#the shitpost variation u might say

[thechekhov]

how would you recommend an artist make themselves better known on tumblr and in general? ive been drawing and painting almost my whole life but its hard to get people to notice me, any advice? thank you, you're my fave artist

Thank you so much! That makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside…

As for your questions… hmm… it’s for sure a good one. 

I’m going to get a bit… strategical on that one. Hope you don’t mind this approach. 

Tumblr and real life are definitely alike in a lot of aspects, while in others they’re polar opposites. For the sake of keeping things neatly shelved, I’m going to focus on tumblr in this post.

＊*☆HOW TO GET ART NOTICED ON TUMBLR☆*＊

by chekhov

1. We have to understand how the tumblr sharing system works. 

I know this sounds a bit too obvious. I mean, we all know HOW. It’s by reblogging! 

I know that there’s a BIG opinion on tumblr that we should share and reblog art as much as possible to help artists get noticed. And that’s TRUE. It’s absolutely correct.

One thing I don’t agree with on that front is the guilt-tripping factor of it all. Like somehow people are responsible for the downfall of less popular artists because they didn’t reblog stuff enough. People are really quick to point at their followers and say “I GOT 100 OF Y’ALL HERE AND ONLY 3 ARE REBLOGGING ANYTHING”. 

I get it. It’s frustrating!

But the fact of the matter is, you can’t force people to reblog stuff. 

Instead, I recommend we harvest the power of the sharing we already have. We have to be smart about this. What I’m going to go into is a bit less concrete. We have to think about the PEOPLE who are doing the reblogging. 

Artists aren’t the ONLY ones with motivations for getting their stuff seen. And because they create media they are, for lack of a better word… a vendor! The buck STARTS with them, but it doesn’t stop with them. 

They have to also think about what the people are going to do with their product once it’s reblogged. Once someone buys from the vendor, they don’t just keep it forever. They distribute it to the others. And sometimes, those others distribute it again. We have to think about the bigger picture, and think about how FAR your art has the potential to go!

So, to get started we need to know… WHO are the ones buying from the vendor… and why?

What kind of rebloggers ARE there? 

I’m going to give my own opinion here, and feel free to disagree. But the 3 biggest rebloggers most important to the artist are these:

1. The Pleaser

Sounds sexy, right? In fact, the pleaser comes in many different forms. But essentially their goal is the same - they reblog stuff like aesthetic posts, and other pleasing things. They themselves tend to like a lot of stuff and reblog mostly beautiful photos, nice designs, and lots of fanart of whatever they’re into at the time. Comics and story-like posts are good here (although if they’re too long, people tend to lose interest.)

How to get reblogged by a Pleaser?

Appeal to their fandom, their interest, and make something that moves them. Pleasers are most active around the time when the new episode of their favorite show comes out, or when their favorite holiday comes around. Drawing fanart during its peak popularity will usually catch a Pleasers’ attention, as will drawing aesthetic Halloween posts around, well, Halloween. 

2. The Teaser

The Teaser is the class clown and the shitposter, and they reblog memes and jokes voraciously. In the Teaser’s audience are other teasers - and they also tend to be very generous rebloggers. The fact of the matter is - memes sell reblogs faster than any aesthetic art will. We’re social creatures and getting a laugh out of our followers is worth a LOT of fake internet points.

How do I get reblogged by the Teaser?

Memes. I mean, you knew this was coming, right? During the height of some new tumblr joke, people usually welcome any unusual spin, or any funny variation of an old joke. 

My meme redraws have consistently been popular and have ‘boomed’ very quickly. For example, this redraw of sapphire from Steven Universe doing ‘the scroll of truth’ jumped to 5k almost within a day. 

Many people peek at my page ‘for the lols’ but end up staying for the art, or because there’s another thing I post they’re interested in. Either way, memes are a gateway drug… to your blog. 

3. The Librarian

The Librarian is a bit more rare, but they’re still important, because they tend to reblog a lot. They’re a bit unusual in the sense that they do this for themselves, instead of for an audience. The blog of the librarian is mostly just a replacement for bookmarking interesting stuff. These people tend to reblog tutorials, reference posts, and things they want to read later on. 

How to get reblogged by a Librarian?

Make things that people want to keep around. Charts, references, tutorials. Chances are, the librarian will snag it up eventually. 

Of course, these 3 aren’t the ONLY type of tumblr blogger. In fact, many of them are a mix of these 3. But the main point is…

2. What do most of these (and other) people on tumblr have in common?

Just like you, many people (although not all) want to get their stuff SEEN. You might be creating the original product, but they choose whether or not to distribute it to their audience. 

Everyone is playing the same game, no matter which part of the chain they’re on.

You, as an artist, have the biggest responsibility to think about this long-term. Not only 1 reblog down the line. 

For example, let’s return to one of my meme-posts that I did about wrist pain (carpal tunnel). When I made this, I had a vague idea of who would consume it. Obviously… other artists. But the reason that this got so popular? Is not only because fellow artists follow me. It’s because the artists that follow me also have followers who are also, conveniently, artists. That’s why despite the fact that many people reblogged the post directly from me - even MORE of them reblogged it from @sergle​ (shoutout to sergle! u rock) who is also a popular artist and also has an audience who were prone to want to reblog the post.

See that orange dot? That’s me. See that bigger blue dot? That’s sergle. 

In a way, this is a game of chance. Will something you reblog be seen by someone with a large enough audience to keep it going? The thing is, we don’t know until it happens. And oftentime, the only way to achieve this is to keep trying. Stubbornly. 

But you can’t just headbutt the wall in the same place and hope it eventually crumbles. You have to look for a door. 

3. So what’s the door? 

Take a look at your art. Is it consumable BEYOND the surface level of your followers? 

Sometimes people get discouraged because their fanart is way more popular than their original art. Although I share their frustration, there’s a good reason for this, and your followers aren’t to blame.  

The thing is, fanart is consumable at deep reblog levels. If you post fanart, there’s a good chance that even 3-4 reblogs down the line, there’s going to be a person who sees it and thinks ‘hey, I know Steven Universe. My followers know Steven Universe. I’ll reblog this!’ Fandoms are efficient because they already have a lot of context for the consumption of the art. They have a story (humans love stories), they’re invested in it, they’re interested in it, and there’s a good chance that sharing more stuff about it will get them more interaction with their mutuals, even if they’re not consciously thinking about all this as they reblog. 

Unfortunately, that’s just not true for your original art. Many of us have beautiful, wonderful stories - but they’re not available to a wide audience. They’re not easily consumed, they’re not easily accessed (in comparison to being on netflix, for example). If you post a picture of your OC - maybe your immediate pool of followers who know that OC will reblog it. But their own followers who aren’t directly following you will not have any connection, emotional or otherwise, to that character. They simply don’t have a reason to care, and they don’t have any means to. Even if they visit your blog - will it be easy to find similar content? Have you got your links available on desktop AND mobile? Is it easy to find the beginning of your story? Is it free of mistakes and easy to read? 

Large companies that make shows or comics funnel tons of money into making their media consumable. There’s a LOT of effort that goes into advertising, too. You, as an independent artist, simply don’t have that kind of manpower. That’s not your fault - but it’s also not your followers’ fault. Why are they supposed to reblog things that their own followers will never understand and connect with? 

4. Back to square one: how do I get noticed? 

I’m gonna keep this short and sweet because I feel like I already took up a lot of your time. After everything I’ve said, hopefully this will make sense:

Make content that has a connection to your audience somehow. Make it relatable to their life. Make it relatable to what’s currently going on. Make it worth their while to look at it. 

Make content that’s easy to understand. Super detailed drawings, with nothing to focus on are difficult to digest. Simpler, sharper drawings that someone can understand within 3 seconds of looking at it are the most digestible of all. This isn’t a museum.

If you’re creating content that goes with a story, MAKE THE STORY. I know it’s tempting to create just a whole bunch of character sketch sheets and leave it at that, but you can’t complain about not getting an audience when your audience doesn’t have anything to consume in the first place. 

Make the story AVAILABLE. Organize your tags. Make sure those tags are easily accessible. People will never like 100% of your art, so many it easy for them to find what they WILL like. 

Don’t be afraid of fanart. Fanart gets you connected with people who like stories and content similar to yours. 

Don’t be afraid to follow and reblog people that you want to connect with. Don’t be afraid to make them stuff and @ them. 

Post your stuff to a LOT of places! Your audience is somewhere out there - probably not only on tumblr. You have to spread yourself thin sometimes, but make sure the account can all lead back to your main hub. 

And last but not least…

Critically re-evaluate your art at least once a year. (I’m personally working on this.) Just because you’ve been drawing for years, and just because your art might be incredible doesn’t mean it’s appealing to people. Sounds weird, right? But think about it - there’s TONS of people who are not that amazing at anatomy, or coloring… but they still have a huge audience, and people connect with their art. A lot of times, it’s because their art is straightforward and easy to read/understand. 

Ask a friend to critique your art. Ask them if they understand your work, or if it’s difficult to make out. Ask them what your work inspires in them. Ask them what they DO like about your work - and exaggerate that!

There’s a LOT that goes into art… no matter it’s a whole industry! Doing it all on your own is HARD and it’s a bit unthinkable how much artists have to do to compete with industries. But it’s not impossible, and it’s definitely worth it. :)

Hope I didn’t bore any of y’all who made it down this far. 

Thanks!

#reblogging #art #artists on tumblr #arting #Anonymous #long post

[ratherlastminute-blog]

Post 5 - Meme Culture

Probably the weirdest, most ‘post-modern’, significant and stupid societal development of recent years is the meme.

That being said, what is a meme? Well, it really depends who you ask, and when you asked them.

The term is credited to Richard Dawkins in his book ‘The Selfish Gene’, he described is as any idea which self-propagated through society due to it being interesting, funny, or otherwise noteworthy.

In modern popular discourse, a meme can often refer to any kind of joke; though this is typically not meant without irony. For example, someone might try to wind up their friend to get a reaction, and when they do they absolve themselves of repercussions claiming ‘it’s only a meme’.

In the relatively early days of internet memes, sites like memebase.com, cheeseburger network, 9GAG and Imgur.com decided what constituted a meme, and it typically looked something like this:

These are what have come to be known as ‘meme formats’ or ‘templates’, where one might take an image and overlay it with text, changing the text to add nuanced meaning and frequently after a meme format has seen its day it will become a meta meme or perhaps become a misused format. The latter is particularly prevalent as the older generation who doesn’t necessarily understand memes begins to misappropriate them.

The thing that I personally find most interesting about memes is the variation of quality among them, one popular meta meme from reddit was the ‘I painted the ___ who painted ___ who…’ format which circulated on r/Pics around January 2019. It consisted of a redditor posting a picture of them posing with a painting they had made of another redditor posing with their painting of another redditor… and so on and so on. Participating in this meme required not only a large amount of artistic skill to render an increasingly complicated picture as people added a layer, but a huge amount of time and effort.

Compare this to a meme craze which is currently sweeping Facebook, the niche shitposting group which becomes a metameme group. Shitposting is difficult to define, but it is essentially posting low quality, relatively amusing content which usually is making a joke at someone or something’s expense. On Facebook you can easily find a group targeted to pretty much any popular franchise, film, person, etc. and they all take the same format and tend to live the same cycle. “David Bowie Starposting” “Marvel Shieldposting” “Brooklyn 99 Holtposting”, indeed even my university has its own such group “Loughborough Towersposting”.

Such groups typically begin as a small group amusing each other, then as the group grows it becomes more and more meta, certain meme formats become popular in short bursts then become parodied near instantly before moving on to a new format which is then cannibalised shortly after.

This effect of digital media has proven to be one of the most popular aspects of it and yet one of the most difficult to predict and emulate without being a part of the culture yourself. The many attempts that big companies, politicians or even just adults have made to venture into meme culture have indeed themselves become the product of memes, groups like r/FellowKids which mocks companies, teachers and parents’ attempts at implementing memes have become hugely popular, many such groups like ‘Why is baby boomer humour so weird?’, ‘r/OldPeopleFacebook’ and countless more exist. The meme as a concept has the highly post-modern tendency to become meta and self-parody, and indeed other aspects of post-modernism have bled into meme culture seamlessly. Existential angst is often the topic of memes, the sheer volume of memes and variation is reminiscent of Fredric Jameson’s (1991) opinions of post-fordism and the expansion of cultural productions to undermine traditional powers and ethics.

So, when thinking again the same question we started with; what exactly is a meme? Well, it’s still hard to answer that. If you were to ask for my personal opinion, I might be inclined to agree with what Andy Warhol would be likely to say – Real art is commercial art, and commercial art is real art. Memes are fundamentally a part of pop culture in 2019, so by extension they must also be art.

Or maybe they’re just stupid in jokes that hold no artistic or cultural value.

In all honesty, it’s hard to tell which.

Appendix:

Word count – 722

Bibliography:

Dawkins, R. (1978). The Selfish Gene. Evolution, 32(1), 220. doi: 10.2307/2407425

Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. Duke University Press.

Lyotard, J. F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge (Vol. 10). U of Minnesota Press.

Shifman, L. (2014). Memes in digital culture. Mit Press.

[mingyubias]

as per request, under the guide y’all will find a guide on how to twitter rp !! just know that this is Just how i go about things & i’m sure other people do this way more concisely + like ?? better ??? but idk lmfao,, someone requested it, so here you go !!

okay !! i’m not gonna bother with the application process, because it’s the same as any rp. i’mma skip right to the account part. this guide is gonna be more of a “ cool things about twitter rping ” than how to do it, because doing it is really easy. BUT ANYWAYS...

YOUR ACCOUNT ( pt. 1 )

obviously, you’ve gotta go through all the steps involved in making a twitter account, but that’s just comprehensive stuff. the real work comes in when you’re setting up your profile ( and even then, it’s not too hard ). the first thing you do is choose a twitter handle. for me, i usually stick to what i know & i put it in all caps — dont ask why, it’s just a thing. generally, my handles are one of the following: 1800NAME, NAME2ADJECTIVE, POTUSNAME, FLOTUSNAME, or any of the general tumblr urls ( 1800ALLY, ALLY2EXTRA, FLOTUSALLY, etc ). i recommend one of these variations or looking at the other twitters for the other characters’ handles for inspiration.

YOUR ACCOUNT ( pt. 2 )

okay !!!!!!! for me, choosing a display name is the Hardest part.. im fake and i change it five seconds after i choose one,, BUT again, i usually look at the other charas for inspiration, but when in doubt, i always go with my favorite tv/book/movie characters, like BOBBY BRiGGS. or HARLENE QUiNZEL. or smthn like that. if that doesn’t interest you, then memes are a good way to go. at least 4 ppl in the rp i’m currently in have some variation of ‘cash me ousside’ as their display name, so memes are a safe route as well. you can also make it into an inside joke with another character if you’d like, just like in the picture i used for the graphic, as one of my charas is good friends w/ another and is “ dragging ” him in her name. it’s really up to you !!

YOUR ACCOUNT ( pt. 3 )

bios are easy,, usually any tweet from tfln ( texts from last night ) is a safe route to go and that’s what i use before i interact with people. after that, i usually use an indirect or something funny someone in the rp has said.

YOUR ACCOUNT ( pts. 4 & 5 )

this is for your icon + header, but those are both easy. your icon, obviously, should be a picture of your fc, but your header can be anthing from a nice andscape to a headass meme. usually when a chara gets into a relationship or is good friends w/ someone, they set them as their header. it’s a sign of true love to have each other as your headers.

TIPS & TOMFOOLERY

( 1 ) first thing most people do is post a selfie, again captioned with a tweet from tfln. i usually always post 2 pictures just because i like the way it looks, but it’s all up to you how many you post. 

( 2 ) general tweets: literally just tweet whatever your character is thinking or whatever they’re doing in that given moment. for example, when i’m eating, i usually tweet as my chara eating the same thing or something along those lines. let art imitate life XD

( 3 ) when searching for indirects, you search your character’s name -theirhandle ( ally -1800ALLY ), because if you just search the name, it’ll show your tweets, and you don’t want those. once that’s searched, select the cogs in the search bar and select “ people you follow ” and look at that !! indirects !! if your character has a popular nickname, then you might have to search more than just their full name.

( 4 ) THREADS !! a lot of people make twitter threads, which is a collection of tweets that are linked. for example, when you live tweet a movie or a show, you reply to your last tweet + erase your handle. make sure to reply to the latest tweet or it won’t work. i currently have a vine thread, which means i have to link the tweet the vine was posted in, which is also super easy. when you find the vine ( or any tweet you wanna link ), select the drop down arrow and choose ‘ share tweet via ’ and paste that link into your reply for the thread. voila !

( 5 ) dms are Amazing bc ur chara can do literally anything in them. wanna send a funny video to a buddy ? do it !! wanna make a group chat to talk mad shit ( IC ONLY GUYS PLS ), do it !! want ur Rude & Badass chara to be s*ft for a sec ??? do that shit !!

( 6 ) talking ooc is also easy, as you just add ‘ / ’ before anything you say, on the timeline and in the dms so everyone knows it’s you and not your character ( / lms for plots and shit !! ).

( 7 ) blocking vs. muting: when u block people, you can choose to see their tweets on their profile, but they can’t see yours at all. if you decide to unblock them, you’ll have to refollow them. they will also know that you blocked them, as your profile shows it. if you mute someone, however, you’re still following them & they can see your tweets, but you don’t need to see their on the timeline. they also won’t know if they’re muted.

( 8 ) NIGHT MODE IS A GODSEND & U WILL THANK ME AS SOON AS U TURN IT ON !! it’s honestly the most beautiful thing, as it makes the app navy blue instead of white and now ?? when i turn off night mode i feel blinded. it’s just so amazing ( choose the cog on your profile and select “ turn on night mode ” ).

all in all, twitter rping is just like shitposting... but make sure to keep the memes at a moderate level, because people who make their charas a walking meme are Never fun.. it’s ridiculous and So Fucking Annoying so ! i recommend u find a good balance between actually rping and spewing out the memes, ygm ?? anyways, happy twitter rping !!

#guide #twitter rp #m:res #lmfao this just me rambling #it prolly didnt even... help ??? #im sorry #this is just Me