Thank youuu ;___; ♥

I probably don’t know you in person, or as a friend, or at all but thanks for reading! There’s a small handful of you so I really do appreciate and am honoured by your support and encouragement on my work!

Plus even fewer people click through and read these rambly blog posts at all! So hello stranger!! ;D Thank youuuuu <3

As I talked about previously, this is a mild parasocial relationship [See previous comic on it.] It’s pretty much an audience and artist connection here where for the most part: the audience appreciates and supports the work and the creator expresses themselves, learns and appreciates the people engaging with the work.

I’m just posting into the internet, hiding away and people might read it like ninjas. Sometimes I see how well posts are doing and it’s usually posts that feature other people or when I put out a super sad post when I’ve been feeling isolated, hurt and low. It’s interesting to know but I don’t want to be solely driven and defined by analytics, social validation and recognition if I can help it for the sake of my mental well-being and emotional resources.

On the other hand, social media is one of the ways I connect with people…I’m just on an indefinite break from it. Or maybe there’s nothing new they can learn from me and they find me boring, sad, repetitive or intimidating ;P

Hey people don’t seem to know what’s going on with me when I talk to them in person so there you go! That’s super fair people don’t read these personal thoughts of mine. It’s too intense for most people and it’s my outlet after all.

Because boundaries between what we show online publicly versus what we do privately in our personal time are important. We all need that personal space to take care of ourselves, have some form of real social life, privacy and sense of self.

And sometimes it might feel too intrusive to read somebody’s personal comics and blog posts. Personally, I usually don’t want to absorb others’ emotions and feelings too intensely so I avoid following them :0 Consequently I don’t actively follow other personal comics. I get it. ;P

On the creative side, I don’t want to be influenced into *not* expressing myself, just because someone else probably covered it in their comic. Knowing that someone else expressed the same idea makes me lose interest actually. I can’t help but compare myself in terms of ideas and art skills and I end up doing nothing. I’m keen to learn from them though.

It’s a juggle between learning from others and protecting my joy in creating.

And this blog! Few people read it!

I finally looked at real google analytics last year when it was still Blogspot and…my heart sank back into reality. On average, only 4 unique views on a post. For a given normal month, only 37 are returning visitors. On this wordpress, it’s 190-300 views a month and roughly 1-8 views each post since it started? Generally I’ve been blogging since 2011; it’s almost been 8 years.

I don’t know how many actually read this blog though.

I remember why I don’t check statistics often. Because it’s not great and makes me think investing money into my own website was a waste. It’s super disheartening for me when I actually look at statistics and it seems like I wasted countless hours. I am the only one who cares this much about my blog… :’) A good helping of reality though!

Perhaps blogging is a dead end way to post things that aren’t targeted to an audience but I don’t care. I enjoy blogging and rambling so much that I don’t mind about how it’s not helping me a lot in the “business sense”. My blog rambles won’t be heard by most anyway.

I should probably not spend so much time typing essays like this and go for video rambling. That’s what many artists are doing and what I listen to myself! But I won’t enjoy it as much and don’t have the time to do regular video editing work around full time responsibilities. I express myself best by reflecting and typing anyway.

Perhaps I’ll just narrate my blog posts?? As a video podcast? I keep wondering but it doesn’t sound enticing at all. Hmm perhaps when I do reflective video blogs again. Thoughts welcome.

I feel surprised and mixed because people usually don’t really publicly interact with my comics. There isn’t much to say because I’m just text or art vomiting into the internet void haha

I do feel happy, encouraged, grateful, supported, humbled and also…uh oh!

Since it’s a personal and sometimes vulnerable comic by nature, I don’t feel comfortable talking about personal things if I don’t really know much about them in person in return, let alone as an actual close friend. Feels super uneven. So I end up not sure how to proceed with the conversation aside from expressing gratitude, answering any general professional questions they might have and then we go off on our separate ways. I don’t want to be intrusive or know too much about a stranger’s personal struggles right off the bat!

I am friendly because I’m grateful but I don’t want to pretend they’re my friend and or mislead them as if that they’re entitled to my immediate and constant attention and friendship. I guess that’s why very few people let me know they read them as I post them? They think it’s too invasive and creepy for them to engage with me and talk about it straight away? Well, they’re respectful of healthy boundaries between me and my work and comics I guess! That’s great! (:

The downside of that though, is that I feel alone and isolated struggling with all this super often. I don’t know if I’m understood. Or if anyone cares *that* much. Perhaps indirectly but I can’t directly connect with people through my comics that often, contrary to the occasional kind, lovely comments I get.

It’s all good, I’m just encouraged that people look and like my art at all! Thank you! I’ll keep doing my own thing and learning in art and life. :’)

All the same, if you enjoy someone’s work or it has affected you in a positive, meaningful way…

Go make someone’s day a little brighter and thank them!

And keep doing your own awesome thing! Give yourself a hug! ♥

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