BREAKING NEWS: THE INTERNET IS RUDE AS SHIT
As an artist, who already makes no fucking money at all, this kind of thing makes me so angry. 2 years ago, I posted the below photo series for Easter. I am happy with the traffic it got, it was nice to know people like my work. Blah blah blah. This is one of many repostings of just this one photo.
But almost on a weekly basis, A WEEKLY BASIS, do I find other people posting my work, uncredited. What does this do to artists? NOTHING. It just makes them really cranky and mean.
“But free publicity is good!”
Fuck you, that’s stealing, and it’s wrong. That’s like stealing organs from people and saying “But you should be happy we chose to take your kidney!”
“But you should be happy your work is being seen by so many people! We are doing you a favor!”
No, you’re insulting me as a professional, and by doing this you are not telling me my work is worth my time, but are telling my my work is not good enough to have my name on it.
“We can promote your work!”
No, I am doing that myself. If you sourced a reference, then I wouldn’t need you to promote my work because THE LINK IS ALREADY THERE.
Every time an artist puts their work online, they post it on their website first, everything is linked together, it takes literally 7 seconds of your life to reverse Google image search something if you don’t know the original source.
OH LOOK HERE IS A LINK TO REVERSE GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH
I am sick of being a part time artist and a part time detective just to keep on people reposting my work, selling my work, or saying they made my work.
These are all things I have had in response multiple times from people who have reposted my work. This is not including the many people who apologize earnestly and are very polite and dear about it. Those people just made mistakes, and fix them. The ones who get defensive and make excuses like they’re some kind of victim, are just dicks.
I am not some cheap entertainer for you, I am a hard working artist and I wish people would once in a while acknowledge not just the art itself, but the person who made it.
At the end of the day, I am genuinely happy people are seeing my work, and it seems to be bringing people happiness. It would just be nice for me to not be the last person to know that my work is even worth someone’s time to look at.
When you don’t source your photos or art in postings, it tells the artist that their work isn’t worth it, and that there is no reason for them to keep posting things online, or even making art for people to see.
Artists are generally friendly people, until you take our work from us. If you ever need resources to find out the source to a work of art, any artist will help you find tools to get you there. Just ask.
When you don’t source your photos, you tell the artist who made it that their work isn’t even worth their name, and that is the worst feeling in the world.
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turnnoffyourmind
izzy806
yousharknotpass
jacobvanloon
