I wanted to express my disdain for the whole sub for sub system and hopefully get some of you to think about this topic a little more. Feel free to give me your two cents because this is mine.
First off let me say I completely support supporting other artists through subbing or liking or whatever methods there are on whatever social media platform you're on. IF it's in the context of not expecting anything in return. Which is to say:
Sub for sub is not real support.
It is a shallow and worthless agreement that provides no actual support to artists.
In the end, the goal for artists is to obtain a non-artist audience because they are the ones who are more likely to consume your art/product. When it comes to artists supporting other artists, things get weird. Artists tend to have the fragilest of egos and when there are two fragile egos in the mix both asking for validation from each other for the same type of content, that is where things get dicey.
You should know by now that numbers are worthless. You could have thousands of followers and then get zero interaction from any of them. If you're not getting interaction what's the point? This is what happens with sub for sub. You sub to this person and then they sub to you, but you don't actually care that much for their art and neither do they for your art. Then you never speak to each other again. Who wants that?!
Having a large follower count doesn't necessarily lead to organic growth down the road. Especially if your content is lacking. Numbers don't magically improve your content.
Instead, what you should be doing is supporting artists because you actually like their art/content and not because you're expecting something in return. If they like your stuff then great! if they don't then whatever, they don't! You can't please everyone and you're going to have to accept that!
We all know the algorithm is sh**t and maybe you're not getting much organic growth. But sometimes it's not the algorithm at fault.
I think many artists need to take a step back and really evaluate themselves and what they have to offer as an artist:
Do you need to improve on anatomy?
Does your art look too similar to other artists?
Are you only doing fanart and nothing unique?
In the case of webcomics or novels, do you need to improve your grammar, your sentence structure, your character building, and/or your overall story?
I am not trying to put any artist down here but you seriously need to be realistic about where you are in your art journey or you're going to be seriously hurt down the road. If you need to improve on your art, don't take that as an insult, no one is born an artist and no one is perfect. Not even artists you look up to.
I am also not saying anyone is a bad artist. In fact there no bad artists, only learning artists. But again, if you can't be real with yourself and refuse to see why people aren't interested in your art, then you're going to hit a brick wall. And no amount of sub for sub is going to save you.
I personally have a lot of growing to do as an artist and I recognize where I need to grow. I don't look for empty validation in a sub that doesn't care about my art.
Have meaningful conversations with people and other artists and make those meaningful connections. That will get you a dedicated supporter instead of a pity sub. Making a personal connection makes people want to follow your art journey no matter how early you are in that journey.
