Top… I was on Twitter when things like #s, RTs, and QRTs weren't even really features of the platform. They were just things users made up to connect with each other, and were used so much that the platform adopted them as 1st-party features.

I guess I used that knowledge and experience to connect webcomic and OC artists together on Bluesky from 2023 through 2024: the new users who were used to more algorithmically aided social media exploration and discovery. I was geeky enough to make Custom Topic Feeds for my communities to benefit from.

That was it. I don't know. My account began to outgrow me. My peers became people I had to stand on tiptoe to even begin to look up to. I started to feel out of place. When the site was a small Twitter-clone that was never gonna make it, it was fun making things, finding other people making things, and being found by other people making things. But when my silly 300 account launched into the 1000s (and I don't even know what it was anymore. Art shares? Starter packs?) I became a lot harder on myself.

If 1000s of people follow me and only 10s, maybe 100, think a drawing of mine succeeded in entertaining them, I've failed. That's a failing score. That's a failing grade. The bigger my account grew, the more I failed. Isn't that ironic how that works? And the bigger my account grew, the more I was encouraged to turn my love of making digital art physical, into capital that could fund and sustain my livelihood. Yet again, the bigger my account grew, the more I failed.

I know that not all who subscribe, see, and even fewer who see, enjoy, and even fewer who enjoy, feel confident enough to speak it or safe and able to invest in your work. But, even at the "press like button" level: I feel like a failure, and in frantically avoiding feeling that way, posting art feels like an unsafe action. Like I'm deliberately setting myself up to feel pain over and over again.

Posting

When I post thoughts/writing/art to someone's social media feed, when I share thoughts/writing/art in a "server" or group chat, even on the rare occasion I DM thoughts/writing/art to someone, it feels like I am subjecting them to something they didn't ask for.

There is a chance that they might enjoy/appreciate the thing I subjected them to despite them not requesting it, but there is a greater chance that they'll just ignore it, scroll by, swipe past, tab out: and that makes me feel ashamed for even thinking, writing, or drawing in the first place. Thoughts, writings, or drawings that I created in a happy flow state get instantly washed over with shame.

Posting to my website is a bit different. One has to know what functions an address bar serves, one has to know what my URL is, one has to type my URL into the address bar, then press ENTER or GO with intention. And then if one sees thoughts/art/writing they feel is mid, I'll be none the wiser, as there're no "views"/"likes"/"comments"/"reposts" metrics available for me to torture myself with. I can be scrolled past, swiped away from, or tabbed out from while remaining none the wiser, instead of putting my output where no one asked for it, only to feel hurt by a Failing Grade in response.

No one visits individual people's websites or sends emails like the world visits social media web apps or instant messaging apps, but it feels like an ok trade for now.

That's It

That's the way I feel right now. I thought my second detox would make me feel better, but it's only really a detox from Bluesky, Reddit, and feeds/recommendations on YouTube. I'm still able to, and have been feeling both minor pangs and major wounds of pain from forums and instant messaging, along with the job hunt. Though things have improved for me in my job-seeking sprint, it's still been a major rejection fest in that area as well.

Being with old classmates outside has been nice, though opportunities have been slim due to a lack of funds, and feeling like I have to "punish myself" by cancelling certain friend-outings to job-hunt more.

I don't have an outro. Art-poster guy feels trauma responses when it's time to post art.