kaz the maz

I’ve ritually drowned this ask so nobody needs to feel guilty about it.

And for those well-intentioned but innocent people who might not know why the “private answer” thing is a particular red flag for vaspider or me - when you respond to these asks publicly, your followers will notice that the messages aren’t customised/personalised (and are, in fact, spam) and will catch on to not just the username doing it, but the format of the scam. They’re hoping to use the safe, closed-in, reciprocal-relationships, mutual-aid, signal-boosting, spam-doesn’t-happen-here feeling of Tumblr to get you privately invested in a scam that you would instantly dodge if it was in your email inbox.

In general again, don’t feel bad if you’ve fallen for one, they’re taking advantage of tumblr’s “innocence” - the platform is difficult to exploit like this, and the users aren’t used to scams - and they’re deliberately preying on your better impulses. Sense of urgency, implied sense of familiarity as if they’re a mutual, claiming it’s for a pet, camouflage among similar legitimate ways that tumblr users reach out, and (more recently) Keep This Private We Don’t Need To Tell Anyone About This, all combine to play on YOUR heartstrings specifically. You would spot this in five seconds if it came to your email inbox, you really would, it’s just that they’re using Tumblr’s own context cues to disguise themselves.

The blogs are inevitably a day or two old at most, and have only reblogged algorithmically chosen stuff. I like working out whatever the prompt given to the bot was. My favourite was a blog that seemed fairly diverse at first, until you realised that everything was a black and white Aesthetique shot, except five Game of Thrones gifs had made it in because the lighting in them is so bad a computer thought they were monochrome.

ⓘ Misinformation check: He's not going to draw when he gets home. This user is known for often lying about this.

hey man what the fuck. untrue

ⓘ Misinformation check: This user has not drawn in weeks.

dude come on

People are apparently under the impression that reblogging someone’s art and adding a comment is frowned upon and that can’t possibly be true, every artist I know of sees a reblog-comment as like the ultimate definitive reward for their hard work.