Ai and Meta
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I would urge folks to consider the virtues of Blogging and RSS readers.
They’re old fashioned, but experiencing a resurgence in popularity especially as platforms start to take advantage of the content on their sites and tracking becomes an issue. Some artists are indeed leaving social media entirely, and with RSS one option can be that they simply update their own blogs on their own sites.
Essentially, RSS allows you to “subscribe” to a website's updates, including blogs. Back before social media siloed everything into walled garden platforms like MySpace & Facebook & Twitter, RSS readers were used to subscribe to all the updates of your favorite blogs so you didn’t miss anything. For example, every time an artist made an update with something new they’d created or a project they were working on, they’d do it on their blog on their own website. And all the “subscriber followers" would receive those blog updates through their RSS feed, providing it without ever needing to go to anyone’s specific website.
https://lifehacker.com/tech/the-best-rss-reader-apps-in-2024
https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-an-rss-feed-4684568
https://zapier.com/blog/how-to-use-rss-feeds/
https://www.wix.com/blog/rss-feed
An RSS reader brings those updates to you and stores all of them into an aggregated format that you can access at any time. Many of the better readers out there have synced apps that allow you access across all your devices. Because I have a Mac, I use Readkit, which I personally really like. But there are many many others out there.
Most website services have automatic RSS feeds built in to the site as a feature already, and you don’t have to do anything. Good reader apps can take a website domain and find it’s RSS feed for you and automatically subscribe you to updates if the site has an RSS feed.
Some readers, like Inoreader, can even create RSS feeds if a site doesn’t have one.
Interestingly, there are some reader apps that allow you to subscribe to Facebook pages. Youtube channels and playlists all have specific RSS feeds already built in. You can even follow your favorite people making Fediverse posts and Bluesky posts without ever having to actually join those platforms—you just need to know their profiles. And you can even get RSS feeds for Twitch channels.
And you may never have to visit those sites. And there are other advantages.
So if you’re looking for the next social media platform to share your work, you might consider creating a good old-fashioned blog on your website. In the past, there was a stigma against having them on your website as people literally even stopped having websites at all in favor of sharing everything on platforms they didn’t own. Somehow it became “less professional” to have one in the face of all the pressure from those platforms that were programming us to stay on their sites at all costs. No one dared travel off their platforms—and some (Instagram for example) literally only allowed ONE link (and thus LinkTree was born…).
So maybe consider your own blog instead of yet again joining yet another platform you don’t control, uploading your best work, and then have it stolen out from under you. Try an RSS reader instead?
Below is a pic of my own Readkit reader that I’m slowly adding subscriptions to. You can see that I follow Jake’s blog, and what it looks like whenever he makes an update.
Children's Illustration Portfolio: https://www.coreyartusillustration.com
Art Portfolio: https://www.coreyartusimagery.com
Mastodon: https://mindly.social/@Coreyartus
Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/Coreyartus -
@Coreyartus Great post, thanks!
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@Coreyartus It's cool to see things moving back to blogs, and being able to curate what we read and receive. So much of social media has become a giant letterbox filled with junk mail or a crowded room with everyone in it yelling at once.
There's also potential with Substack too, but it has recently tried to include 'social' elements with notes...
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@willicreate Pinterest is such a joke now. It used to be a great resource for reference that I used all the time. now whenever I search anything, half the results or more are ai. It's honestly not useful for reference anymore at all outside of references i've already saved pre ai invasion.
If they turn it into a shopping app I hope they will let me keep all my old boards at least...
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@Arthur-Campling I started one too. It’s already a better algorithm than IG
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i recommend using cara app to post your art, its in beta mode but already theres such a cool vibe there <3. also, mastodon.art and bluesky, these 3 do not allow ai there, cara has glaze integrated into it as well ^^
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@irinasavu i like Bluesky quite a bit, It's very polished unlike Cara though it's more of a twitter alternative than instagram alternative.
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I've seen a lot of artists moving to Cara, which is incorporating software to protect your art from getting scrapped by AI. I believe they are using Glaze. I'm still learning about it, but so far I really like Cara.
For those who have made an account with Cara, I'd love to connect and form a community!
https://cara.app/jmosscreations -
Hey folks, don’t forget that X (formerly Twitter) is doing the exact same thing.
I’m new to Social Media, and honestly, I wouldn’t miss it if I deleted both my IG and X accounts and stopped posting entirely.
I might just do that.
Keep in mind that everything you already posted has already been fed into their AI models and algorithms, so this is a going forward “opt out” situation, if you believe them and can navigate the labyrinth settings to do so.
I’m going to stick to my website and newsletters.
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@Jeremy-Ross i was exactly thinking the same. But unlike you I am not represented by an agent so quitting IG is kind of a tricky thing as mostly I get contacted by clients through it. Do you think having an agent makes a difference?
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Hi @Ayesha-Masood , perhaps it’s better to just “opt out” to not erase all the hard work done to gain a following, or use Nightshade or Glaze?
I recently heard an Art Director say that although they disagree with what the Social companies are doing regarding AI models, they continue to use Instagram to search and find new artists, and not planning to follow the artists to Cara.
Another Art Director left X to Blue Sky and looking for artists there.
Without social media, it’s going to be really hard to self-promote your books during publication.
Lot’s to think about and consider.
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@Jeremy-Ross opting ou unfortunately isn’t possible. We’d have to delete everything and reupload with glaze or nightshade
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Hi @kayleenartlover , I meant opting out for future posted art. Everything you already posted has already been scrapped. Even if you delete all your posts, etc., it doesn’t matter because they have everything backed up on their servers.
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@Jeremy-Ross I’ve tried opting out but it didn’t work. They’ve made it basically impossible from what I’ve heard. Just posting low res, or glaze filtered stuff seems to be what we’re stuck with for now.
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I'm glad they addressed this on the podcast today. I think when all artists freak out, it's hard not to join into the collective mob mentality. I did start posting on Cara and it is like Lee says: People are focused on posting their own stuff, not connecting with other artists. There isn't the audience that people need to sell their projects. Although, I started posting my comics in TikTok with the slide show option (and on IG still) My goal is to do it for 30 days. I have a 30 page comic so I will post a page a day and see what happens in the end. By no means am I a super amazing artist, but I hope my cute/quirky short story comic draws an audience.
