As social media has been crumbling, and as I’ve proceeded on my art journey, learned what was good— but especially learned what wasn’t good— I’ve started to see art very differently.
And I’m not interested in any of it.
I’ll explain.
I don’t want to go on your journeys.
A lot of artists, upon coming in contact with A.I. art, said things to me, like, ‘you should be interested in our self-expression.’
I’m not. At one point in my life, sure. I was interested in what made human beings human. I was interested in what their hopes, dreams, amibitions, etc., were.
At this point in my life, i’ve just spent literal decades paying attention to other people. And now, as I’ve gotten old, I’ve realized… I never spent any time listening to what I wanted.
I’m not interested in your headspace(s).
There are a lot of people that I would meet on Twitter, and they’d instantly attempt to dominate the conversation. They would tell me all about themselves; their life story; and it was usually all love-bombing narcissist bullshit. I remember one dipshit wanted me to remember their family’s history. I don’t give a shit.
There are other people who want to require me to remember very delicate, intricate, ever-changing aspects of their personalit(ies). No. We’re not doing that. I’m not doing that.
There are artists I’ve seen who want you to be very fucking enthralled with the deep inner-workings of their minds.
I don’t care anymore, kids.
It’s over.
The art’s not even that good.
This is something that’s been bothering me for a very long time. No matter how good art is, I don’t want it. I don’t need it. I might like it; I might like looking at it, for a bit. But, overall, eventually, I get fucking sick of it. I get fucking sick of it, every single time.
I’ve been shifting / transitioning over to real life, and, eventually, I started to realize that the only ‘thing’ in this world that I never got tired of looking at were real people. I have people I love. I like looking at them. I enjoy being near them.
I don’t fuckin’ like anybody online anymore.
And this shit is gross.
I produce hentai.
There is nothing I’ve made thus far that is as gross as the insides of other people’s minds. I don’t wanna see that shit. Human beings are way too enthralled with cum.
It has to end sometime.
When I was younger, I used to wonder: when would I stop arguing with people online? Because I loved to do that. I spent years doing that. I loved humiliating people. It was great. If you’ve never gotten somebody so angry that they lose sleep over it, you have no fucking idea the kind of shit I would be doing to people online. They’d be dumb assholes; I’d waste their time for years. It was great.
One day, it stopped. You wanna know why?
Sometimes you reach the end of a Path. And for me, not only was arguing with people not conducive to keeping my Twitter account, but I realized that nobody was going to beat me at it.
A few years ago I followed a bunch of people because I was like, I wanna make friends with them!. That barely worked. Definitely didn’t. And in the end, I was like… well, I guess nobody wants to be frens wif me.
And I was sad.
For a second. Eventually, I got too many ‘friends’, and I started to realize— some of these people, they’re garbage on the inside. And they let themselves be garbage. They’re just mean and loud and rude. I don’t wanna hang around that.
In the same vein, about a year or so ago, when I started on my artists’ journey, I followed a bunch of artists on Twitter. I wanted to see what I liked about their styles.
I’m at the point where I can say, nothing. I like fucking nothing. There are one or two or three artists in the entire world whose styles I want to draw in— and, in fact, I have— and one of them, God love them, they’re such a fucking aggressive asshole that one cannot even really follow them on social media without getting yelled at by them. That’s the sort of person where I’m like, God damn; I hope I learn how to draw like them so I just don’t have to look at them anymore. For the most part I’ve figured out that person’s style.
In the end, that’s all I wanted. I wanted to figure out how to do things by myself. Because— human beings, there’s something wrong with them. I don’t know what it is; but I aged out of it. I don’t know if it’s that the norms of this World have changed, or what is going on; but I can tell you that I want no part of it any longer. I’ll take my toys and leave, thank you.
So this is where it ends. I’m slowly unfollowing everybody, and then, I think that’s it. I don’t… everybody’s gone, man.
Everybody’s dead, Dave.
All my friends are leaving. They’re going off of Twitter. It feels like the end of Arcadium; but since Twitter was never good, I don’t know what to even say.
I guess you could say my feelings are ‘hurt’? It’s not even that. It’s that, there’s nowhere left to go; even the places where I could’ve gone, or been, they were all filled with clique-ish, mean people, whom I have no intentions of entertaining. It’s over. It’s been over for like 22 fucking years, or more. I need a new hobby, and I’m getting one.
I think what broke my heart was when other people’s art started to look ugly to me. Because I saw the places they gave up; the places where they didn’t know what to do, how to draw one thing, or another; and I thought… oh, I can improve this. And it just went on; and on; and on. Eventually, I recognized the mess that their drawings really were, and I stopped admiring their work. And without my admiration for their work, the only thing I had to go off of was whether or not I liked them as people. And I didn’t.
For 30+ years I have saved art off of the Internet and now I’m just looking at a lot of it, and deleting it.
Because it doesn’t have any purpose.
I don’t care about it anymore.
I don’t care about this anymore.
But I do want something to do.
Spring has sprung and I’m doing things in the real world and even though I might not have the money, the time, nor the energy, I’m enjoying myself.
But I have to say that I’m lamenting what the Internet didn’t turn out to be. It had such unlimited potential.
But human beings really fucked it up.
Because they just wanted a place to be assholes.
In a clique.