Bubble Princesses! [little timelapse]

Look I don’t care if Mario Wonder isn’t trendy anymore, I’m making and posting art at my own slow pace ;P

I can’t keep up doing trendy and timely things :0

With the bubble ability…I didn’t use it too much! I liked using other abilities more.

Leonie rambles/vents about…”content”

Note I put quotes for “Content” because it simplifies and devalues the whole spectrum of things on the internet when it’s much more diverse than that in levels of quality, meaning, approaches/processes, intentions, experiences and mediums. So I begrudgingly use this word haha

Changing my mind again & it’s time to stop making little timelapse videos

Another “Leonie overthinks things because things aren’t working out”:

How do you feel about me making a rare longer compilation timelapse video for many art pieces (with video chapters) instead of a timelapse video for each featured art piece?

Youtube values longer videos, timelapse videos on their own aren’t too compelling and I don’t want to make/pump out a video for every art piece because that’s unsustainable and I’m tired. I don’t want to be in this kind of “content making” hamster wheel 🙁

Instead I’ll just take an indefinite break and maybe I’ll stream my studies here & twitch when I brave and feel up to it one day :0 Or do a compilation video if it feels right? I don’t know yet.

Yeah I think I should take time away :< From here I’m not making as much videos anymore as I’m at my limit and am burning out again with juggling too many things, lacking in sleep and I don’t have time and interest to squeeze in making videos.

I backpedal and I change my mind lots as I want to do my best with my little channel but things aren’t working out and time is finite!

Ultimately I’m more focused on making art and blog posts than making videos :’)

Making videos is great and I am super grateful for the kind support!! 🥺 I just don’t think my lower effort way of video making is going to entice many people in the long run (especially when I look at more well known artist youtubers…I don’t have the energy for that). That’s why I’m considering testing out a compilation video.

All the same I’ll keep posting here at my community tab with my art and blog posts!!

Thank you if you’re still sticking around here! :’D

There’s also my blog newsletter, discord and the more volatile social media platforms I cross post to!

my youtube community post

I have the video editing file ready for this piece and many others too but I don’t have the heart or desire to do work on dedicated short subtitled timelapse videos anymore. Youtube is always changing and my stuff doesn’t suit most of the time. I don’t believe it’s worth too much of my limited time since I don’t want to invest more production time into it in order to pander to the algorithm – consequently I know my channel will not grow (or it’s terribly slow) :’)

I’m not surprised and I guess I was in denial and hoping I can somehow magically make it work :<

I think I’m more likely to do an occasional compilation video than a stream but who knows!

Feeling depressed about the internet…but still stubborn on posting what feels true to me as usual ;P

Oof every time I post it feels hopeless and pointless when I see that I’m reaching less people than ever before at twitter, instagram, youtube, bluesky while cara and threads are dead for me. Waves of discouragement and feeling like I want to give up posting at some of these places. I’ll still glaze stuff though.

It’s just terribly fickle and saturated! I don’t want to make short form, fast food videos all the time. Don’t want to share photos/stuff on my personal life either when I have my personal art blog already. I feel like I’m not enough but I don’t want to give my soul, time and effort away more than I already have to these platforms. I am tired.

I don’t want to do too much attention grabbing, psychological, overstimulating, addictive editing in my videos. I’m more towards the low stimulus, slow, deliberate, reflective, boring, “authentic” approach haha. I don’t know how to do a middle ground (with storytelling?) that I can be consistent with.

I think I need to think on things…a compilation video is the next best thing I’m more comfortable in doing.

Apparently I’m supposed to clean and remove inactive/bot followers manually on instagram and twitter?

• That just stresses me out from indecision…
• I should because most don’t engage anymore or at all? And I’m curious what the follower count ends up being also
• How I remove followers from instagram and twitter, depends on:
  • people who have moved on / ghost accounts (so many have left twitter!!)
  • people I don’t know
  • accounts that seem dodgy/spammy or are bots,
  • accounts that are dead/inactive (arbitrarily/roughly) they’re not active anymore since 2023/in the past year
  • or are companies who don’t feel relevant to me
  • accounts that make me uncomfortable/creep me out…and when I noticed their likes and retweets
• I didn’t remove most private accounts because I can’t tell if they’re active…so I could have removed much more if I do find out which ones are inactive :’)
  • I feel like I can remove more with the private accounts (are they ghost accounts – who knows!!) and people who stopped being active during 2023 onwards but ah well
• I am now way under 500 followers with instagram
  • I was originally happy going past 500 followers after years on instagram but I don’t care anymore about follower milestones
  • I removed 30 inactive/dodgy(?) instagram accounts
• after removing 475 accounts out of curiosity, I went from 1800 followers to <1324 on twitter
  • (wait it’s now 1321 since I lost more people since I posted wow people are unfollowing or quitting twitter)
  • it doesn’t matter – selfishly and curiously I just wanted to know the closer number of actual active followers :0
  • I’m still a relatively small artist and I gave up trying to reach 2k followers – it used to be a long running out of reach dream haha
    • I’d like more peeps at my blog instead ;P
    • twitter isn’t a great place and very much a mixed bag
    • I accept that I’m not meant for “clout” nor a mainstream audience – I’m too much in my own bubble of interests
    • I don’t want to clean up accounts too often as it’s too much work and I reached my post viewing/rate limit multiple times
    • plus twitter is a horrible platform so I don’t want to spend time regularly cleaning up my followers
    • there were some accounts where I kept them there just for prosperity – even though they’ve gone :’)
    • I probably missed a bunch of accounts because there’s so many
    • while others I gave the benefit of the doubt…but probably might remove if I ever do this again
    • again my follower count it’s probably inaccurate since I am not sure about private accounts and people who quit twitter more recently.
• If I’ve removed you and you were still actively following my stuff, apologies! Feel free to follow or not follow again. It’s highly unlikely that you would be here reading this though haha
• I don’t expect engagement % to get terribly better
• my reach overall is stuck around 50-150 impressions in recent years which has gotten worse over the years and sadly it’s better than the reach of my blog, youtube and other platforms
• trying to remind myself that platforms cannot be fully depended on as much as they help with reaching a bit more people
  • then I end up juggling with lots of platforms against the advice I get from marketing experts to focus on two whelp

It feels weird now that I feel better having less followers because I’m getting rid of accounts that aren’t even engaged/active anyway and it feels closer to a true number in terms of active accounts? It feels a little more honest to me and to gauge who might see my stuff?

I don’t expect to reach follower milestones anymore…it feels empty. I used to want more followers/subscribers but over the years I just want more feedback/engagement and to reach followers who are still keen. That is not even something to expect since now it’s all about algorithms :’)

Turns out even huge artists are also suffering from struggling to reach, get seen/interacted with and can’t seem to please the algorithm while “doing everything right”.

Apparently you need to people to instagram favourites to see people or you might miss posts for as much as a year?

Social media is a slot machine (invest in time, effort, money, etc in hopes of an audience if you’re lucky and provide some kind of value to people). A lot of the internet is content sludge/slop/filler to fill the void so that people stay (addicted) on these platforms. Content farms (company or individual person) are a thing too :<

• I feel better knowing that I’m not struggling alone as my engagement isn’t great and has gotten worse
• I have a tiny audience at my newsletter/blog, small audience at youtube and everywhere else I cross post at is all over the place and again I can’t rely on just any one of them
• yet you’re expected to be active or your posts/videos aren’t shared by the platform anyway
• return on investment is horribly low and it’s not worth understanding an algorithm and trends that changes all the time
• can’t have any expectations anymore so removing followers who aren’t active anymore feels somewhat cathartic
• for better or for worse I can’t do the same and remove youtube subscribers – not that subscriber count matters compared to views

And the whole text to video AI Sora model is just another existential step towards AI generation taking over more industries and opportunistic companies/people stealing from humanity…

• learning that reddit is selling reddit content to be trained by an AI company/Google ugh
• and midjourney/OpenAI in talks (allergedly) to do the same with tumblr and WordPress
  • consequently I’ve deleted my stuff from tumblr slowly and I’m not auto sharing to tumblr anymore – frustrating that platforms turn on people like this
  • goodbye my 6 -7 tumblr blogs and art posts since 2011 (since I cross posted over there back then too)
  • they’re just doing this without explicit consent from users
  • update: it’s with WordPress too?? Nooo this blog is on wordpress!! Apparently you can opt out in the settings – even though there’s no law that requires crawlers to listen to preferences (so not “respectable” companies won’t follow)
    • wait my blog is self hosted WordPress software on my own web hosting service so I guess it’s not under Automattic’s wordpress.com / webhost?? :S
  • expressed better than I could: why is it opt out??? It’s so scummy and will Midjourney and OpenAI even respect opting out systems :/
• midjourney talking about working with twitter too?
• AI girlfriend bots invading too much privacy in scary ways
• (not talking about other ways AI has been implemented as a tool to make tedious things and health/life easier)
  • generative AI is arguably not even AI
• it’s depressing to think how opportunistic people and companies will profit, abuse,
• scam, deep fake, forge evidence/propaganda (how will this affect the validity of the internet and whether anything is to be trusted),
• infringe on copyright, steal from people’s work/IP, years of hard work and knowledge,
• not hire people anymore where possible (unfortunately it’s not uncommon)
• dismissively devalue what creatives/specialists/people do and drive people out of careers and not learn these skills anymore (but they’re protective/defensive of what they make with generative AI???)
• gloat (GenAI fans) about destroying creative careers and being able to make anything they want without artistic vision/soul/skill because they just want to make something to sell with their name attached or “make their cancelled show/game/thing/etc on their own”
  • I’m all for people to create all the things but people who abuse technology are exploiting and stealing from people’s work for profit, some are pretending/scamming as if they were artists/creatives who did the AI generated work and are striving to replace artists/creatives
  • they want to create more/lots of slop/sludge/shiny “good enough” things, voice acting, art, music, movies, shows, graphics, AI influencers, articles, stories, videos, etc to meet with the demand of the “Beast” that is making “content” and/or products to market, sell and/or consume
  • they want the clout/recognition/fame/money without doing the hard work of learning and enjoying the process of art making?? And to not bother paying people who create things and are exploited/stolen from?
    • Talent/skill is not completely born into though – lots of hard work/mileage, upbringing/environment, luck, enjoyment is involved??
    • it feels all too much and overstimulating the more it gets pumped out trash and samey kinds of things
    • (yes I am in the middle and stopped reading Creativity, Inc by Ed Catmull)
    • who will stop people lying that they didn’t use genAI? And how?
• A lot of people have quit being artists from the sounds of it and/or are discouraged by all this while many others are holding on
  • not that there’s plenty of creative jobs for the number of people trying to strive for them – it’s just even worse
  • the enormous amount of game industry layoffs and across tech/other industries doesn’t help either
  • artists trying to teach others will be affected too with less potential students?
• others just feel like their career is going extinct or will transform into something they don’t enjoy and/or become even more ethically/morally questionable
• “Adapt or get left behind??”
  • You mean not make art anymore because it’s not being valued in a capitalistic world and the image/video/text/audio generator will concept and create things instead for companies’ profit?
  • like others have said, human creativity, truth, the fun in the process, learning and expression cannot be encompassed and replaced by generative AI tech
• Some say “human made” as a marketing term will be a thing??
• I feel even more worthless in this capitalistic world :'(
• I don’t know how jobs will transform and I don’t think anyone has concrete answers for the future
• I say this as I ignore the disappointment, doom and gloom that is GenAI (the cons outweigh everything as terrifying issues concerning people, jobs, humanity are not resolved nor regulated well yet)
  • how it negatively affects creative people and many creative industries (because AI companies are blatantly stealing from people’s work and yet feel threatened/indignant when their prompt outputs are stolen).
  • how it will affect people in terms of deep fakes, adult entertainment, criminal activity and frauds/scams
• Is there a point to learning art as I get existential?
  • yes there is for the joy of learning, expressing, the process and creating!!
  • the process itself and learning art is a wonderful thing! GenAI can’t do it for you
  • all I’ve seen people say is to keep creating (with Glaze)…even if it becomes a side hobby/job :’)
• I’m not super articulate with these issues ahhh
• I hope when measured regulations happen things will be more fair and better for us :’)

Tyler Edlin’s video on Tiktok is ruining art

• highlights how artists are not enough on their own for social media
  • they have to be entertainers and do “content”
  • do ads to courses disguised as educational art youtube videos
  • or to keep posting to the schedule for the algorithm :’)
• Meanwhile I’m here doing slow, long form blog posts and art :<
• I agree that timelapses don’t reach people
  • people want highly edited stuff
  • I don’t have the time nor interest to do that
  • indeed it’s also unrealistic when you only show the exciting parts
  • again considering longer form stuff…trying to reassure myself :’)
• I also feel overwhelmed with all my bookmarked art videos and tutorials I have yet to go through
• seeing people insist on doing in person things and “touch grass” instead of online things makes me squeamish as a hermit haha
• my takeaway from this video: use social media sparingly, in moderation and with intention and curate who you follow

Speaking of making “content” The End of Social Media…as we Know it (tinysey)

• I am feeling tired of video essays if they’re all going over the same things…
• I found myself avoiding some channels because I already follow someone that covers the same kind of things and it gets really, really repetitive
• or they’re hustling and are clearly doing it so that they sell more things and sometimes that makes me back away if I don’t find a more meaningful reason beyond this to stick around
• is there such thing as fully authentic on the internet?
  • there’s always an online persona of some kind at play after all – we’re all just trying to do our best with our own journeys and goals
• I don’t want to make video essays as it seems too exhausting and saturated
  • my blog here is good enough for me, quiet and less pressure too :’)
• I don’t do trendy things if it’s not fun and genuine for me
  • I guess that’s why I’ll always be stagnant with metrics
• occasionally I envy people who seem to have “made it” with clout/audience, have lots of art friends, do adventurous things and reach more people than I would ever reach
  • (I’m lazy and low energy myself haha)
  • it didn’t help that I was stumbling and comparing with artist accounts while I was removing followers :’)

the ethics of CONTENT (mia cole)

• just live life outside of addictive internet consumption and how it’s a whole spectrum of grey areas?
• The internet is an eternal timesink and something to do in moderation – even if platforms and videos/posts/etc are designed against you, your time and attention if you’re not careful and mindful
• Making “content” while being more mindful of what I put out there

Selling Kids for Clout: The Downfall of Family Channels (Shanspeare)

Yeah I avoid family channels because of the many reasons in discussed this 2 hour essay – kids are non consenting.

Great News – Social Media Is Falling Apart… (heyDomink) – on monetisation, sponsorships, saturation

• I mean I’m down for an overhaul because the current system is getting worse
• I won’t give up either as I’ve posted art online as a hobby since 2005 and started this blog in 2011 so shall keep weathering through storms, trial and error and keep a beginner mindset!
• I’m already here for the long run while everyone’s going ham on video/streaming/platforms/short form videos
• I’m ignoring the short form advice he’s talking about ;P
• I feel like we’re all going to stick to our own internet bubbles while platforms become more volatile and keep evolving in their attempts to monetise and exploit users
• still holding onto hope I guess…
• also that feeling when a big artist only likes your Crossy art posts and ignores your personal art/fanart work (and others who only like my fanart and not my Crossy work) haha

Thanks for you being here though! Especially when this blog has no reach on its own and I’m not doing super trendy things! I’m just documenting what I do, what I’m learning and what I come across haha

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