It would seem that every time I make a big deal about ridding myself of various social media accounts and semi-defunct Digital Footprints, I wind up going back to them after X amount of time.

I am at a loss as to WHY, considering they all seem to just get shittier and shittier over time.

Perhaps it's FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out, apparently. Jeez, why does everything have to be an acronym or weird portmanteau?!), or perhaps what I have come to call "Digital Stockholm Syndrome".

Take DeviantArt, for instance - I just went in and created one.... or should I say ANOTHER one.

DeviantArt was one of the first art sites I'd ever signed up for, way back when it was new and I was relatively new to the internet, itself. I made some friends there and shared ideas and I honestly do believe that it has contributed to my growth as a Cartoonist... Then came the bullshit.

Every small change brought an avalanche of scorn from the Old Heads. Dumb shit like the changing of the site logo. Seriously, users lost their damn minds over THAT. Of course, that would be small potatoes indeed, compared to the site changing hands and the institution of the "Eclipse" design - which now seems so long ago. Now, DeviantArt is practically unrecognizable and the way it's set up is utterly counterintuitive... but, Old Heads like me keep sticking around, or going back to it. Possibly due to nostalgia. Possibly due to the demise of almost every other art site that has come and gone, touting themselves as rivals to DA, thus, removing other options from the proverbial table. Possibly just out of a twisted sense of loyalty to our "first" - the art site that popped our metaphorical Cherries when it came to sharing our heartfelt scribbles with the masses across the world. Who knows?

All I DO know is that I still have a few friends and connections on DeviantArt - some from WAY back. There are still folks there who like what I like and draw what I draw. At this point in my life, those who share my interest and operate at my admittedly mediocre level of skill that I know and commune with in MeatSpace are very, very scarce! DeviantArt serves a purpose in the microcosm of what passes for my sanity. Unfortunately, every time they do something stupid and, shall we say, "anti-art" - for instance, their current accepting stance on NFTs and AI "art" over real live creators - makes me and many others want to run, screaming for the hills... only to slink back with our artistic tails between our legs when we realize that there aren't many other art sites out there that are any better or less wrong-headed and/or will provide us with the attention/exposure that we, self-involved creatives that we are, feel we need and deserve.

I have two active DeviantArt sites for past and current projects that I keep toying with taking down due to the rumors that I'm hearing about AI 'scraping'.

My site for my superhero projects and my site for my webcomic characters, The Misfits of Mischief. I leave them u\p because they represent a lot of time and a lot of work on my part, but, I have begun siphoning my favorite bits and/or the bits that I am going to recycle for modern times and later use. But that in and of itself is a lot of time and a lot of work. Moreover, even the like/follow sections of those accounts are curated to take me to like content. I made a new one for the sake of more personal likes and follows as well as to have my "name" - which, of course, has already been claimed by someone else. Even my OLD name that I wanted to recycle can't be obtained (without paying for it) due to the fact that I deactivated it previously, years and years ago.

DA is like Brokeback Mountain in that "Why can't I quit you", sort of way - as is a lot of other social media. Since Elon Musk bought Twitter, all the Twits have been lamenting about what a toxic cesspool Twitter is about to become. Of course, these are the same dorks who've been calling it a toxic cesspool for the last DECADE, yet never really made a move to leave it, and still AREN'T. They'll just bitch about how they don't like it. CONSTANTLY. The Elon sitch has wrought the same thing that other "deaths" of social media hath - a (half-assed) mass exodus away from said platform to any and all other social media platforms, quite literally like it's going out of style. Which just floods many fledgeling platforms with way too many new users at once, which crashes them... forcing the expatriates right back to the 'toxic' sites they came from.

When Facebook was the 'New Hotness', everyone ran from LiveJournal and MySpace in droves (but not me. I STILL use LiveJournal for the above reasons outlined here. I even still have a MySpace lying about that I found out just the other day still exists AND I have my password!). Now all those folks claim Facebook is "toxic'. From FB, Instagram became the new Holy Grail. Now, it's "toxic" too, supposedly. Tumblr "died" because they changed hands and the new owner cracked down on the porn. Except it didn't. Now that Elon is Elon-ing, guess what site is getting popular again? They've even softend the anti-porn stance a bit, which made all the smut-mongers rejoice, though some are still salty because they can't really 'cut loose' the way they want.

Mastodon was also an alt-resource. It's basically Twitter-lite with more characters per post count, but everyone pretends it's some radical new platform that's somehow SO much better than Twitter, even before the Musk takeover. Meh. It's OK. FOR NOW.

I still have accounts on all these sites, because you never know when they'll come in handy. Still, I find it funny that the masses just don't seem to realize that the reason all these sites are so "toxic" and damaging isn't the platforms themselves, but the people ON the social media sites - which is THEM!

Man, I am going overboard with the social media, lately!