I have a question, and I am quite genuinely not trying to start an argument here. It seems you always immediately jump to being incredibly confrontational and angry about things. You often have the route of a calmer reaction available to you but you opt to rage post. You come off as an incredibly unreasonable, unapproachable, and rude person. Why do you do this? Is there a benefit? Does it actually achieve expected behavior from others? Does it make you feel better? Do you want to seem this way?
I’m …not trying to start an argument either, but while we’re being honest, this comes off as extremely patronizing.
But I digress, and assume you legitimately mean nothing by it.
Look, I’m aware that I often end up making angry ‘don’t do this’ posts. And if I mention a behavior that you, anon, personally think harmless, that might seem very confrontational to you.
Here’s where my word parsing comes in:
I personally disagree that my posts are ‘rage posts’. I don’t directly swear at anyone, I don’t say ‘this person did ___ and therefore is garbage’. I’m extremely against any sort of crowd-piling and hunt-down posts. What I AM doing is posting on my own blog - about things that bother me.
Now…. ironically enough…. this may be a cultural difference! I’m Russian. In my natural state, I am a lot less polite with my wording. I have consciously stepped away from that when I talk directly TO people face to face (and in fact since moving to Japan I’ve adjusted my manner accordingly because if I didn’t, I would be IMPOSSIBLE to work with in my Japanese workplace.)
Here’s the zoom-out, birds-eye view of this whole situation:
You have no idea how many people I deal with daily, and how many things I ignore, quite calmly, when you guys aren’t looking or are unaware of it. I get asks all the time that I could also snap at, but a lot of times I just roll my eyes and delete them and say nothing about it.
Now, as for the asks/posts I DO make public…
The people that might otherwise never examine their behavior (such as calling strangers online ‘bitch’, as in, sending a random message to a stranger on the internet ‘You bitch give us the next damn page of the comic already.’ or referring to someone as ‘sweetheart’ when no prior relationship has been established) may actually stop, think, and realize ‘oh, are people actually… not… comfortable with that? I thought that was normal, but someone is saying otherwise. Huh.’
Not only this - ESPECIALLY in an anon situation, there is NO way to reply privately and tell the person ‘hey, I’m uh. Not okay with this.’
You may as well let them AND everyone within hearing range know - ‘this ain’t okay. You need to realize the effect you have on others.’
And sure, some people see ONLY this and think “oh buh, That Guy is angry again. It’s annoying to see this.”
But I also guarantee you that maybe a few people are finally, FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, considering how something they are doing is not the baseline behavior, and might get different reactions from different people.
I’ve grown up with LOTS of kids who have done lots of REALLY FUCKIN RUDE THINGS because that’s how they were raised, and when they went out into the world, they just… got away with it. Because no one said anything, because it would be ‘impolite’.
(When I was a teen, another teen had the habit of punching people and being very physical to the point of hurting them and everyone just kind of smiled awkwardly and let it happen.
Until finally one other kid had enough and snapped at them to stop doing it. Finally, finally, that Punching-Teen had the mind-shattering revelation that in fact, no, the others were NOT finding this entertaining. Arguably this was the equivalent of a ‘rage post’. Was pleasant and calm? No. Was it, arguably, justified? I’d say yeah, if you’re getting treated in a way you don’t like, you are allowed to have feelings about it!)
I’m not super nice. I’m actually… shockingly… not invested in coming off as a 100% nice person. That’s not really… my gig. I’m here to draw comics, I’m not a public figure or a celebrity. Also, I don’t come into random people’s inboxes and rant at THEM. People usually contact me first and I am given the task of replying.
All I ask when you come into my inbox is that you take a minimum consideration of how you address what is, essentially, a stranger on the street corner. OR better yet - since I’m drawing a comic - a merchant at a Convention. If you would not go up to a random fanartist selling merch and start the conversation with “sweetheart, when’s the next comic?” then… why would you do it online? (Which, I understand, some people really DO do that irl. Which again - cultural differences, I understand. There’s room for both of us to fumble that social interaction and no one would necessarily be at fault.)
I am fully eager to connect and be kind - if you are, IN TURN, willing to talk to me with anon off. If I’ve hurt your feelings somehow… by all means, TALK TO ME. Not like this, lobbing things like
to make me feel like I’m throwing a tantrum when I am, in fact, just reaffirming a few standard social boundaries - but with anon OFF and discussing things like a human being.
You ARE right about one thing. I should take it upon myself to change what I am doing, as promised.
I’ve tried before to avoid replying to personal asks to keep the number of consequent angry-replies low. But I didn’t turn off anon. That’s on me.
Anon’s gonna be off now and honestly, I’m gonna try one more time to stop talking about anything non comic-related. No one needs to deal with me and my ‘rage posts’.
Again, if you have an issue with me resembling an angry teen, feel free to. I dunno. Talk to me? Like a person.
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