What’s up with artists contradicting themselves?

They might be different people with different opinions, but also people are naturally irrational and contradictory

Damn it, people saying they know which comic this was is making me curious but I feel like I shouldn't ask :'D (EDIT: oh screw it, someone plz PM it to me, the curiosity's killing me, I won't go flaming on it or anything I swear XDthanke :D)

True; I guess it's just that thinking of it as 'different people with different opinions' makes me less salty XD People are naturally irrational, but I feel like a person discussing stuff in good faith would acknowledge their contradictions when pointed out to them and concede they were probably wrong about one of their opinions if they can't logically reconcile it with the other.

It makes me really salty when people want to have their cake and eat it too, and straight up gaslight you into thinking their logically inconsistent opinions are perfectly consistent so they can hold onto both

Regarding social media, fan art and luck, I think it's important to be aware that getting "lucky" and going outrageously viral with a post, especially a piece of fan art, doesn't mean you're all set. It's not completely useless, but it's maybe not as effective a means of promotion as people think.

Because on the internet, when marketing, you need to always keep in mind this one concept: every extra click loses people.

Only a fraction of the people who see the piece on their timeline will drop a like, comment or share.
Then only a fraction of them will go to your profile to see that you have other work.
Then only a fraction of them will be interested enough to look at your original work (how many depends somewhat on how similar in style, tone, themes and audience demographics your work is to the thing you posted fanart of).
Then only a fraction of those will follow links off the platform they're on to look at a comic.
And then only a fraction of those few who got this far and looked at your comic will subscribe and become readers.

It's compounded nowadays with the way social media is constructed to make leaving the site a pain. Twitter's algorithm doesn't like links, for example. Social media platforms don't want you to go and look at somebody's webcomic on Tapas; they want you to stay on their platform and engage with more posts there. This means they're a lot less effective than they used to be for promotion than they were back in the day.

I'm friends with a lot of professional artists, and a general feeling is that fan art can boost engagement and your social media following, but you need to go in knowing that most people who engage with your fan content won't then engage with your original content. It's not a good way to advertise your own stuff, but if you pick the right fandoms, you might be able to attract the attention of people who like similar things and then you can market your original content to them while you have their attention, and whether that succeeds will depend on how suited your content is to that audience and how well you market it, just as if you were advertising anywhere else.
In many cases, you may find that it's just as effective, if not more, to post some panels from your comic that highlight how funny or dramatic your comic is and to tag it into every webcomics-related or other appropriate tag, as it is to draw a really great piece of Owl House fanart that gets a thousand likes and then to hope some of them look at your other stuff. In either case, whether people engage with your original content depends heavily on how accessible, appealing and engaging your original content is. At least the people browsing webcomic tags are likely to actually be looking for webcomics to read and will be open to giving original content a shot; the people browsing Owl House tags probably aren't, so even if the engagement with that post is high, the trickle-down into new readers on your original comic might be very small.

So that's why I don't really encourage people to focus too heavily on the "luck" element of things, because it's simply not the case that one big viral hit will have you set (or even several if you're me... I once went so viral I got interviewed by Kotaku. There are multiple blog entries about pieces of viral content I've done because one is used as a teaching aid now). Once you have people's attention, the thing you show them while they're looking at you needs to be accessible, appealing and entertaining just as much as if you use or are gifted any other means to get people looking at your work (ie. paying for ads, getting a Tapas feature, having a famous person give you a shout-out). Having a massive number of people looking may offset your poor "conversion rate" (an advertising term: Conversion is how many people who see an ad click to go to the site, or how many people who get to the site subscribe or buy something), but only somewhat. So you should always be focusing on how to make your work as inviting and engaging to the people who do see it as possible, before you focus on trying to make lots of people see it.

You can't necessarily control when your visibility gets boosted by a feature or a recommendation or something, or how well suited to your original work the people who see you are, so yeah, that part is luck... but you can control how you capitalise on that luck by making sure that what people see of your original work when it's visible looks attractive and compelling, and that's nearly entirely not luck (the only luck element is if you happen to work in a fashionable style and genre without having deliberately planned it), it's largely stuff you can choose and learn through research, study, attention to detail and good creative choices. If your work isn't grabbing people's interest when people see it on the forums or discord or webcomics communities, people seeing your work because you drew fan art isn't going to fix that problem.

Meanwhile I just wish I had seen this so polemic thread!

I wasn't going to post since everyone has already said what I was going to say, but to the folks who (I assume.) are talking negatively about that one 4 panel comic that smalltime creator made on Twitter. I'm going to be a mean bitch, I'm sorry.

1. They didn't say anything bad about NSFW creators, all they did was have a panel showing that, along with fanart, trends and what not, getting more attention. Which as someone who has drawn porn and fanart in the past, yeah, while I still had to promote it does get more attention. People are horny, and are more attached to pre-existing mainstream characters they already know than OCs, which there is nothing wrong with. That doesn't mean creators who make these kinds of works put less time and effort into their art, they put in a ton of effort, and the creator of that comic didn't remotely insinuate that wasn't the case.

2. While I agree you shouldn't be obsessed numbers, but from what I saw there was no previous evidence indicating they're doing that. For all we know they could have just had a bad day, with the lack of engagement being the last straw, and needed to vent. As human beings, experiencing the occasional bouts of jealousy and bitterness are normal, healthy emotions. Which are perfectly fine to vent about if you're not trying to harm anyone, and their vent art was completely harmless. (Again, occasional. Yes, it's unhealthy to let these emotions take control of your life, but there's nothing wrong with feeling them every so often.) If you tell me you never feel jealous of someone from time to time, you're lying or some kind of unicorn of a person.

It really rubs me the wrong way that so many people have gotten on this person for creating generic, victimless vent art. It comes off as people intentionally being malicious under the guise of being "well meaning" or "crusading for NSFW creators", because this was such a non-issue thing that blew up for no good reason. At least it's not a good enough reason to harass the shit out of them. I feel extremely bad for this person, who knows what kind of terrible stuff people said to them in DMs, or on their main comic.
Yeah, there are things they can improve on with their work, and how they promote, but it's not okay to treat someone badly for venting emotions. It's also not okay to twisting what they say into something worse than it is for "justice points".

Also sure, no one is owed readers/viewers, but you can complain about not being seen while not thinking you're owed anything. Sometimes it just feels good to get that gunk out of your system. I've done it plenty of times in my life, and I know very good well that I'm not owed anyone's time and attention. I'm only a human being doing human stuff, just like that comic creator who got dogpiled into needing a break from the internet.

Agreed, I hate Twitter.

Again, sorry! This particular thing just rubbed me the wrong way, I admit to being more salty than I should be.

I think part of the issue here is the context where one vents.

I know that venting can be a coping mechanism for many, of course, this is healthier to do when one is venting with a person they trust that can listen, give comfort and/or advice.

Sadly, engaging at such personal levels with random strangers, more often than not, is a terrible idea.
Be it because they misinterpret your intention behind the venting, they see it as unprofessional or just plain trolling.

So, are these artists contradicting themselves?......oddy enough, not neccesarily.
On social media, a certain level of professionalism is expected, so we are judged by our attitude. And sadly, venting is seen as unprofessional. Maybe some folks may consider this unfair, but that's how folks are judged.

So my take in this is: we have to choose wisely where to vent and where to ask for advice.
I see venting as something more personal, so i would direct it to a more personal context, and about asking for advice.....is better to make sure folks there know what they are talking about.

Never said venting shouldn't happen, just that in some contexts it will not be well received.

Ooof, twitter is a dumpster fire. I am not victim-blaming, but venting there is a terrible idea because opening one's heart to toxic people is a terrible idea in general.

i feel bad that op went trough that.

My post worked more as a blunt explanation on why this may happen, but of course nothing justifies such shitty behavior towards Op.

Nothing justifies harassment.....but again, twitter is the worst place to seek for any form of emotional support.

And hey, people doing art as a hobby don't need to adhere to the rules of professionalism, but for any hobbyist....please, for your own emotional wellbeing...... don't open your heart on twitter...... it's full of assholes.

Readers here may already notice that i despise what twitter has become along the years

... Alright, you got me. Twitter is a shithole... and yeah, people there do make it a bloodsport to turn someone's humanity against them.

Sorry for blowing up, I'm not mad at you, I'm just mad. If I didn't have to use the internet to connect with stuff, or do my job, I would dump it in a heartbeat. The anonymity turns you into the worst kind of person.

no problem, as long as we all can talk things out like civilized folks we are in a better place than most of the internet.

this reminds me of an old saying by Oscar Wilde if i'm not mistaken:

"give someone a mask and they will show their true self"

Tbh I'm grateful to people who vent in publicly accessible spaces; if I relate, it's a relief that someone said the thing I always wanted to say but was too afraid to and it makes me feel less like a bad person because hey, this other person felt the same and I wouldn't call them a bad person, would I?

And if I don't relate, maybe sometimes I'll vent about their vent and start a dialogue, but I try my darndest to represent their feelings faithfully, not put words in their mouth and not accuse them of ill intent/bad faith/'entitlement' because even if their vent was actually harmful in some way, talking about intentions would only make them feel more defensive and not any more likely to change

So yeah, I would personally prefer it if people continued to vent in public But yeah, unfortunately with the reality of how people have always been and still are to this day*, you should really steel yourself and be prepared for backlash if you choose to do so