I confess I have an account with an online persona I built just out of fear of cancel culture. I am not problematic, but I also don't like to get myself into political agenda stuff and I have seen people get awfully criticized for just saying that or for having a certain type of character they like (ie: all cis characters, all light skinned, all from a certain culture; no specific trait is safe here). So I felt that as much as I wanted to share, I would never be able to do that without facing criticism or hate at some point. So, in hopes of never going through a witch hunt myself I decided to adopt a different identity altogether on Toyhouse when I made my account, because I am terrified of being doxxed, I feel is so common nowadays and I hate it because I used to have online friends with OCs when I was younger, we interacted and didn't need to know who we were. Sometimes I consider if I should finish my commission and trade's queue, post an announcement and disappear eventually, come back with other account that I like for once, start anew without the pressure of being someone I don't really identify much with. I even avoid topics I am interested in because I don't want others to ever recognize me or find me online. But I genuinely think I am not that likeable enough to start with my true personality somewhere else, and I also fear parasocial relationships and socializing online. I feel bad thinking I can't consider someone a friend behind a screen, and I value my private life too much for ever sharing my personal life so that's also a reason I feel will deter people from interacting with me, I like my boundaries a lot ok? I don't want to share my experiences or vent, I just want to be silly and show my characters and stories to the world, and have people saying they like one of my characters or their story, because everyone likes their work or characters to be appreciated. Sigh, anyways, I will probably do exactly this one day, start from scratch. I miss when social media was a bit more anonymous, now I feel anyone could find me too easily, it makes me so anxious.
I'm going to be honest, the first part does feel a little bit dog whistle-y. Usually when people say "push an agenda" they're talking about people having characters who just so happen to be gay or nonwhite. Then paired with you describing "cis, light skinned, etc" is a bit weird even though usually people don't hound you for liking certain characters unless your weird about it.
I am gonna give you benefit of the doubt though cause it is a fucking Tumblr ask, I'm just saying having gay or non white characters isn't agenda pushing.
But honestly I agree with the rest of it. I've been getting into indieweb stuff, like neocities and smaller websites, and it honestly puts into perspective how much bigger social media sucks. like i remember this one video talking about how you cant even go on instagram to look at stuff without an account. there's not many apps that let you hop on without an account, look at some of the recent posts or whatever, then hop off. everything wants your data and identity and every detail about you they can get their hands on.
and the art community has felt more hostile honestly. i've talked to my friend before how i'm scared to share my own ocs because no one cares. no one wants to talk with you about your ocs or art and it sucks. i've literally had someone call my ocs ugly in a passive aggressive way before and cant count how many times i've tried to join in on talking about ocs and get ignored. it really feels like people have gotten meaner about ocs and art and i really wish i could make some friends about ocs.
i don't know, if i had to give advice id say try being yourself, its not fun pretending to be something you're not and art/ocs are supposed to be fun. plus you don't have to give away, i think you can still enjoy things and show your art and stuff without having to put your whole life in the public as well.
