#obviously there's some nuance around the edges of this discussion and what i've said here is an oversimplification

[aeide-thea]

tumblr ate the original version of this post, but tl;dr i'd gotten to thinking about the 'don't just like, reblog!!1!' discourse that seems to have intensified lately, and i think for me the issue is basically that artists seem to want to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to whether they're our peers, or actual professionals?

like—fundamentally my blog is my space to express my own taste in. period. that's what it's fundamentally primarily for. ergo i'm not going to reblog things i have mixed feelings about, because that would be misrepresenting my taste, unless i can append critique to them in order to clarify where my taste diverges. which i can do, with professional work!

but i'm pretty sure most tumblr artists would be upset to find criticism popping up in their notes. which is totally understandable! but like. if i have to discuss your work politely, rather than honestly, because you're a peer who's in the room with me—then yeah, if i don't like it enough, i won't reblog it, because if i don't have anything good to say, i shouldn't say anything. which isn't how we handle professional art! but it is how we handle our peers.

and it just seems to me like—you've got artists out here going 'i'm a struggling amateur, so you should do me a solid and toss me some free publicity! 🥺' but also 'i'm trying to make a living at this, so you should do me a solid and toss me some free publicity! 🥺' and i just feel like, which is it? because if you're my peer, then i'm only going to discuss your work publicly if i like it enough, because to do otherwise would be rude. and if you're a professional, then i don't owe it to you to subsidize your business by providing free advertising! if a business's products don't actually organically appeal to people, it should go under!

which maybe sounds harsh, but like. i have no desire to see making art restricted in any way. people should make whatever art they like, regardless of audience or quality, and derive joy from that! but like. if you want to make a living from your art, you should, actually, be making work of a quality that will speak for itself, in which case you shouldn't need to browbeat people into recommending it??