If you're going to make an entire blog dedicated to one person you hate: You should focus on why they're a horrible person. Not mock every little thing they do. Especially when you clearly don't know shit about half the things you shit-talk that person for.
(Edit: I have since been informed Salem goes by he/him only, I have edited the post to correct this as I do not want to keep public a version of the post that misgenders someone. The only instances of they/them pronouns I kept were either in reference to bun-bunny-things as I do not know their pronouns, or in reference to treating any vague person like this in general. If I have made any mistakes or missed any corrections, please let me know.
For future reference, I always try my best to use the correct pronouns for people, and I do not tolerate intentional misgendering. If I have ever accidentally misgendered someone, I would rather be told so I can correct the mistake, please. Thank you.)
Okay. You may be wondering what sparked this. I saw this on my feed, and the only reason I can assume I did (considering the posts near it) was because tumblr assumed this was related to the yay-bunnies posts on my feed. I will begin this by clarifying, it is not. I have never heard of the person whose art is being criticized here until today.
(Link to the post for context.)
I will try to avoid speaking about race-related criticisms here, as I feel that's better suited for people of that race to speak on, not for others to speak for them. I am not fully educated on these issues and certainly would not want to say something wrong on another minority's behalf.
But, beyond that.. This is not "laughably bad," or "completely unrendered." You are not "contractually obligated to criticize" someone's art REGARDLESS of who it is and what they're like as a person.
This art is really not that bad. This is nitpicking, big time. It is rendered, just more noticably in certain places. In both pieces, the center of the body is most rendered, including the jacket in the one with hidden arms.
Making fun of someone's art for not having certain visible body parts is just unnecessary? It's like making fun of me when I was a kid and I'd draw arms behind the back so I didn't have to draw hands. Or erasing part of a sketch 'cause you didn't like how it turned out. Who cares? This has NOTHING to do with legitimate, valid critique.
The hands are FINE. It isn't the same hand but inverted, either. Here- Lemme explain.
It's hard to see with the blur, oh well. But you can tell it isn't the same. The part of the hand with the visible under-color is smaller on the left, and the other hands knuckles are more curved on the left, more straight on the right. I genuinely wonder if the person "criticizing" this even looks closely or if they just write down anything they could possibly mock.
Overall this post felt very unnecessary. Regardless of any context: This post should've never existed. There's a difference between genuine criticism and just making fun of people's art when you clearly don't know what you're talking about. I thought we learned that years ago when people finally started realizing all those commentary channels who "criticized" (made fun of) children's art or animation were assholes. (More importantly, usually self-absorbed assholes who mocked other people's art but had no experience in art themselves.)
But, I was curious. I hadn't heard of Salem before this, so what the hell could this person have done to warrant this? I tried scrolling this blog to see, considering they've dedicated the entire blog to just talking about Salem.
I will clarify one thing here: I am not defending this person, puppychan, Salem, whatever you want to call him. He does deserve to be criticized for these actions- For his creepy behavior and connections to groomers + showing behavior of grooming himself. What really bothers me is, THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE POST ABOVE, and it took me a WHILE to find ANY posts on this person's account actually saying why Salem is a horrible person beyond just.. mocking his art.
Genuinely- I scrolled on this person's account for a WHILE, and most of their posts were the same as the first one I saw. If this person actually cared about criticizing Salem for his BEHAVIOR, they'd post about that more. This was the ONLY post I saw actually saying what Salem did wrong after scrolling through easily 50+ posts on their account. Most of their posts make fun of Salem for every little thing he does.
What made me really stop taking this person in any good faith was seeing this post:
(Screenshots showed in their post:)
This really disturbed me. What does ANY OF THIS have to do with him being a horrible person accused of grooming? Why are we even "archiving" someone venting about his mental illness on an account dedicated to talking shit about him?! So.. I left this comment, to see if there was any possibility this person could be taken in good faith.
I think I phrased my complaints pretty well here. Which is why I don't feel the need to elaborate or repeat myself. Anyway, this was their response.
"Documenting his meltdowns" IS weaponizing mental illness. It's the same shit as autism moms "documenting" their autistic kid's meltdowns. You are posting it as a spectacle. You are posting this person's VENTS AND BREAKDOWNS hoping people will respond to it by talking shit about him. That is 100% weaponizing mental illness. Saying he "somehow manages to cross-post despite him being in so much apparent to stress" IS accusing Salem of faking his mental illness because "he seems fine on his other posts." It's the same dumb shit as "well this person can't be depressed because I saw them happy the other day."
I am not going to argue on Salem's validity here. I do agree, some of these posts come across guilt-trippy, but a decent number of them do come across as genuine vents. Deciding what vents you think are "less genuine" is accusing him of faking it. I think it's important to recognize it may not even be intentional. This may just be a case of a person who puts too much of his thoughts on the internet, who posts every little thought without thinking about the consequences or how other people will perceive it. Manipulation here could be entirely unintentional, and assuming whether or not someone is intentionally or unintentionally manipulative based on "how often someone does it" (as if you can only vent a certain number of times per week??) and "how genuine i think it is" is just. You're acting as if you're the one deciding if someone is valid or not. That, because he's done other horrible shit, then every single thing he does must be horrible and intentionally evil. That is so lacking in nuance it's just stupid.
Once again, Salem is an awful person for his associations with grooming behavior, but shit-talking his vent posts has NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT.
+ "If you disagree with me, feel free to block and move on with your day." Oh. This doesn't normally get to me. Normally, I agree, but, fuckin hell.
If you are stalking and constantly watching Salem's accounts enough to talk about art he posted AN HOUR AGO to complain about it- You are becoming obsessive. All of your posts are dedicated to mocking and talking shit about this one person for every little thing. As if it's like, equally important to say "lol he draws hands bad" and "hey this person is a groomer and a danger to children." You should've blocked Salem and moved on AGES AGO it seems. The fact that I was scrolling your account for 30+ minutes and the OLDEST post I saw before I stopped was only 3 weeks ago?? This is an obsession for you. I don't normally @ but.
@bun-bunny-things you need to block Salem and move on. For your own mental health at this point. You have an obsession, you post about it non-stop multiple times a day. It's clearly consumed your thoughts to an unhealthy extent. Just recognize Salem is a piece of shit and talk about the IMPORTANT shit if you're gonna insist on not shutting up about him. Stop with the vent "archiving." Stop with the unnecessary art critiques. Focus on his actual shitty behavior. Focus on your REAL problem with him. Not this petty shit.
Okay. Now that that's out of the way. That's all I have to say to this person directly. The rest of this post is gonna be an "archive" of ME venting and complaining about the unnecessary shit here. And guess what? When I make this post, I will block and move on. I hope this person does the same to Salem.
When is this blog gonna stop claiming Salem fakes every little thing? As if alters can't say positive things about each other? Just. I'm tired of everything I see being "yeah this is ridiculous he must be faking this diagnosis/mental illness lol" it is cyberbullying behavior. It is ableist to insist someone must be faking diagnoses just because you don't like them.
"nothing was shaded besides the ass." ????? Can you see detail??? Can you see more than 5 pixels at a time?? WHAT are you on about?? Nothing was shaded?!
If this is what you define as "unshaded" then you must have REALLY high standards because holy shit.
Speaking of strange criticisms, this person has made some strange plagiarism accusations.
At best, Salem should give credit for INSPIRATION. This is NOT a "straight up copy." Let me explain WHY because holy shit.
(close-ups for reference.)
Detailed corset VS lazy balloon-tits with nipples showing.
Pants with thong visible VS miniskirt and thigh-highs.
Gloves with spike-armbands VS gloves without.
Wings VS no wings.
Piercing on hat VS no piercing on hat.
Completely different piercings on the ears.
Extra piece of fabric underneath the neck-collar VS collar only.
Completely different color palette and hair colors.
This is not "copying." The worst critique you could give this is that it's uncredited inspiration. This is NOT plagiarism. He did not "copy" the design. He took inspiration from a FEW elements, because honestly? The design is pretty different overall except for the spiked collar, gloves, and hat. That's all the similarities really. The thong I wouldn't even argue could be "copied" since he seems to include thongs in most of his art anyway.
Yeah this is absolutely a stretch. Reaching to accuse him of something petty because you don't like him, when you could instead be focusing on the actual horrible shit he did like, y'know, grooming.
Apparently I am close to tumblr's image limit so I'll close this out with one last reach that feels extremely uneducated and (please correct me if I'm wrong) a little racist?
It feels like you're trying to critique Salem for "limited understanding of black hairstyles" But.. you also seem to have a very limited understanding. Because even me, with my admittedly limited understanding, I KNOW there ARE more hairstyles and you are purposefully cherrypicking to make it look like he "drew it wrong."
Here's how this post should actually look:
But, yeah, that's my thoughts. Seems like a good place to end this, so, back to my usual disclaimers..
I am not defending Salem, I have mentioned multiple times that I do not agree with him and he does seem to have done horrible things. My problem is, this blog rarely talks about the actual horrible things he did, and focuses too much on the little things.
No matter how horrible someone is, DO NOT make fun of their art like this. If anything, provide ACTUAL critique on how he can do better. There are always going to be GOOD people out there with similar art styles who will me hurt by this and feel like they're not good enough.
Do not harass ANYONE mentioned in this post. I do not condone that behavior and I will block anyone who does it. I hesitate to make accusations of harassment, but this person IS objectively cyberstalking and harassing Salem by constantly screenshotting posts he made on MULTIPLE PLATFORMS to share EVERY LITTLE THING on this tumblr blog to make fun of this one person and talk shit.
The main takeaway from this: Block and move on. Do not let yourself get to this level of obsession talking about one person you dislike. Focus on the actual horrible shit they did, or move on. Don't be petty on every little thing they post about. This is unhealthy for all parties.
