My apologies if this is a ramble but I wanted to ask you/your followers for advice if possible.For all of 2023, I was preparing to debut a webcomic. I coded the website by hand, all the writing, all the character reference pages, even setting up social media pages for it and everything. I had two posts advertising get a lot of traction, I had everything ready to go.Outside of original works, I am semi-popular fandom artist. Popular enough that people know my name, I guess? I have an uncommon first name and people will recognize me by that over my username; I’m not really sure how else to explain it. In November, I was dragged into a huge anti/proship callout thread for some of the people I was following. Every single one of my pieces was analyzed for ‘weird subtext’ and I was put under this extremely dehumanizing magnifying glass. This ruined any desire I had to keep working on original projects. I haven’t touched anything about my webcomic since, *especially* because it featured some of the “problematic” themes that I was under fire over.I know this experience isn’t uncommon, but anytime I see it happen to other artists they let it slide off of them or they take a hiatus until it boils over. Neither of these have really worked for me since art is my full time job and I am overcome with stress. I am having nightmares about these kids finding me in real life, and I just want the drive to keep creating original work to come back. Thanks for reading.

My apologies if this is a ramble but I wanted to ask you/your followers for advice if possible.For all of 2023, I was preparing to debut a webcomic. I coded the website by hand, all the writing, all the character reference pages, even setting up social media pages for it and everything. I had two posts advertising get a lot of traction, I had everything ready to go.Outside of original works, I am semi-popular fandom artist. Popular enough that people know my name, I guess? I have an uncommon first name and people will recognize me by that over my username; I’m not really sure how else to explain it. In November, I was dragged into a huge anti/proship callout thread for some of the people I was following. Every single one of my pieces was analyzed for ‘weird subtext’ and I was put under this extremely dehumanizing magnifying glass. This ruined any desire I had to keep working on original projects. I haven’t touched anything about my webcomic since, especially because it featured some of the “problematic” themes that I was under fire over.I know this experience isn’t uncommon, but anytime I see it happen to other artists they let it slide off of them or they take a hiatus until it boils over. Neither of these have really worked for me since art is my full time job and I am overcome with stress. I am having nightmares about these kids finding me in real life, and I just want the drive to keep creating original work to come back. Thanks for reading.

by admin on January 15, 2024 at 12:26 am

Anon, I am so sorry that that happened to you.

The amount of harassment and public hate that creators face these days is unhinged and untenable.

I wish I had real advice for you, but all I can say is that I hope you can feel comfortable creating again soon.

If anyone else has any good advice for anon, or wants to share their experiences, please feel free to.