I remember when I was a kid.
If I obeyed, I would eventually be punished. Because the people who wanted me to obey, they wanted to put their foot on the back of my head. So obedience clearly became just plain acceptance of abuse.
But then— if I disobeyed— usually, I was never caught. Sneak a cookie; climb into a lion’s cage and pet one of them; punch a bear in the face. If I did what I wanted, always, the consequences were less severe, if not completely nonexistent.
So, when people treated me like shit, I learned—
You either obey and become their bitch.
Or you do what you want, and you live.
A Farewell to Art
One of my favorite things about the whole debacle around A.I. art is that human beings, whether they know it or not, control each other through several social means. One of these is ostracism; the other is shame. You’ve experienced Cancel Culture: all that is, is the confluence of all of those methods of social control, put into one.
But the thing is, I’m half black, half white. I’m mixed-race. I have never been accepted by either. I will never be accepted by anyone. And I’m trans; in such a way that I am neither male, nor female. If people could get over the color of my skin, then most of them don’t pass through the filter of who I actually am.
And so, throughout the years, I’ve learned to do things by myself. People have told me: you need to learn to trust others— you need to learn how to ask for help— but these things are just weaknesses. The people who tell me that, they’re the sorts of people who are actually probably pathological liars. And the ones who tell me to ask for help, only do that so they can be placed in a position where they can judge me. To needle me. To wear me down, emotionally. All these things are the ways that the humans get in. Where they seek control. If you become self-sufficient, no one can touch you.
And so, I have become self-sufficient.
No more begging for art. No more paying in advance, and then waiting for years for something someone eventually draws for me, in 45 minutes.
I have spent thousands of dollars on commissions. Most artists would not get back to me at all, and would start getting upset when I’d e-mail them about the commissions every month. OTHER artists would take my money, up-front, and then eventually tell me that they had no intention of ever drawing anything, and they’d either return it (usually only partially). An interest-free loan.
On Twitter, I got word that a lot of artists are taking 2-4 years to get commissions back.
Listen. I don’t have that kind of time. I also have no intention of drawing things for people who are just going to throw it back in my face, like a monkey throwing shit. Yes: I can draw. I just have no intention of ever drawing something as ugly as a fucking human being; or showing it to one of them.
I made an A.I. art image and somebody reposted it and got 5,000 followers off of it. You’re not going to do that to me with art that I’ve drawn by hand. I will never open myself up like that, to monsters like you.
It makes me laugh. Lots of people are worried: what will come of art, and artists?
Shit, man. I don’t fuckin‘ know. Oh, wait! I do!
BECAUSE THE SPACE ALIENS HAVE HAD THIS TECHNOLOGY FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS, AND THEY STILL HAVE ARTISTS. QUIT FUCKING CRYING
Un-Ostracizable
Over the years, being ostracized for one thing or another— usually, getting kicked out of an Internet community for trying to stop some adult from grooming a child— I’ve learned something.
I don’t fucking need human beings.
Things went wrong in my house, electrically. What did I do?
I fixed them.
My plumbing went bad. What did I do?
I fixed it.
Eventually, after a lifetime of being shamed by actual white supremacists, people who thought I was innately evil because of the color of my skin, I also realized something.
Just because someone is yelling at you, doesn’t mean that they’re right. Confidence has no bearing on the veracity of any given statement.
If this sounds like a victory lap, it is. For the rest of my life— even if this technology is later made unusable, commercially— I give a shit? I have the art. The art makes me happy.
Because the art reminds me of the people I actually love.
Not some dumb motherfuckers on the Internet.
HERE’S AN IMAGE KID DON’T SPEND IT ALL AT ONCE
