Here’s why it’s not cool to delete an artist’s caption when you reblog.
So, recently I created a comic for my friend scarecity‘s anthology, and I posted it on tumblr. Soon after, it was reblogged by sixpenceee, a popular content aggregation blog (essentially, a reblog blog). sixpenceee deleted the text that I had written to accompany my artwork. I got angry about this and I believe sixpenceee took the post down (no response or apology, however). I have had time to cool down since then, and it occurs to me that maybe sixpenceee and others don’t fully understand why this is an unacceptable thing to do. I thought I’d make a post to break it down.
It’s rude and you should know better. When you take your cursor, highlight my username and text, and reach for the delete key, surely a thought must cross your mind: “The original poster wrote this text here for a reason.” Deleting that caption isn’t something that just happens, it’s something you decided to do. It’s a decision despite the fact that you made in a split second and it took no effort at all on your part. How long do you think it took me to create the art you’re wiping my text from?
Artists are people, and we deserve respect. Art doesn’t materialize from a void. Paintings, comics, and cute animated GIFs don’t burst forth from a dimensional rift, appearing expressly to decorate your blog. The same hands that labored over that art piece typed the text you see below it. By rejecting one and displaying the other, you display a deep disrespect for the person behind the image.
Captions often contain important information. The caption of my piece explained the theme I was going for, the background of the character (my own) featured in the comic, and most importantly, a plug for the anthology that the comic would be featured in. Because sixpenceee removed my caption, hundreds of people reblogged my work without any of this information, and a great opportunity to promote my art and my friend’s anthology was lost.
The artist’s username and link back to their blog is important. Many artists include a short or even nonsensical text blurb when posting images on tumblr simply to ensure that their blog link is prominently featured below the image. Without this caption, it’s easy for the image’s original source to be misconstrued or overlooked. Taken to its extreme, this situation could even lead to misuse of the image as a perceived “orphan work.”
“Art should speak for itself” is a lame excuse. Paintings in museums have placards giving context to the piece. Patrons can choose to read them or not. The important thing is that it’s there.
“It looks ugly on my blog” is a lame excuse. Get a new theme that makes text look nice, then.
Artists will think you’re shitty. ;)
Here is the post in question, in its original form with my text included. As you can see, my caption was neither overlong nor irrelevant. But even if it had been, that’d be no excuse to delete my words.
I’m sure there are more points to be made here, but these are the reasons I was upset when my caption was removed. I hope this enlightened someone. Thanks for reading.
