#Stop the exploitation of artists and creators

[goblin-biscuits]

I’m rebranding AI to BM, for bootleg machine. Let’s call it what it is.

[hera-the-shoggoth]

Smashing the robot in the name of copyright law is not revolution, it's reaction. It is the atavistic response of a person who doesn't understand that technology is a morally neutral thing wielded against the people and not an enemy that can or should be fought for its own sake. Capitalism exploits artists and forces all people to compete with technology for a wage. That, not machine learning, is what is causing art and artists to suffer.

lions are very mean and like jellyfish

[musicofthenightphantomoftheopera]

TEXAS ANIME FANS THIS IS A CALL TO ACTION

The Texas congress are trying to pass a bill that seeks to ban anime, cartoons, & video games that they deem to have 'obscene content' involving minors including sexual exploitation.. Which sounds great on the surface, but here's the problem...it's basically KOSA, but targeted at anime, video games, and cartoons. The wording of the bill surrounding what they deem as 'obscene' content is extremely vague and that's most likely on purpose) so they could use it to ban pretty much anything they want. Including any anime with LGBTQIA+ themes. The bill also states that anyone owning ANY of the material that they deem obscene could be charged with a felony. So you could get in trouble with the law for owning something as innocuous as Sailor Moon dvd's or manga.

And with this felony, they could possibly go after sellers and destributors of anime such as Crunchyroll, and Funimation who are both based in Texas, as well as dealers room sellers at anime conventions. Which means this could possibly spell the beginning of the end of anime conventions in texas entirely. And how long before they start going after your favorite texas based fan artists and fan merch creators??

I know most of y'all don't care about my state cuz it's a southern state and "we" 'voted for this' so we deserve to suffer, but I garuntee you we fucking DID NOT! our state is heavily gerrymandered (meaning our elections are all rigged in favor of republicans otherwise Texas would've been blue a long time ago) And it's also home to one of the largest LGBTQIA communities in the country! There are nerds and minorities here that suffer too!

So please if you live in Texas, read this bill and contact your house reps and tell them to vote no on senate bill 20. because it already passed the senate under everyone's nose. If you don't live in Texas, please spread the word and let your Texas anime friends know. This is strait up fascism under the guise of protecting children as usual. If the Texas gov actually cared, they would've outlawed child marriage and made gun reforms to stop school shootings. It's never about the kids. It's about censorship and control

link to the bill here.

https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/billtext/pdf/SB00020I.pdf#navpanes=0

[tangibletechnomancy]

The (Personal) Is (Political)

~7 hours, Dall-E 3 via Bing Image Creator, generated under the Code of Ethics of Are We Art Yet?

Or, Dear Microsoft and OpenAI: Your Filters Can't Stop Me From Saying Things: An interactive exercise in why all art is political and game of Spot The Symbols

A rare piece I consider Fully Finished simply as a jpeg, though I may do something physical with it regardless. "Director commentary" below, but I strongly encourage you to go over this and analyze it yourself before clicking through, then see how much your reading aligns with my intent.

Elements I told the model to add and a brief (...or at least inexhaustive) overview of why:

Anime style and character figures - Frequently associated with commercial "low" art and consumer culture, in East Asia and the English-speaking world alike, albeit in different ways - justly or otherwise. There is frequently an element of racism to the denigration of anime styles in the west; nearly any American artist who has taken formal illustration classes can tell you a story of being told that anime style will only hinder them, that no one will hire them if they see anime, or even being graded more harshly and scrutinized for potential anime-esque elements if they like anime or imply that they may like anime - including just by being Asian and young. On the other hand, it is true that there is a commercial strategy of "slap an anime girl on it and it will sell". The passion fans feel for these characters is genuine - and it is very, very exploitable. In fact, this commercialization puts anime styles in particular in a very contentious position when it comes to AI discussions!

Dark-skinned boy with platinum and pink [and blue] hair - Racism and colorism! They're a thing, no matter how much the worst people in the world want you to think they're long over and "critical race theory" is the work of evil anti-American terrorists! I chose his appearance because I knew that unless I was incredibly lucky, I would have to fight with this model for multiple hours to get satisfactory results on this point in particular - and indeed I did. It was an interesting experience - what didn't surprise me was how much work it took me to get a skin color darker than medium-dark tan; what did surprise me was that the hair color was very difficult to get right. In anime art, for dark skin to be matched with light hair and eyes is common enough to be...pretty problematic. Bing Image Creator/Dall-E, on the other hand, swings completely in the opposite direction and struggles with the concept of giving dark-skinned characters any hair color OTHER than black, demanding pretty specific phrasing to get it right even 70% of the time. (I might cynically call this yet another illustration against the pervasive copy-paste myth...) There is also much to say about the hair texture and facial features - while I was pleased to see that more results than I expected gave me textured hair and/or box braids without me asking for it, those were still very much in the minority, and I never saw any deviation from the typical anime facial structures meant to illustrate Asian and white characters. Not even once!

Pink and blue color palette - Our subject is transgender. Bias self-check time: did you make that association as quickly as you would with a light-skinned character, or even Sylveon?

Long hair, cute clothes, lots of accessories - Styling while transmasc is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation, doubly so if you're not white. In many locations, the medical establishment and mainstream attitude demands total conformity to the dominant culture's standard conventional masculinity, or else "revoking your man card" isn't just a joke meant to uphold the idea that men are "better" than women, but a very real threat. In many queer communities, especially online, transmascs are expected to always be cute femboys who love pink (while transfems are frequently degraded and seen as threats for being butch), and being Just Some Guy is viewed as inherently a sign of assimilationism at best and abusiveness at worst. It is an eternal tug-of-war where "cuteness" and ornamentation are both demanded and banned at the same time. Black and brown people are often hypermasculinized and denied the opportunity to even be "cute" in the first place, regardless of gender. Long hair and how gender is read into it is extremely culture-dependent; no matter what it means to you, if anything, the dominant culture wherever you are will read it as it likes.

Trophies and medals - For one, the trans sports Disk Horse has set feminism back by nearly 50 years; I'm barely a Real History-Remembering Adult and yet I clearly remember a time when the feminist claim about gender in sports was predominantly "hey, it's pretty fucked up that sports are segregated by sex rather than weight class or similar measures, especially when women's sports are usually paid much less and given weirdly oversexualized uniforms," but then a few loud living embodiments of turds in the punch bowl realized that might mean treating trans people fairly and now it's super common for self-proclaimed feminists - mostly white ones - to claim that the strongest woman will still never measure up to the weakest man and this is totally a feminist statement because they totally want to PROTECT women (with invasive medical screenings on girls as young as 12 to prove they're Really Women if they perform too well, of course). For two, Black and brown people are stereotyped as being innately more sporty, physically strong, and, again, Masculine(TM) than others, which frequently intersects with item 1...and if you think it only affects trans women, I am sorry my friend but it is so much worse and more extensive than you think.

Hearts - They mean many things. Love. Happiness. Cuteness. Social media engagement?

TikTok - A platform widely known and hated around these parts for its arcane and deeply regressive algorithm; I felt it deserved to be name/layout/logodropped for reasons that, if they're not clear already, should become so in the final paragraph.

Computers, cameras and cell phones - My initial specification was that one of the phones should be on Instagram and another on TikTok, which the model instead chose to interpret as putting a TikTok sticker on the laptop, but sure, okay. They're ubiquitous in the modern day, for better and for worse. For all the debate over whether phones and social media are Good For Us or Bad For Us, the fact of the matter is, they seem to be a net positive-to-neutral, whose impacts depend on the person - but they do still have major drawbacks. The internet is a platform for conspiracy theories and pseudoscience and dangerous hoaxes to spread farther than ever before. Social media culture leaves many people feeling like we're always being watched and every waking moment of our lives must be Perfect - and in some senses, we are always being watched these days. Digital privacy is eroding by the day, already being used to enforce all the most unjust laws on the books, which leads to-

Pigs - I wrote the prompt with the intention that it would just be a sticker on the laptop, but instead it chose to put them everywhere, and given that I wanted to make a somewhat stealthy statement about surveillance, especially of the marginalized...thanks for that, Dall-E! ;)

Alligators - A counter to the pigs; a short-lived antifascist symbol after...this.

Details I did not intend but love anyway:

The blue in the hair - I only prompted for platinum and pink in the hair, but the overall color palette description "bled" over here anyway, completing the trans flag, making it even more blatant, and thus even more effective as a bias self-check.

The Macbook - I only specified a laptop. Hilariously ironic, to me, that a service provided through Bing interpreted "laptop" as "Macbook" nearly every time. In my recent history, 22 out of 24 attempts show, specifically, a Macbook. Microsoft v. OpenAI divorce arc when? ;) But also, let us not forget Apple's role in the ever-worsening sanitization of the internet. A Macbook with a TikTok sticker (or, well, a Tiikok sticker - recognizable enough) - I can think of little more emblematic of one of the main things I was complaining about, and it was a happy accident. Or perhaps an unhappy one, considering what it may imply about Apple's grip on culture and communications.

Which brings me to my process:

Generated over ~7 hours with Dall-E 3 through Bing Image Creator - The most powerful free tool out there for txt2img these days, as well as a nightmare of filters and what may be the most disgustingly, cloyingly impersonal toxic positivity I've ever witnessed from a tool. It wants to be Art(TM), yet it wants to ban Politics(TM); two things which are very much incompatible - and so, I wanted to make A Controversial Statement using only the most unflaggable, innocuous elements imaginable, no matter how long it took.

All art is political. All life is political. All our "defaults" are cultural, and therefore political. Anything whatsoever can be a symbol.

If you want all art to be a substance-free "look at the pretty picture :)" - it doesn't matter how much you filter, buddy, you've got a big storm coming.

[imperiuswrecked]

AI being using by comic artists is going to kill the comic industry.

Comics are very much a visual media, and art being original and unique to the artists working on the books is a huge part of why people buy and read comics. Learning that an artist I enjoyed was using AI art somewhere in their process is pretty devastating to me, and truth be told I wish I had listened to my suspicions earlier instead of ignoring them, but the fact that I will never know for sure until the artist actually admits it is enough to make me stop buying their work. People have been warning others about how AI art is killing art, and for a medium like comics where art is integral to the story, I do not want to be spending what little money I have for my hobbies buying AI. It's scummy for an artist to do that to their fans.

I know there's been lots of comic art scandal since forever in comics, I know there's artists who trace porn, I know there's artists who steal from other artists, sometimes from the very same company doing the same books, I know there's artists who frankly shouldn't be given work because they cannot draw, yet because they knew the right people or something they get work that I know a lot of other artists could do better.

I know the comic industry has a lot of issues, especially in regards to how the companies treat their artists. I know the struggle artists & writers go through for their work, and I've always tried to support my favorite creators. I know that artists are under a lot of pressure, and deadlines, and that they are very underpaid. I know they are exploited by the comic industry. I think it sucks. I think they should have better working conditions and pay, I think there should be regulations, I think we should blacklist art thieves, but people who are a lot smarter than me and more experienced in the comic industry and understand the situation better are the best to listen to when it comes to this issue.

I know all of this but I won't accept it as an excuse to use AI.

I feel very strongly that any comic artist who uses AI at any part of their process and leave it in the end result shouldn't do that, and I won't support it. I can only hope that this doesn't become a common thing, because I know companies will jump at the chance to cut out artists even more and use AI for comics, anything to make themselves more money while leaving artists with nothing. Then they'll bring the artists back in to "clean up some AI work" and sell it. That's what the comic industry will end up being if the companies or artists use AI in their work.

[mask131]

How do you feel about shipping greek gods? (for lack of a better word to describe two or more people being together in a relationship I just used shipping)

Well... It depends? I don't know? Xp

The thing is that the Greek gods are horny gods, that cannot be denied, so you know, they already almost all slept with each other at some point so there's a lot of "shippng" material that's for sure.

What I would say is... it depends on why the shipping is happening, for which purpose? It is for a purely fictional storytelling, or just for personal enjoyment? And I would point out two precise things that are important to show you're not just making stuff up randomly (though I will say making stuff up randomly is allowed, and can sometimes be bloody genius - but that will be for my point B, the person who is making stuff up should know themselves and be clear that they're making stuff up)

A) Always be aware of the characterization, traits and features of the Greek gods before "shipping" them so that you don't end up making some sort of HUGE misunderstanding or misinformation thingy going on. I'm going to take an obvious example, but for example shipping Poseidon and Athena, or Athena and Ares will require it to be with full understanding of their rivalry and/or hatred for each other (so you know, perfect for "rivals to lovers" fic) - though again, with Athena there's also the need to understand she is this virgin goddess that is like a huge asexuality symbol, so you can slide romance in there but none of "Venus' craft" if you know what I mean. And for you it might seem obvious but for example there was this deleted scene of the Clash of Titans remake which was talked about a lot because Athena appeared in there and she was like this very sensual and sexy goddess that tried to basically seduce another god, so you know, the basics of mythology are not always there.

(I'm speaking here mostly in terms of you know, fic and personal artwork and whatnot to bring my example, but you know it can also apply to if you want to, I don't know, publish a book or make a cartoon or whatever)

B) But the most important thing to maintain there, and what is ALWAYS important when dealing with ANY mythology of any kind: be conscious of the differences.

The thing is that, as a creator facing myths and legends, you can basically do almost anything. ("Almost" because there's still stuff that you can't do unless you just want to look like someone who doesn't know shit about the source material). Myths and legends are here to be exploited, interpreted, reused and reshaped and redrawn. I'll go on a side-rent here but there was this post criticizing "modern retelling" of Greek myths in video games, novels and comics, and it concluded with "Just don't touch the myths again, let them as they are". And while I did understand why the person would dislike these modern works (though I do not agree with the entire selection), this conclusion is just wrong. If medieval scholars and Renaissance artists and World War playwrights had not constantly reinvented the Greek myths, it wouldn't be part of common culture as it is today. Heck, Greek mythology itself relies on a bunch of authors from various countries (because they were city-states you know) and from various centuries making WILD reinterpretations of "canon lore" and "previous takes" on gods and legends (remember that a lot of things people claim is part of "Greek mythology" come from stuff like theater plays and philosophy essays... Not really as sacred as the Bible). So to demand mythology to stop being represented and depicted is just... you know, wishing for its death and the stop of its cultural richness.

On the other hand here's where the problem lies: there is so much misinformation and popular misconceptons and erroneous cliches due to how it was all handled carelessly or without any knowledge of actual material (there's especially this whole wave of bringing in Christian ideals into the Ancient Greek world, from Disney's Hercules to Netflix's Blood of Zeus - at least season 1 I didn't watch season 2), that people need to be literaly taught again the simple basic. I know it sounds stupid but the whole "Medusa is a monster, not a girl turned into one" I literaly knew as a kid just because I read guides and books about the Greek myths - not fictional books, just, you know, manuals and encyclopedias and stuff. Yet, this thing found in any basic "101 to Greek mythology" absolutely baffled a lot of people... It shows how, again, people are somehow willing to take more from, I don't know, Internet posts (*cough cough* yes I'm doing Internet posts *cough cough*), cartoon series and novels than from just actual books presenting Greek mythology, not in a fictionized way.

Anyway sorry for the rant X) But my point is: one is allowed to do anything and reinvent all things however they want, as long as they have enough knowledge and understanding of the source material. It is my personal logic but, if someone can defend their choices in a way that shows they actually do know their stuff, are conscious about what they changed and recognize that they modified things, then I'm fully okay with it. To still go the shipping route, if someone says something like "Oh yeah, Aphrodite and Hephaistos are in love and the best couple ever", I can accept this if the same person does, you know, recognize how in the myths Aphrodite cheats on Hephaistos and/or Hephaistos divorces from her. "Yes I am aware of that, but for X reason or X purpose I decided to change it". Then I'm fine, you know. But if the person starts saying stuff like "I didn't know that" or "I don't care, it's not like it's important anyway", then I'll have a problem.

On a final note for the "shipping" - again I don't know for which purpose or on which level this all takes place so I am doing a BROAD answer I hope is vague and general enough - there's a little something very important to remember: the relationships of the gods are all very important. As in, on a symbolical level, there's always a sort of meaning down there you must get, you know? I talked about it before but the relationships of PosEidon, Demeter and Zeus are reflection of more primal Earth-Sea-Sky relationships. Why did Hermes and Aphrodite had "Hermaphrodite"? Because while Aphrodite is the symbol of feminity and womanhood by excellence, Hermes was originally a symbol of the phallic power (see the penis-by-the-side-of-the-road thing), so it makes sense they would create a being uniting male and female genders.

And there's a distinct evolution when it comes to the "incest" of the gods. I need to talk about it because the Greek gods thrive on incest, you know, but it is something people tend to not realize - that Greek mythology has a sort of "chronological evolution in-universe" of how the incest works. The most brutal, raw and obvious forms of incests (daughter-father, brother-sister) actually belong to older and more primordial generations of gods, reflecting how they come from an earlier time of more chaos, less civilization, and also less people: Ouranos and Gaia, the Titans, the first Olympians... But when you move by the second-generation Olympians for example, you realize a step is taken forward and the incest is not direct anymore. They still sleep with each other, but it is more "uncle-niece" and "half-sister, half-brother" or "cousin" relationships. You won't see Apollo smooching his twin sister. You don't see Ares sleeping with any of his two sisters either. And that's because, under the rule of Zeus, by the age of the Olympians, a new form of civilization and order starts encuring, one which starts to remove the most brutal and violent primal pulsions of the gods, one which moves towards the very present day and human civilization where incest is not allowed. It's a little detail people can miss, but as with everything it is very important. (And if you start telling me about "how Zeus slept with Persephone", correct me if I'm wrong but I think that's an Orphic belief, or at least comes from some Orphic fragment, and people should also start realizing that the Orphic people were weird - even by typical Ancient Greek standard - and were doing their own thing on the aside. Though, it still works with another thing prevalent throughout Greek mythology as a whole - this very interesting, ambivalent role of the first Olympians like Zeus or Poseidon, who are the rulers of this new, orderly, civilized world, and yet still end up bringing over habits and elements from the older, more brutal and chaotic past, much to everybody's problem. You know, that's when Zeus and Poseidon tend to cause trouble for everybody - if the gods had a psychology, you could write a whole thing about "generational trauma" and how despite building a new world free of the chaos and disorder of the primal gods and "bad" Titans, the older Olympians are still reproducing the same habits and patterns as their previous generations, which is the very reason there's some of the conflicts in Greek myths. But we're getting too far ahead Xp)

All of that to say - you can ship, but know that in Greek mythology, shipping will have consequences.

[npd-vriska]

tumblr is not currently selling your art to midjourney. the deal has not been made. even if it had, the data is currently unusable. i am begging you all to chill and stop sharing posts promoting nightshade and glaze as the last bastions of artistic integrity against evil tech companies.

i think what annoys me about a lot of the ways people online talk about AI art is that a lot of the proposed "solutions" i see championed are functionally just riding on the idea of un-opening pandora's box, which means they're incredibly ineffective because that's just not something we can do at this point. and worse, that sentiment is exploitable.

sure it makes you feel like you, personally, as a creator, have control over this new development threatening your livelihood. but that's not a good thing! glaze is a grift that uses the exact same technology as stable diffusion and straight up doesn't work as advertised, the creators bank on you feeling that way. it doesn't protect you against anything, it just makes you feel good, meanwhile the creators gets money and exposure out of your fear.

if you didn't know, the same developers who made glaze are also behind nightshade. and what do they do with nightshade's popularity? well it's simple, they've studied the effect it has on AI art algorithms. and then they sold the research.

and you must understand, even if everything i've said wasn't the case, making the pictures these algorithms produce compatible for training algorithms again is as easy as running them through a de-noising upscaler.

and i'm an artist myself. i do not want my art used in that way. i do not want to be in midjourney's training data, i don't want someone to make a LORA of my work without my consent, i don't want any of that. but still, ask yourself: who benefits from making us panicked and afraid every single time a new AI deal is mentioned? because it's not you or me. there is a problem, and no problem has ever been solved through fear.

which is also why i'm not here to say you're evil for using these tools, or that they are secretly worse than the companies you're trying to combat by using them. it's not wrong to want to feel safe, you are perfectly within your right to do what makes you feel in control. you can keep using them if that's what you want! but please, be aware of what's going on here.

there is no going back. the technology exists, we have to accept it. because the sooner we accept this is the reality we live in, the sooner we'll be able to fight it. but i am begging you all to stop pretending easy solutions exists to this problem, there are none.

demand transparency. demand control. demand that this things be opt-in. demand compensation.

you will not be saved from companies trying to profit from these algorithms by simply going to their competitors.

[xenosagaepisodeone]

As much as copyright law sucks, its unfortunately one of the only legal venues with any sort of real power for artists working in creative industries to protect their livelihoods and colleagues. Unionization alone isn't going to stop companies from scraping people's work, especially not people who are non-union or freelancers, and unions like SAG-AFTRA keep throwing people who aren't making top-dollar under the bus for "ethical" AI startups they partner with anyway, even when said members call them out for siding with corporate over their own due-paying members. When corporations who normally try to shut down creators with DMCA takedowns are now violating the IP of countless creators themselves, why shouldn't we at least hold them accountable to the same laws they already use against us?

because it will not work. I truly cannot stress this enough, whatever meager personal gains that some industry artists are able to acquire in isolated cases against startups and other boutique tech ventures will set the precedent for which the corporations that actually control your country (who have infinite resources to expend on legal ventures) will use to push the law further in their favor. disney already does so much to prevent their IPs from entering the public domain! if you give them an avenue to exploit, they will do it! and it won't matter who was actually right because they have they have so much more money. artists and indie animation studios that could pose any threat to corporate monopolies on art will get C&D'd out of existence for superficial similarities. karla ortiz' lawsuit was so vaguely worded that you could hypothetically pursue someone legally if they had artwork of yours saved in a pinterest inspo board since CLIP models were framed as "trade dress databases". this entire movement is more concerned with potentially obstructed opportunities to rent-seek than it actually is about workers rights- or even simply art that was not created with the intent of being 'content'. and the same industry artists who spearheaded this frenzy will side the the corporations when it comes to it because they've already got theirs.

copyright is never made with the interests of individuals in mind. like, i can't even begin to explain how historically, the little guy is the one getting fucked over by copyright law! how so much of what shapes our culture exists in spite of copyright law as opposed to because of it. what drives me insane is how ai is the thing that artists end up rallying around in unity; not anything to actually improve the quality of life working within the arts, but instead a fad technology. i've seen people describe working in animation as being like a form of debasement and act like nothing can be done while i'm witnessing an entire movement unfold to protect that because a lot of artists seem to think of themselves as temporarily embarrassed small business owners over workers.

[titleknown]

I will say, I'm glad folks are talking about the issues of global exploitation and the way the small-creator-merch production pipeline has a fucked up role in it, I think it's a conversation that absolutely needs to happen...

But I feel like y'all need to find a way to actually organize a campaign to materially do something about it instead of letting it devolve into a guilt-stick people bludgeon others over the head with without doing anything.

Like, for clarity's sake I'm the last person who should actually head such an org, and I'm saying this from a perspective of hypothesis, but I do at least have a list of questions you should ask yourself if you do want to start an org/movement.

Like, for the general ones:

What are your end-goals? both short-term and long term? What is a good immediately-achievable goal to work towards at the start to recruit?

What levers of power are available to use to get your goals done? What could you do to expand those levers of power?

What forces stand against you? What pillars support their power? How can you undermine those pillars?

Where is an adversarial framing avoidable? How do you build solidarity in that context? Where is adversarial framing unavoidable? How do you go forward then? How do you tell when that framing is avoidable and unavoidable?

How do you get people onboard? How do you get them to stay? How do you get them to actively work on this?

And for the ones specific to this:

What is your immediate goals for the production of these luxury goods? For it to cease because it is logistically impossible to do ethically? For it to be done with a fair wage by unionized workers if that is possible? For creatives to diversify and divest into smaller, more ethically producible merch? A combination?

How would you establish contact with those overseas workers to address their needs? Who would you ask amongst them, and how would you center their input? What would acting as a representative of your organization to speak with them entail?

What would more ethical small artists merch production entail? What methods are logistically possible? What barriers might prevent small artists from engaging in those methods? How does one deal with the problem of a consumer base that might not buy that ethical merch from said artists?

How do you propose dealing with the potential loss of income from this production for those artists who potentially cannot afford to lose it? Are there any other things causing artistic poverty or mitigations of the problem that can be addressed by this campaign as potential means to fill in that gap? Are there any orgs working on those you could potentially ally with?

What can be done to create solidarity between global north artists and global south workers rather than the current adversarial arrangement? Is that even possible? If so, what goals would achieve that in the immediate term, short term, long term?

Note I mean none of this as a bad faith rhetorical-question "gotcha," but rather, as the first steps to thinking about how one might go about this, because we need an org for this because it's an important issue we need to address as both creatives and as a larger society.

And like, while org-building is easier said than done, if this remains just in the realm of "vagueposting and scolding on social media," well...

...I ain't gonna stop you, but have fun being politically irrelevant.

[sirghostheart]

I'm gonna be real. I used to be really anti-ai (and vocally so at my old college), but after following some copyright abolitionists commies (many of them artists themselves), I realized that the problem isn't generative ai, but the exploitative labor system we live in, and also that copyright is more likely to harm small creators (specially creators of fan and other derivative works) than help them.

I also got confronted with my own existential dread of being unable to make a career of my art and I began questioning myself my motivations to make art. Do I enjoy creating or do I just want to be validated?

This, coupled with some research on the business side of comics, made me come to terms with the fact that living off comics is a total pipe dream especially here in Brazil, and that I should settle for a day job and publish comics on the web so more people can read it.

I'm still lukewarm towards ai even as a tool, but I stopped thinking using it is a moral failuire.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Look I'm not anti-pirating (especially when big corporations keep erasing shows from streaming and it's impossible to buy them and piracy is the only way they're preserved, and so on)

but i fuckin' hate how a lot of people in the pro piracy discussion have no fucking respect for artists and think they don't deserve to profit off of what they poured sweat and blood into.

"pirating is rejecting an idea someone owns a work of art"

uh yeah. people do own works of art??? They do own the art they make??? They do deserve respect and to have their labor recognized??? what the fuck are you talking about. If someone makes something, you don't own it. They deserve to get paid for it. Are you saying is someone spends years of their life crafting a beautiful chandelier or piece of jewelry or something like that they don't own it, their work doesn't matter, they shouldn't get anything for that, it's yours now. We don't live in a socialist paradise. People need compensation for labor.

If I made a book, it's mine, and I would like you to buy it or get it from the library, because I need money to survive. Most authors are living hand to mouth. Most are working multiple jobs and barely have time to write. If you steal from them, you're taking any chance they might be able to keep creating. We're losing authors to exploitative corporations, and we'll keep losing more if y'all continue to act like their work has no value. They won't be able to keep creating.

And look, I'm not innocent. I obviously use scans and that's often a single creator.. But I can own that I'm not morally justified in doing it. I'm wronging the artist. I'm not doing it out of some selfless commitment to socialism or whatever, I'm doing it because it's convenient and scanning every page from a book I own would be hard. I would never justify it by saying the author's work is meaningless and you can't own the stuff you poured your sweat and tears into, because that's ridiculous. Sure, I'm poor, you're poor... and so is the artist usually.

Whenever I'm able to buy someone's work digitally, physically, or at least check it out from the library, I do. Especially if I've relied on scans in the past. I know that's the respectful thing to do.

Nobody can stop you from pirating from small creators, but it's obnoxious to act like the artist doesn't matter and you're a hero. You take from artists and say they don't matter, no one will want to be an artist. It's as simple as that.

[pinbones]

Every month my tolerance for uwu small artist crap falls by a small percent. The whole internet is already ads and corporations and now the small business hearted artists are doing numbers in every art community

No, I'm not reblogging your comms post, I don't know you

No, it's not unacceptable for someone to have your drawing as a tattoo or phone background without asking, that's not how art or copyright or etiquette works

No, it's not reasonable to tell people not to 'take inspiration' from things, that's ludicrous

No, it's not an insult to like a post and not reblog it, people don't owe you growth or algorithm obedience

No, it's not reasonable to guilt or threaten people, that's obnoxious at best and harmful to some people at worst

No, IP law isn't a good thing for small creators, it isn't good for anyone but large companies who exploit them

And no, people don't owe you anything. Yes, even if you put hard work in. Yes, this is actually good for everyone, even if it's not ideal for you. There's more to artist communities than sharing each other's paypals and acting obnoxious, and other people's blogs are not walking wallets with eyes. People will engage with and pay for stuff when they feel like it, that's how everything has been forever, stop trying to make people miserable and guilty just for your misunderstanding of how art as business works. Please we already live in hell just take a breather and knock it off

[norazingrid]

We need communism in the OSC

I know this sounds controversial, but I think that a communist approach to the community would do good for it.

I want communism because shit like "jacknjellify LLC" and "adamations Inc." should NOT exist.

The OSC is a community of creators, artists, creative minds, not pseudo-corporate slop that queerbait, scam, take advantage of the gullibility of the viewers (mostly MINORS. KIDS.) and get away with ableism, racism, transphobia, ZIONISM (YES, ZIONISM.) because a horde of brainless manchildren will defend them because they want their consumer product. These motherfuckers are turning what used to be a community of free creators into a cesspool of useless competition in which the ones who capitalize win and take advantage of their "popularity".

Jacknjellify and Adamations make THOUSANDS of dollars through their mediocre, ableist, queerbaity, soulless corporate shitty ass shows and low-quality merch that, by the way, is manufactured by exploited children in factories with POOR LIFE CONDITIONS. And that's also how it relates to the real-life horrors of capitalism.

What do most of OSC creators get from their shows? NOTHING. NOTHING. While these ableist greedy zionist leeches capitalize and exploit children, both in a psychological and physical way although indirectly, honest creators get NOTHING.

And don't get me started on the meetups. The meetups, the most soulless, corporate, CLASSIST thing that came out of this "OSC elite". Screening episodes to only a selected, privileged part of the community, episodes that 95% of the OSC have been waiting for months - no, YEARS. And screening them in only one country, ignoring how most of the OSC either cannot afford to buy tickets for a screening or lives on the totally different side of the earth. This is CLASSISM, by definition. This is why I also thank the leakers who gave us the episodes we've been waiting for that are being kept from the masses in favor of a privileged elite.

These companies are turning into Disney, and I do not say this with a positive connotation. The OSC is made of people, not consumers, and it's time everyone learns it. In a matter of years they're going to come after you, small creators who make a heartfelt show to get nothing in return, and you, viewers who yet do not realize these companies are taking your money and taking advantage of your gullibility.

We DO need communism in the OSC because class war is everywhere, even where you least expect it, even in a small Internet community. We DO need communism in the OSC because our art is not a tool of capitalism and it should not be used as such.

fuck communism I don’t want any talk about it, stop involving politic shit into the creators a lot of them have made it clear that they don’t support any of those stuff, did you just ignore how they fired Taylor from the team? 🙁 it’s not that big they’re just here to entertain us stop putting pressure on them. If you’re a communist get the fuck out of my blog immediately

[sad-lullabee]

🔥 Mary Shelley: The Original Rebel 🔥

Long before feminism had a name or anarchism was a movement, Mary Shelley embodied both—an icon for every woman and free thinker who ever dared to break the rules. 🌑 This is the story of how a young woman defied societal expectations, created a genre, and dared to ask questions that still haunt us today.

✒️ 1. Author of Frankenstein at Age 18

Let’s start with the fact that Mary Shelley was just 18 years old when she conceived Frankenstein, a novel that would go on to define an entire genre. Not only did she create what we now recognize as science fiction, but she also wrote a story that questioned the very nature of creation, power, and responsibility. Her story posed radical questions about science and society that were way ahead of her time—questions we’re still grappling with today.

"I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body." — Frankenstein

Mary didn’t just write a novel; she opened a door into the philosophical realm where science, ethics, and humanity collide. To create that kind of work at such a young age? Iconic.

🌹 2. A Voice for Women in a Time of Silence

As the daughter of feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and anarchist philosopher William Godwin, Mary was raised with a rebellious streak. But make no mistake, she wasn't just following in her parents' footsteps—she forged her own path in a society that stifled female voices. At a time when women were largely excluded from intellectual life, Mary created a groundbreaking work of literature that dealt with the raw power of creation, reflecting a woman's complex relationship with the act of creation itself.

Frankenstein can be read as a feminist text—an exploration of the consequences of unchecked male ambition. As Victor Frankenstein rejects his own creation, we see Mary’s commentary on a society that sidelines women’s creative contributions and responsibilities, while glorifying male “genius.” Her work showed that women could be thinkers, writers, and philosophers just as much as men, a radical notion in the early 19th century.

⚡ 3. Rebellion Against the Status Quo

Mary’s life itself was a form of resistance. She fell in love with Percy Bysshe Shelley, a married poet, and scandalized society by eloping with him. This choice meant financial hardship, societal rejection, and emotional turmoil. Yet, through it all, she refused to conform. She traveled, wrote, and remained unapologetically herself.

Her life and her work became a testament to individualism and nonconformity, values cherished by anarchists and free-thinkers alike. By pursuing love, art, and intellectual freedom, Mary showed that one could live authentically without bending to society’s judgment.

🧩 4. A Prophet of the Dangers of Authority

In Frankenstein, Mary exposes the hubris of those in power who think they can control life and death without consequence. She depicts Victor Frankenstein as a cautionary figure—a “creator” whose ambition and ego lead him to transgress natural boundaries, abandoning his “creation” and ultimately causing chaos. In this, we see Mary’s prescient warning about the dangers of authority and the consequences of those who wield power without accountability.

Her warnings apply not only to scientists but to any authority that tries to dominate, exploit, or “create” without considering the human cost. This is anarchist thought in its essence—challenging unchecked power and advocating for responsibility and freedom.

🥀 5. Legacy of Resilience and Creative Defiance

Despite incredible hardships—losing loved ones, facing financial insecurity, and navigating a patriarchal world—Mary never stopped writing. She edited Percy’s works after his death, making sure his legacy lived on, and continued to publish her own. Her resilience made her a symbol for artists, women, and radicals alike.

Today, Mary Shelley remains a figure for anyone who has ever felt out of place in a society that demands conformity. She’s an icon for every woman, every anarchist, and every creative mind that has dared to imagine something different, something better.

With Frankenstein, Mary Shelley didn’t just create a monster—she created a legacy of rebellion, resilience, and radical thought. She paved the way for generations of women writers, thinkers, and rebels who followed. In her courage to live and write by her own rules, Mary remains a reminder that true art and real change often come from those who refuse to play by the book.

📚 6. Iconic Reads for the Radical Spirit

"Frankenstein" – Shelley’s groundbreaking novel on humanity, rebellion, and the limits of science—an essential read.

"The Last Man" – Shelley’s lesser-known but powerful work on isolation, freedom, and survival.

"Mary Shelley: Her Life, Her Fiction, Her Monsters" by Anne K. Mellor – A modern look at Shelley’s legacy, philosophy, and radical ideas.

[horrorgator-terrordile]

Never in a million years I’d expect one of my favorite people to be outed as a pedophile or remotely a problematic person. Alex Kister has been one of my biggest inspirations for a few years now. I got into mandela catalogue back in late 2021 and watching it has completely changed me artistically and mentally. To see him exposed as the monster he actually is, sickened me to my core. I was in full disbelief when reading the doc, thinking it was just a nightmare and I was still in bed. (I wish that was the case). This bastard abused his power as a content creator and exploited it for his own sick benefits. He manipulated me, his fans, his friends, everyone.

I’ve decided to leave tmc fandom and tmc as a whole. I’d stop drawing any mandela-related art a long time ago and now I’ll never will.

As for my tmc ocs, they’re just my regular ocs and I’ll do a complete overhaul on their characters, stories and such for the time being.

I’m not as active on here as I used to be so I’ll try start posting on here again. Please support Donut, Ven, DB, Eva, and all the other poor souls who fell victim to this horrible vile man. Goodnight and fuck Alex Kister.

[dapg-otmebytheballs]

Okay while i dont think that they are extremely rich, i do think their networth is well over a couple million, mainly just bc there is no way their house is worth less than a million pounds. A house like that? In london? It would not be cheap. Like they dont earn enough to live off it for the rest of their lives, but i also would not say they were struggling by any means. I mean they were able to go 5 years without many significant career endeavors and buy a house during it.

Oh yeah they aren't struggling whatsoever, they are one of the "successful" YouTubers, and they've had more steady income from other sources too, like the radio show. These guys very much are middle class (hence them making bougie jokes- bougie has always referred to middle class), being able to afford a house and all. But that's basically the point of that post, that people who aren't constantly financially struggling and people who have disposable income aren't the same as quote unquote "rich" people.

We're talking in terms of class analysis, yeah? The category of "rich" when used in such phrases as 'eat the rich' is convenient insofar as it helps us categorise the people for whose benefit a capitalist system works, whose interests are being taken into account when making policy, and who horde resources and mooch off of the labour of others. When we're just joking amongst ourselves it's understood what you mean when you call your middle class friends rich, or when you call YouTubers of this status rich (and again, they aren't even like Mr Beast levels of rich, who in turn isn't Hollywood A-listers level rich, who in turn aren't capitalist pig Bezzos level rich). But with a lot of people getting more involved in online activism these concepts are getting blurred and our perceptions of class are affected.

So while I've seen no one from like, our fandom do this, I've seen this happen to other YouTubers (and a friend and I were just talking about it today so it was on my mind) where people who haven't taken the time to understand class divides very well think that internet celebrities are genuinely hand to heart rich rich. On the same level as rich when we say the ruling class the elite the exploitative rich class. Except they aren't. They're middle class and upper middle class people. Even the millionaires amongst them are a far far cry from billionaires (we've seen the graphics explaining the massive difference between a million and a billion of course). And that skewed idea of "disposable income/being able to afford a house or good phone or bathtub or [insert item associated with Richness] means that this person is Rich" becomes dangerous when applied to clear political action in terms of class divide. Because then we're viewing these YouTubers as being the class that has their interests taken care of and are the ones exploiting people, rather than industry workers who are getting exploited by companies like YouTube.

And people very much are taking it too far, like that person who said John Boyega can't talk about class struggles and exploitation because he's also 'the rich'. He isn't. And these YouTubers aren't either but skewed ideas of what wealth looks like drives online hordes to view the wrong people as the enemy or as the exploitative class.

When talking about "the rich" we should be thinking about the capitalists. Blurring these classes is an issue precisely because people online are now engaging with artists and creators with great contempt, entitlement, and misdirected "eat the rich seize their resources" calls to action.

Btw not at all saying you should stop making jokes about them being rich lol, that's again, something we understand as "they have monies now" amongst ourselves. It's more to understand and know how to counter any misdirected rage of the sort we've seen lot of other internet celebrities and actors face. Idk how clear I've made this but feel free to follow up with me!