It’s getting hard to be an adult artist
Pun wasn’t intended but I think we all need a laugh right now
I’ve been doing a lot of reading tonight. This purge situation is more grim than I thought it was. Not just on Tumblr, but all over the place.
I don’t make a lot of explicit art, but I know people who make a good living off of it and who might be looking for alternate places to post their art. Turns out there are surprisingly few options.
Tumblr, as we already know, is going to get rid of all adult content, including erotic artwork and other forms of “sensitive” imagery, which is basically anything they or The Ineffable Algorithm deem unsuitable for their new squeaky-clean policy.
DeviantART also forbids sexual content (sample seen below of their “sexual themes” policy).
Facebook has implemented a similar policy on 15 October that is now starting to take effect. Granted, it’s under the headline of “sexual solicitation”, and while you’re probably not posting artwork in exchange for sexual favors, there’s a clear line that states drawn content of explicit sexual activity is prohibited (see below).
Wordpress prohibits sexually explicit images, which includes drawings.
And apparently that’s not all. There’s a whole lot of garbage going down that I didn’t know about (understadably, I’m not enganged in some of these platforms or websites) but there are articles popping up all over the place about how this is happening on many popular social media sites. Here are some of the better articles I’ve read:
The internet war on sex is here (Engadget.com)
Tumblr’s porn ban reveals who controls what we see online (Wired.com)
Despite the looming fear of social media exodus, many fandom Tumblr users will staunchly remain on the platform (Polygon.com) This is a really good article with more focus on fanart and the fandom community in general.
There are still some sites that allow freedom of expression, however.
Archive of Our Own. What more can be said? It’s the shining beacon of free speech in an increasingly un-free internet age. Owned by fans, run by fans, supported by fans, untainted by the stench of advertisers who dictate what can and can’t be seen.
Dreamwidth continues to astonish me with its embracing of creative freedom and I wish I had come across it sooner. Read their About Us and Diversity Statement to get a taste of the kind of people they are. It sounds like a blog version of AO3, which is awesome, and, like AO3, they are solely supported by their userbase and are advertiser-free.
Pillowfort is set to be the next Tumblr (minus a lot of the negative things that haunted Tumblr), but they’re just getting started and need time and support to grow. A possible future concern is the fact that the .io domain prohibits use of its sites for sexual or pornographic purposes–but perhaps not sexually explicit art? According to Pillofort’s official tweet, they do allow mature content. The exact definition of the limitations/qualifications of such content remains to be seen.
Twitter has a pretty liberal policy on adult content. Some people are not comfortable posting there due to the inability to control who sees what. From what I’ve heard from fellow Tweeters and Tumblrites, there’s a fair chance of getting unwanted attention from haters, antis, garden-variety Nazis and racists, and good old-fashioned trolls. General concensus appears to be post at your own risk.
Instagram has a no-nudity policy which implies that explicit sexual content (and art) is also verboten. However, they don’t explain if there’s a difference between hand-drawn nudity and photographic nudity, so I assume it’s another case of post at your own risk?
This is more than just drawings of cartoon sex. This is about people’s livelihood, their happiness, their fandoms (and their fans), and their freedom of expression, the latter of which is rapidly vanishing from the internet as we know it.
The list of sites above are only the ones I’m familiar with. If anyone has experience on other media sites where explicit art is allowed (like Mastodon? I don’t know much about it), please reblog and help your artist friends find an alternative place to keep doing the thing they love.
Also, if I’ve missed or misinterpreted anything in the above, feel free to correct me. I tried to read everything thoroughly but I am human and very, very tired, so please be gentle.