The Beauty of Smaller Communities
Back when I decided to start doing art online in Early 2020, just a bit after the pandemic started affecting everyone worldwide, I had one clear goal in mind, to be a big account across the entirety of the art medium I wanted to focus on (Pixel Art). Was this a dumb dream? I mean yeah, but I wanted to try and be like those artists I saw online, and this was what motivated me across 3 years until I had achieved that goal at Twitter... but it wouldn't really last long.
As that last year progressed, Twitter kept getting worse and worse because of you-know-who, so I started going through alternatives, I've tried the popular options like Instagram and Twitch/Youtube, but I also started going into the smaller platforms, like Mastodon, Tumblr (which right now is small), Newgrounds, and GameJolt even.
These smaller social medias made me look at the way I do art online differently. Most of them didn't really have an algorithm and if they did, it was very un-intrusive, they weren't doing targeted ads, and people hating on each other for the dumbest of reasons didn't happen here, it was... Peaceful, no one was fighting to have your attention, you just posted about what you wanted to post, and people would check it out, there were people even leaving comments, you know how many pieces I posted before that had lots of interactions but never had a single comment? it was very refreshing.
They may not be as big as your Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, sure, but being on these places taught me that chasing that high wasn't really worth it, even if I had achieved it at Twitter, was it really worth it to be a big account there? The place that can shadowban everyone for the dumbest of reasons, making all that spent effort pointless? Not to mention the amount of bots that there are in that place, how many of my followers were even bots?!
It may sound dumb to say this, but unlike the big social media platforms, it actually felt like there was a community in those smaller sites, not one trying to sell me targeted ads, trying to keep me glued to the screen, trying to get me to fight because that's what moves the world, but one that was open to talk, to do things, to cooperate.
These places made me change my primary goal in Art, it was no longer about trying to be among the top artists, but instead, to try and spread happiness with my art, to give back to what everyone in those sites taught me. This is around the time where I stopped doing normal art and started leaning more and more into the sillyposting that still prevails strong today.
While all this was happening, Twitter kept getting worse and worse, and it reached a point where I either needed to jump ship or stay. If it wasn't because of those smaller communities I've been a part of, I would have most likely stayed there, as I had a big following I wanted to keep... But instead I decided to focus on the smaller sites, rather than having them kinda in the sideline, so I just left Twitter and never came back. I also left Instagram too because fuck Meta.
Even if I had a far smaller following in all of those places compared to Twitter and Instagram, the fact that people in those small communities were far more supportive, far more understanding, far more comprehensive, it made it all worth it for me.
Nowadays I'm glad I jumped from that ship, you might be missing on some things from the big places, but my experience in those 3 years was just draining, trying to please an algorithm that always throws tantrums while the owners of the sites also throw tantrums tired me out to no end, it made me hate having to post things, it just wasn't fun, and it felt intended to be that way. But it doesn't HAVE to be that way, as I've tried to show across this blogpost.
I got the idea for this blogpost as I've realized that, lately, all my activities online happen in these smaller places, may it be social medias, forums or even small discord servers like my own. There may not be activity 24/7 and to someone accustomed to that it might feel wrong, even calling it a "dead place", sure, but for me it just feels right at home, you don't have to always be talking and posting if you don't feel like it, and you shouldn't be punished by something like an algorithm for doing things differently.
Even if these places ARE smaller in size, they are NOT smaller in the heart and passion they pour, I've had as many, if not more good moments happen in them compared to big places, places that have far more bad moments usually happen in them.
So yeah, consider checking out those smaller places, you don't know what you could find but it'll very likely be a chill and neat experience.
For now though, I'll go check a small community. In Discord. My Discord Server. You should join it-
-AnubiArts, the one that rambles forever.