This is the new business art blog for my art. Feel free to follow me there if you would like to keep an eye on all of what is going on and some of the articles I am working on for the art business. 

Imgur.

For those of you who have never heard of this site, Imgur is in many ways a sister site to Reddit. Often times any link to an image will end up redirecting you to Imgur. Actually, it is rare to see a stand alone image posted to Reddit. Especially, seeing how Reddit doesn’t host the images, and you often need to post a link to the image to Reddit. And it is easy to be sucking into the community and spend time scrolling through the day’s posts.

On the surface, it seems like a good website. Most people happen to lurk on the website (I believe the term means to browse but not post, vote, or be a member,) and then eventually sign up. I did that for about 2 years, then I finally buckled down and signed up for the website. However, during the time that I had lurked, I hadn't seen anything negative amongst the community. There was clearly a heavy reliance on memes and heavy reposting. The community did a lot to sponsor OC (original content) and seem to inspire others to work, perform better, or in general just be awesome people.

That was enough to convince me to try to post to the community. It was enough to convince me to join. To some point, I wish I hadn’t.

The Fall

“But the community seemed positive.” Seemed seemed to be a key point. I ended up joining and I did a couple of posts to start. They were simple pictures of a couple of a my sketches, and the response I got was both okay and at the same time bs. Why?

All the Imgur community is obsessed with is bs internet points. And oh Gods, the community is obsessed with the idea of earning fake internet points. The very first negative comment I got I tried to be polite and dismissive in my response and the answer I got back was “I was just trying to be funny for fake internet points.” Which I think sums up part of their community. Otherwise, it is really pathetic references to pop culture or worse, just negative posts to parts of the communities’ hidden pretentious rules.

The interface began to cause some issues. Posting an image was simple, however posting and including the info for an album was difficult. However, trying to actually access the post was tougher than it should have been. Trying to find the comments were tough, and it lacked the proper tracking method I had been accustomed to on other websites. The site didn't even tell you if you had a message or comment on the image. Often times you have to check the post altogether just to see what somebody said.

To make matters worse, there was quite a few posts that seem to come across as racist. They were constantly hating on any other website, typically tumblr and 4chan. The posts were beyond inappropriate and often are the exact issue why those posts had to be made. I must admit, some of them were funny. But it stops being funny when you read ones that seemed to condone rape, or abuse, or blasts people about trying to improve their lives. It reminded me of the assholes who yell at the top of the lungs at overweight people who are trying to lose weight. Yes, they are fat, but they are trying to improve themselves.

That was the attitude I saw coming from the community after I joined and I was looking through more of the day to day posts. Also, Gods forbid you are a feminists trying to make a point, or Gods forbid you are a vegetarian/vegan, or Gods forbid you are a person hoping for some positivity. This community would downvote you into oblivion for any reason they saw fit. And then, about a week after I joined, there was a major flux in the posts.

Imgur and trends.

Right before I joined up, Left Shark (from the Katy Perry concert) blew up and everyone was going nuts about it for about a week. Honestly you couldn't go onto the website without seeing post after post of Left shark. People were flipping the image, reversing the image. Making animations. Combining the image with other gifs. And everyone was doing it to try to get to the Front Page.

The Front Page by the way, I am not sure which one they are talking about… However the users seemed obsessed about getting to the front page. Which could mean they were trying to get Reddit’s front page (which is known as the Front Page of the internet) or the Front page of Imgur. Personally, I don't care about either. It is essentially ten minutes of fame on the website, but that is all they care about. That seems to be enough for them to stand by and ruin people’s day just to get to it. They want upvotes and to the front page. That is all they ever talk about.

Anyways, there was a second trend that month. The Dress (that stupid dress, where they took a terrible image and some people would see something and others would see something else,) that stupid dress was everywhere for about a week. And again, there was a flood of posts from every corner of imgur. Finally, it subsided.

But wait, there was more! The next flood was the Sharmander, and then more memes and people making references to the last couple of trends with the Shartmander. And then, there was the collapse of the originality. The gif wars had started. I can’t even remember what it was, but for like 3 weeks there was the same gif posted again and again. There were minor edits and changes, and honestly it was the most idiotic thing I had ever seen. And they never stopped posting until finally people started posting counter gifs to it. Which gave rise to the counter gifs being the new trend.

I know they must have lost part of their community due to this foolishness. The sad thing is this keeps happening. I have never seen a community so hell bent to repost the same thing and then complain about it. It reminds me of my father talking about how a buddy of his went to go see a doctor and the doctor asked him what was bothering him. My dad’s buddy responded with “well, doctor, my arm hurts when I do this,” he moved his arm back and forth. The doctor sighed and said “then don’t do that.” And the man responded with “Well, I could have figured that much out.” The doctor said calmly, “Obviously not, had you stopped doing that and let it heal, you wouldn’t have had to ask me.”

Of course, what really rubbed me the wrong way were the hidden rules.

The Hidden Rules

Most communities are quite clear on the rules. Those rules govern the site, and frankly are appreciated. It give you an idea of what to post, how to post, how often to post. Most sites I have been on could care less of how often to post, but the admins to keep an eye out for reposting and theft. Which for art is important. It is also something quite tough to control and moderate, and that is where the trouble comes about quite often.

Trying to prevent art theft is a challenge. There are so many posts a day, and a lot of art is very similar to other art, the first to make the post of a “new piece” is often the owner, and it is a challenge to make sure their work is the only version of it out there. Why? Because so often people would grab the image and save it to their machine then repost. I have seen people often times go in and strip out watermark and labels just to post something as their “own” art.

The point is, Imgur doesn’t seem to care about this. In fact, they seem to be all for posting people’s work over and over again. Change the title and its yours… Which is a disgusting thing they seem to endorse. Also reposting an image is often times reposting the image without links to the original so both posts can accumulate points separately.

Which are part of the rule troubles. The hidden rules from what I can tell go like this…

If you are reposting something, change the name. It is now yours. Nobody can say it isn’t. And if they do. Downvote their stuff into oblivion.

If you can try to put in dickbutt, patrick, brazzers, or any of the other “required” memes to earn additional internet points.

If you are posting something original, it must include a cat tax. Meaning, you must include pictures of your cat for whatever reason.

Always respond with a crappy joke, gif, or some pop culture reference.

Do not post selfies. And by selfies, I mean any self image. Even if that is an image of yourself taken by somebody else (which is not a selfie.)

No nudity, or nipples, or anything else. This doesn't bother me, except for the fact that if you do post it, you need to make it obscure and tough to find and then be ready to be shamed or have really awful comments made about you.

Which if you do post just an image of yourself and you are pretty or handsome… Be ready to be downvoted, insulted, and have an inbox full of penises.

Finally, never link to any of your source material.

It is referred to by sauce. 

Do not link to it. Therefore no one can find anything you post. You will not be able to find the source material or image because seemingly there is no source.

Actually there is one more, if you do post a source and say that you are attempting to build a market and audience, do not post to this site. They will downvote you to hell and insult you just for trying to make money off of your art.

That last one was the clincher for me. And these are honest to the Gods rules of imgur. If you read through the comments and the posts, you can find examples of all of this and it is followed like some form of religious text. It is if anything disturbing.

Final Word.

Honestly, I did not like imgur after finding out all of this. The idea that I couldn’t link to any of the sites my art is on foolish. The idea that I couldn’t post my pieces and say “Hey, I need help making money to continue to do this,” and have people tell me that I should continue to do this, but not be able to post to my sites is stupid. I couldn’t even tell people to go to my website and look me up. All of it was taboo according to them.

There was also a final act that they began to do, which was to patronize anyone who is an OC (original content, or OP original poster.) They have to hop on and leave a comment about it that just seemed like the slow clap (like that of GladOS in Portal 2.) Even if it isn’t meant in an offensive way, that is how it comes across. “Good for you, you actually provided content... Content that we can’t improve with gifs or the same jokes... Good for you.” Clap, clap... clap.

That being said, a friend of mine did find a good use for the website. His solution was simple. He doesn’t publish his art to Imgur. Instead his art is only hosted by Imgur and he chooses to publish the links to the photos on other sites. It actually makes it far easier to view and track the photographs due to this. You aren’t having skewed stats or bs comments left on the image. Instead, it is just the content, as the content should be. From there, depending on where you post the link, that is where you can garner a supporting community.

I have taken partial advantage of that feature. Being able to label an album as private does give you the ability to post images and send that link to say friends or customers. I have used it to send links in Tumblr’s fan mail for images of some of the people I have drawn whom I can only contact via tumblr. 

Between that and the communities toxicity, it just seemed pointless to use the site. At least to use the site fully. It is find to post images to as a storage point, but never publish, unless you want 1 second of internet fame/infamy. Of course, it is up to you if you decide to use this site.

Good luck, and happy hunting.

Sources

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