Honestly, drawing or commissioning or not, a LOT has become kinda super jarring, maybe for everyone on every side of the coin.
- As they mentioned and highlighted, crypto scam bots, stories about drama of claimed artists sometimes having 'EMERGENCY COMMISSIONS', sometimes making a recovery, other times in debt, or sometimes even sometimes a few established artists allegedly vanishing with 100$-10000$ of prepaids.
(Inc Drama dump: Tl;dr Subjects: Scams, caustic debates, drama, ugly sides, pov stories, potential jading/alienation.)
===== Drama =====
- Ai debates is a caustic hotbed of a mess. And side or not, it's brought out a lot of ugly sides of the community. Just as he mentions quiet weeks, posting art to no responses at a beginner level and thinking about bomb threats to get commissions. Ai debates on twitter or reddit can be notoriously toxic.
o I've seen some traditional artists, even the established complain that under the past system, they were just scraping by. But forget retirement / stable income / stable loans. Just as some make 0$ per entire year, or 30$ per year or 500$ per 3 years or 2000$ per month. More people have dreams of being a 24$ million a piece Banksy than a 2$ a hr 4 months for 5$ entry level artist.
==== Potential Jaded Customer Povs ====
o I've also seen some previous long time customers or artists, kinda have the worst in them brought out by the ai debates. Like i've heard of 10+ year long customers, who thought at first that they were help supporting a life style, and as mentioned saving up for their 1x piece a year, saving up as budget allowed, thought (Before the caustic hotbed as it went from dalle1 novelty to established stable diffusion/midjourney era). Thought that a job that let them be online to both work, and keep up to tabs for sporatic artist schedules vs construction/office work, go into ai.
They worked in normal ai first, like self driving cars. When ai images first came around, it was actually their artist friends who pointed out. "Hey! We know that ai gets frusterating, that tensorwhatsits is hard! Why not look at this! It made a avocado chair!"
==== Shock/Disillusionment of calls to violence/harm ====
Within about a year of ai debate, they recalled that what went from initial novelty "Hey! look at these youtuber dalle1 images", to "Hey! we don't have the money for the rig, ur a computer guy! Some people we want to play with don't have art. You have 100-1000$s, but they don't! What if you could make art for everyone?" "But, i have a job now to pay the bills! I wouldn't have time!" "Hey! You're a ai guy right? Ai art is right around! You could host for us, give the artless stuff to play with, make worlds for us to play with, we could piggyback off your machine and try this new thing!"
So, the person got into ai art, at first so the artless could have stuff, and because it sounded like a win win (at the early time, before all the drama came through).
o Within Years, some of the people they had been with for 10 years had started wishing harm on ai users in the debate "Wouldn't it be nice if they were !@#!#?", even some previously nice seeming people such as Crownprince, a dog/paper mario animator, posted images of a blue wolf char dead made in a free requests channel for her youtube videos. Some people like Arania seemingly posted a sudden image of cannibalistic hyenas devouring others after another person requested hyenas. All the while thoughts of harms were wished.
=== Povs to each story ===
- They say there's a side to every story. The artist side sees the lack of commissions, disappointment, empty blank screen.
- The Commissioner person said that it seemed like what they thought they were supporting, (The friends they thought they grew up with, and might have gotten the job to support), felt as if to their pov. Just as they seemed nice, for 10+ years it did seem real, now they had to question who was fake, having even people who seemed great for years on end doing stuff like that.
And many seemingly supporting it in the art crowd. As if it had gone rabid, and the masses cheered for it. And then realizing that people either didn't care, or cheered for it. While 80% of people just seemed after the picture.
Some in the art crowd also said that they felt alienated. As if they had built up their whole life, to be replaced by people running away. Or people some wanted to make happy, others scalp like wallets. It felt like they dreamed of a Win Win. Both side building up a community that cared for each other. Now both said they felt like a horrifying Lose lose. Feeling traumatized/replaced / potentially used / alienated. Not by something they expected to bite them like a scary wolf.
But from the people they thought they would grow up with as children, only to end up fighting not as friends, but not knowing who was who. For better or worse, the internet's anonymous accounts made it easier for people to throw away things, Social media algorithms promoting hate by comments/views made the internet more toxic for ad revenue after Trump's Election.
Just as the Titanic ignored safety warnings to crash into a iceburg under the promise there could be a "bonus" if it arrived early and on time. Some people might have felt like toxicity with the promise of money turned some to alienate others, drastic calls for action for boredom/attention/desperation during bill times.
=== Closing Thoughts Vent ===
o Honestly, just a bit of a drama dump. Feel free to skip.
- Alienation - Povs - Did people hurt each other, treating others as wallets / machines? - With ai, do people want the art, or the human? - And do customers want the art, OR the human? - And do artists want the humans, the connection, the fame, attention, friendship, bills paid, job stability, and money? - Could either of them hurt the other, if these conflict?
- While The furry community i can vouch for definitely being surface level definitely very friendly, especially with faces attached. Some of the nastiness behind anonymous screens kind of feels like a poisoned tylenol experiment. Both paying and receiving often involves trust, and while normally nothing bad ever happens. I've heard horror stories about Boostys for russian artists (Site, not artists) allegedly stealing credit card numbers to the kremlin (charging users 600$s on 30$ orders, no refunds/paybacks), freezing 100-1500$ in artist funds. Potentially leaving malware files attached to files, etc, and just acting sketchy.
- There's also twitter/reddit drama, where anonymous account, drama stirring trolls or kids or not, some of the debates in art can be vitrolic or very high heat/toxicity. I've heard stories of few, but existing artists leading harassment squads in private discords to flag and 'eliminate' competition, such as nsfw MxM artists witch hunting other MxM artists, intentionally false Ai claims, and just drama galore. While i can vouch for the furry fandom being 100% surface polite. There's some things that i heard took 10 years to happen that make me wonder if there's a lot of hidden drama, or some people seeing customers not as people, wanting to support their dream. But "PAYPIG ADDICTS who deserve to be milked" or "The only thing THOSE ADDICTS ARE GOOD FOR, IS PAYING ME TO SUPPORT MY DREAM!!!"
==== Tl;dr 2 ====
o Furry fandom is definitely fun and inviting at first. But i've heard some horror stories, well buried behind the scenes that make me wonder. 'Was everyone real? Could it be fake?' 'Could there be someone who'd try to hurt others, if they thought it'd be to their benefit, to cause 10,000$ of harm for 100$s of dollars?' 'Are most people just after the nsfw?' 'Is it for the community, or could there be no way to know who's real, who's fake, until the mask fell off. Tylenol harmer style?'
