AntiSocial Media

Is social media  becoming antisocial?

More and more it is becoming apparent that social media platforms are trying to think for us. They are constantly updating algorithms that take your interests away from you. You can see it happening all over the place, on many different platforms and if you ask me it is beginning to get out of control.

The first time I had realized this was on Facebook. When you have a page (not just a profile) on Facebook, it is your job to promote that page as best you can, but do you have the power to even do that anymore? The answer is no. Facebook has taken your power away from you and more and more they continue to make your page less visible to the people that like your page because they want to see your stuff. They limit who sees your work and only let it out to a choice few of your followers. If they randomly pick the few followers that are only lookyloo’s who do not like or comment, than your post is stuck in limbo waiting for another random follower to either come to your page and look for themselves, or maybe it gets dropped into their timeline at a later date… but the chances of that are slim.

Then Instagram started to do the same and people eventually started to notice they were not seeing everything, but only what Instagram wanted you to see. They followed the same example as Facebook, but without the monetary incentive Facebook uses to try and make you purchase views.

Well, now YouTube appears to be jumping on this bandwagon and is now slowly starting to limit views. I have started noticing that channels I follow are not getting put into my “subscription” feed. So I started checking around with other people I know and asked them if they were seeing this as well… and lo and behold, they are. How far will YouTube take it? Are they just limiting views or are they going to take it to the Facebook level?

One of the main reasons people use YouTube is the possibility that you can make some money down the road, (don’t even get me started on the 10,000 view thing) but what happens if YouTube eventually decides that it is you that should be paying them to let people that have subscribed to your channel get notifications from your channel?

Am I being an alarmist here? Maybe I am, but with the increasing amount of sites that are getting into the limiting business, shouldn’t I be worried about it? Are you?

Would love to hear your opinions on this, if you have something to say, feel free to leave a comment below.

For the record: YouTube actually started to do this back in 2012, but has recently made some changes that is making it far more active in its subscription hiding.

The Art of Blatant Theft

         There are far too many people that are pre-programmed to ask for forgiveness after stealing your artwork than there are those that would ask for your permission to use it first.

       Some time ago I was fooling around with the Google reverse image search functions. I fed in about a dozen photos of designs and paintings and around the 13 or 14 one, something happened. It kicked back a whole bunch of results. Here was one of my designs being used without my permission all over the web. There were 28 hits in total. 27 were all one guy that had my design up on different t-shirt sale websites, and one from a university.

      

        First I contacted the websites one by one and started asking them to pull it down. If needed, I emailed them copies of the original pencil sketches, inked drawings, and even linked them to where the exact version of the picture was taken from. Which made it obvious that the design was indeed mine. This was slow going but I eventually got them all pulled, and the guy got banned from all of them. Not that I think that will stop him from doing it again and again and if not with my art, than maybe yours. 

        

        The university was another story altogether. They were adamant about their design being done by their designer who was highly respected and blah blah blah. After much pushing on my part, they eventually asked the designer. He told them they paid only enough to get him to throw something together quick. He grabbed a random image off of an art website that fit the criteria and used it. He admitted his fault and the school stopped using it immediately. They nicely sent me a letter of apology and went about their business in my good standings. Since they were not selling anything with the image on it and not making a profit from its use (A few flyers and banners for their sports team) I did not see any need to pursue further.

        I would suggest that all artists start a quarterly reverse image search of your works and make sure you are not being robbed as well.

        Protecting your intellectual property has always been a difficult task and the Internet has only served to complicate matters. The web has become an unoriginal designer’s one stop shop for endless material to shamelessly ripoff. there is an immensely blurred line between inspiration and theft. Exactly where that line lies is perhaps different for every designer. But for me, it boils down to just being plain wrong. If you can't be a decent creative person with out stealing from someone else... Stop claiming to be a creative person. But then again Pablo Picasso did say that "Good artists copy, great artists steal."

Work in Progress

Floating through the Seasons

Work in Progress

     So I have been working on this new painting for about a week now and was wondering what people might think of the progress so far. It is slowly coming together.

      I have had a small set back as I was trying to make a timelapse video of the work, and the camera I was using decided to crap out on me and I lost the last 2 hours of work that I filmed. It was all work done after this point (pictured) but mostly detail work. I am hoping to use my phone to continue this, but it will take some time to get it all worked out.

      As of right now I have figured out how to set most of it up, Deleted a mass amount of stuff from my phone to make room for footage and am eagerly looking forward to getting back to it.

      Hope you like what you see so far and any comments or questions or suggestions are always welcomed.






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The Art of Procrast… Distraction

Squirrel by E H Paulson

I was going to write an entry on the subject of procrastination, at least that was the original intent. I figured I would make a list or something to see if I could find out why I was procrastinating, at what times did I do it more, and were there specific things that I tended to put off more than others.

I started making my list and got distracted. I then realized that I had indeed gotten distracted and went back to my list, until I was once again distracted by something else. So what’s the point?

There are two kinds of people in this world. The first is the kind that can finish lists… Why do we get distracted?

For me, it seems to be entertainment and I am easily entertained. I like movies and television and often keep it on as background noise while doing other things. However, I find myself frequently watching rather than doing. Not to the extent of impeding my life in any way, but enough that I have started to notice that I do it. This is when I realized that I was going about the subject in the wrong text.

I don’t procrastinate… I am just easily distracted. These are obviously two different things. One is a lack of motivation and one is a problem. There just seems to be a little nudge in the back of my mind that pushes me to do other things, but not in a multitasking kind of way. I just grow bored with the things I have at hand, and move on to something else. 

(Okay I’m back, no I wasn't distracted... someone needed help with something)

Now where was I? Oh yeah, I think it has to do with the way I taught myself to paint. I use a wet on wet technique but I do it in layers. One layer, wait until dry, then do another layer some time later. I used to work on multiple paintings at a time and this was a good way of using my time. Now however, I put more effort into a single painting and concentrate on doing the one over doing many. This is where that extra time is coming into play and not being utilized well. I wait for things to dry and sometimes start new projects altogether, forgetting to go back to the other.

So now that I have finished my actual list. I am going to implement some things to try and get myself back on track. I am going to leave the TV off while painting or reading/writing. I am going to go back to a slower version of multiple paintings at once to see if that helps with my time management and see if I can limit how often I am distracted by outside influence.

Do you get easily distracted or do you have a problem with real procrastination? Leave a comment and let me know. I am always looking for new people to share Ideas and tips with. If you like this blog, please feel free to +1, Like, and Share it your friends. No pressure though.

Missing a Friday :(

No real Friday post this week as I am getting ready to go to the NYC Art Expo this weekend and wanted to hold off in case something really great presents itself as a topic. But rest assured I will have my normal Monday post or possibly two. Can't wait to see what my favorite YouTube artist Tim Gagnon is bringing to the show. Looking forward to this for a while now.

So if you haven't already seen this blog or if you have but have only glanced at it, this is a great chance to go back and maybe see something you might have missed or wanted to look over again.

I have also added a video to the Social Media Interaction post that delves deeper into how bad Facebook's paid post ads are and why it is a terrible idea to use it.

Hope to hear from a few of you here. Please leave a comment if you do take the time to look over and ponder my previous posts.

Cheers,
Joseph

Social Media Interaction

How do you interact with other artists on social networking sites?

I have some basic guidelines that I set up for myself. These guidelines are set up in a way that allows me to interact, ask questions, and give critiques to any number of artists and either gather new information or just shoot the breeze from time to time. Both can be just as rewarding if your goal is simple interaction or learning something new. I use these guidelines to not only gain exposure for myself and my artworks to others but to make it simpler to interact with more real people and artists. Because that is what people do, we interact with others, even online. We are social creatures at our core.



My guidelines:

• Never add a +1 or a Like to something that is not by the artist themselves or a promoting service helping the artist get more exposure.
        The reason for this is time management and concentrated efforts. If someone posts a picture of another artists work and doesn't include a link or even their name, then that  person is getting and more likely taking the credit.
  
• Only engage with artists that are willing to engage you back.
        If someone doesn't take the time to interact back, then they might not be worth the effort. This does not count against the occasional poster. Only those who are very active but don't take time to engage with their audience. Why have the social networking account, if you aren't being social.
  
• Never +1, Like, or Share something that is asking or begging to have it made so. If someone is asking me to do these things I immediately get that feeling that that is all they are really interested in... their personal numbers. Facebook can be an exception since they limit your views and numbers so that you will pay them to increase it. Ask away on Facebook.
        I get that numbers can be important and that the rate they go up can be thrilling, but this should not be your main focus. I also, will not add one of these requests to anything I post, mostly because it comes off as needy. Yes I want my numbers to go up, who doesn't, but let's not lose control and become lost.

These are my guidelines, not yours, and yours may vary greatly. Do you have any personal guidelines for promoting yourself and your artwork on social networking sites? What sites are you on and or using? Anything you do or don't do? Any tips or tricks?  Whatever you want to talk about is always open for a good discussion.

Hope to hear from many of you.
Joseph

Edit to add this video: Check it out if you have any questions about Facebook ads.