I quit social media and I feel fantastic

Important notice: I am leaving all social media for good. I am not going to be pathetic anymore as I'm a grown woman and knows what's actually healthy for me. Most people will never take the plunge to completely quit checking this shit because because they're so addicted.

Although I started with tiny baby steps by proclaiming I'm 'on a break/detox' on my bio, after enjoying crafting this spicy post and having solidified my thoughts, I've decided, I'm never checking Instagram ever again if I can have any say in it. And its MY life so yes, I'm quitting it all.

Yes I get it, you outsiders can tell I'm so sensitive or call me insecure, but I'm not. One of the many final straws was me wanting to projectile vomit over some old mutual posting name details of their child. I felt sick, I still do. The other tipping point was trolling that took place only few days earlier. Also I witnessed some people complaining about 300 views on video 'content' being some sad thing, when that's all I get on a good day.

Well thanks yall', you have all incited the perfect storm that got me to mature finally.

I realised too that if people (Adelaidian or otherwise) like me for who I am, we can chat on Discord, which I am very fond of. Read this full post before you try and add me, thanks.

I feel sick when family tell me that 'everyone does socials' so why am I so 'insecure' to get triggered and upset over being ignored and muted and scorned? In reality, there's nothing wrong with me. I am not that 'insecure'. I just feel sick of being beholden to what some repulsive biggo-corporation commands me to waste my little time on. Oh, maybe its F.O.M.O? All your 'friends' are there, right? That has surely kept me hopeful, right?

But bruh...

Nobody is a friend if they just observe you and don't reach out when you're suffering so visibly.

I also know the entire stupid 'game' of a fake internet perfect persona was driving me absolutely batshit up-the-walls mental. 

I'm not weak for hating it.

I don't play 'the game' grovelling for attention, changing what I draw to fit in. Like whatever mental disorder compels people to dementedly draw cartoon Labradors and Schnauzers for insert-whatever-topical-political-issue-gets-them-attention.

I share what I want, where I want, and I love Blogger. I love 'longform' posting with a dash of art.

Overall, I am completely and utterly done with wasting my precious few remaining years on bad apps. I've been strung along for my entire twenties, a victim to a sickness. Yes checking stats compulsively is a sickness, only because its something I did only because I was hurting so bad. I ended up muted by old 'friends' as I've made clear.

I am not 'weak' for being depressed by the entire brainless experience.

Yes, I'm allowed to reject fads. 

Cuz' the whole fake networks of phoneys is sick. 

No other generation but mine was the first to grow up with up with our lives reduced down to numerical love-hearts. Only my millennial and younger generations. We are victims of not only internet addiction, but likes and follows. Not gonna lie, most people are too enslaved and blind to consider quitting it and starting a Blogspot, especially since it's not about to become hip and trendy anytime soon.

These people think I'm the weird one, they say social media is 'harmless' when they are the ones that muted me the second I started my Berserk 'vlogging'.

Oh why yes, for all you poor innocent newbies who have only now stumbled upon me, for context, from 2021 onwards, I had a bad habit of recording my screen and voice on an app called XRecorder, while admiring Berserk Japanese raw scans in my Google Drive. No these are no longer visible on my Instagram now, but I have no doubt some sickos have pilfered my vlogs to laugh at somewhere on the darkweb. I did it daily since 2021, my dudes.

Oh lordy lordy, I confess. I have sinned!

Fine, I was chronically addicted. Only because I was traumatised and trying to sort my jumbled thoughts out. 

I was hurting. Yes, all the way until now. Yes, most followers (save for some kind souls who watched religiously) just muted me. It must've been like watching a trainwreck though, I have now clue if all the viewers had good intentions, but I was hurting so deeply after psychosis and my 3 relapses I didn't know what to do.

I wasn't healed enough to just uninstall the sickness and try and be brave enough to rewire my brain.

But guess what? 

It's not the Berserk raw scan's fault for being so delicious on my eyeballs.

It's not even XRecorder's fault for enabling me to post such shit. Its not even purely my fault either, because I knew for a long time wanted to break free.

I am just completely and brilliantly, fucking done. 

In the end, social media has always exacerbated an unnatural alienation and loneliness which I never felt before socials became some revolting expectation in my twenties.

I am not actually naturally lonely. I love the internet for information, expression, communities and especially for crafting a unique space for myself. I just don't want to be assaulted by nuclear-normie-minded-mutuals posting their life achievements 24/7.

Social media has felt like being surrounded by people that tilt their head downcast at the dirt and completely ignore your existence. Unable to give eye contact. Purely and simply scorning you.

Every. Single. Stupid. Day.

Most of these so-called-friends never cared enough to listen to my miserable cry for help, my Berserk vlogs. 

TLDR BUT....

When I chose to uninstall the disease of Instagram...

I chose to opt out of ridiculous shit. Not just odious comparisons, but something inflicted upon my life as 'normal' amongst 'peers'

In that instant, I choose to be a real mum.

I choose to archive old nonsense that makes me look bad. Strangers don't deserve my last 6 years of life reduced down to 400+ posts, go suck me~.

Instead....

I choose to begin the journey of healing my addicted-brain, even if it takes some drastic re-wiring to not bop that same stupid cubic-area of the phone where Instagram used to be....

Instead, I choose to strive to be the creative, vividly present, passionate, aware and wonderful woman, mum and human being that I know I am deep down!

I choose to live life. I'm just so damn proud I got this far.

And well, if I have to pick my poison, I find Discord so much more healthier and it has undeniably helped me find all sorts of digital and irl communities that have helped me get back on my feet.

Anyways, here's the last Squashtobers for the first week's scifi theme. Dunno if I have time this month to keep it up as this is an extremely hectic month during which I have a wedding to attend. I'm only sketching out of sheer escapism. Can't scan the first one as I left it on K.I holiday house and also its too big for my scanner.

Do not expect me to check Facebook, Bluesky or whatever-stinking-trash-app is invented next and inflicted upon me. Stop peer pressuring me. Stop expecting me to jump on fads just to get a scrap of attention on my work - which I know has innate worth. If you liked my artwork, you'd subscribe to this blog or simply bookmark my website. I have a Discord (@velanoble). I'm way too old for this crap. Goodbye.

having kids won't fix you, but neither will getting your nails done

A quick response to some bizarre rhetoric I saw on Threads. Not the first I've heard of this, I hear it a lot. It was doodled in a toned tan sketchbook with a medium blue marker, so a bit speckly scans. Don't have my pencil case with real supplies here as I'm on Kangaroo Island right now. Not gonna lie, will probably redraw this better to pack more of a punch.

reminder to touch grass

Or in my case, hug bub.

Ignore the Hirasawa zine title sketch, I ran out of sketchbook real estate because I've been drawing consistently for once. I will make the 'Why You Should Listen To Hirasawa' zine real for another event if I ever get a table, just don't have time for this upcoming one. Sorry for being a bit cruel below, just never ceases to peeve me when people talk like this so shamelessly. 

Even sloppy comics have power

A quick drawing for Squashtober, a local Adelaide community's alternative to Inktober. And now, for a sloppy comic that says more than any venting can.

you can't gatekeep comics

I've been working very hard to get a pitch doc ready in time for something (not this image below, that's just my webcomic). As a fulltime solo parent, I can't afford to abandon my baby in order to focus on art, I have to balance my life. I am typing this one handed right now, and it all drives me a bit batty.

Also, to get to the topic of this post: you can't gatekeep comics.

Being someone whose been unwell for half a decade, I haven't had the bravery to attempt comics. Until I have experienced something big. It's big to me. 

So I have started trying to get my stories out there in webcomic form (this image below) once a week on Sundays ACST time, but am also applying for heaps of literary and comic themed opportunities, as I've just said. 

Comics aren't about how long your webcomic has been going for, I see too many people plodding along with no substance and not very thought-out pages. And as for me? Well, I've stared at Berserk on a daily basis for the last half a decade, no doubt, people think this hasn't helped me. But surprise surprise, it has totally helped me. As not only do I read comics a lot, but I have worshipped the best of the best for a very long time: Berserk. That counts, a lot.

To be quite blunt, seeing as everyone has always parroted how: 'you have to play games to be a good game dev' and 'you have to read to be a good writer', and well given all that rhetoric, you should've ogled Kentaro Miura's Berserk manga every day for the last 5 years if you want to be a comic artist! Don't argue with me on it, bud.

(I'm aware my spelling is wrong in this handwritten speech bubble I always final check my typed words. My quickly scribbled words are always rough.)

self compassion while autistic

I now recognize that my life as a late diagnosed autistic woman with a second disorder, has obviously made my life more fraught with mental agony than what is experienced by normal neurotypical and mental illness-free people. But comic making is an act of contemplation and self compassion. I give myself the self love to accept my mind is wired a bit differently, and that's OK. I recognise it and it makes me stronger for enduring all that I have!

I gotta' get back to mumming, studying and other ambitious things. Ack.

late diagnosed

Yes, technically I have two disorders. With ASD, I have been unable to relate to it ever since I got it. Maybe you'll get why from this.

the inky darkness

I can wax poetic lately about how much I'm enjoying comic making, but its all there, in the lines I draw and the words I type. Its in the 'inky darkness'. That being something I've often babbled on about in regards to Kentaro Miura's use of ink in Berserk, but I am now thrilled to announce, I finally am making progress in regards to my own implementation of the 'inky darkness'.

I have taken from Berserk and done something creative for once. Turned the memory of Tobins' on the hill into something constructive.

Life feels good. What.

I am not including a intertextual reference to how the psych ward (below) had felt like Berserk's Falconia for me during my illness. That's because, eclectic seinen manga intertextuality would muddle the point of the story and fly over people's heads.

Exhausted tonight again, seems like a trend for me.

The (sinister?) Margaret Tobin centre, part of the Flinders hospital precinct.

The ethical implications of using medical terms in a derogatory fashion in your comics or otherwise.

I’ve been still ruminating over the relationship between ethics and writing in regards to an unpleasantness I experienced at a local comic festival last weekend. On Friday night when an artist read their work out loud to an audience of probably a hundred, one part had their characters say a specific clinical word.

Not only was it a word that is an illness that has been a massive source of trauma in my life, but I've suffered horrible stigmas around it on a near daily basis. However, this clinical term was used in a derogatory fashion, completely removed from the true meaning which has impossibly heavy, nuanced and complex meaning for me.

To use specific medical terms in derogatory fashion is either intentionally sinister, or at the very least, just painfully ignorant, but there is a very dangerous harm from such negligence. 

According to Booth, ‘we all underestimate the extent to which we absorb the values of what we read.’(1988) This means people unfamiliar with the term will believe what a poor writer presents to them at face value, they won't challenge the negative associations.

It is unethical to use words like a slur, so far removed from their true factual meaning, and skew it towards harming people who have to endure the weight and burden and stigma of such a word, on a daily basis.

Writers like me, with actual lived experience, have to fight back and educate readers with my own work, otherwise harmful stereotypes are continually worsened.

Writers who haven't experienced such things have an ethical obligation to watch what words they use. 

Unless they want to incur a wrathful storm of comics from people like me, that is.

References

 Booth, WC 1988, The company we keep : an ethics of fiction, University of California Press, Berkeley.

Written for a small weekly homework assignment. Because unbridled torrential rage-posting on social media doesn't convince people, apparently.🔥 Fine, I'll simmer down. A bit.

Cirno Day

I'm anxious because I've applied for numerous artistic opportunities, some seem a bit prestigious which will be competitive to get. Other opportunities I found aren't as big a deal really, and shouldn't be such a hassle to be selected for, but I still am still anxious my work will be rejected. 

If I get rejected for some of these project submissions, I'll somewhat take it as a rejection of myself, not gonna lie. But ultimately, I will get back up on my feet, and try to hunt for something new to get excited about. I like to get excited about things.

I feel a bit exhausted after spending the first half of today writing up an application for a Fellowship. It's fun to write about myself for a few hours, but also makes me more worried that I'll get shut down after all that effort of exposing my soul in an application.

But I have to have some faith in my stories. 

I do really want to chip away on my comics, burning the proverbial midnight oil every night as they say, but I do feel too tired past 8:30pm. Alright guys, no excuses, better just put some lines down.

Another Cirno day*, another dream....

09/09 was Cirno's day!

printing, folding and stapling addiction

Makin' some cool zines way ahead of time, as I got a table for Zina Warrior Print Fest happening on October 18th. Will post more details closer to the event. Check my site and this blog later.

No in-person lectures? Over my dead body.

 

I've been quite selfishly ignoring all the changes happening with the merger. Not gonna lie, I've been pettily thinking it doesn't affect me, since I'll be out soon.

Well, it does. 

I care about the learning experience of all the students that'll study at Adelaide University after me. And I know University life helped me get back on my feet because I was rocking up, showing up, seeing human faces. I've also deep down wanted to make even a tiny difference before I graduate. I also want to have pride in the school I'm going get my first ever and probably only degree from.Yes, I never  graduated from Calfarts. I don't know if I ever wrote that here, but I didn't.

So, please.  If this comic resonates with you even a little bit, consider signing this petition here. 

Before its too late. 

LoopdeLoop - Home

Don't have much time these days, but I made a thing! Based on a true story of how I attached some stuffed toys to an unused embroidery hoop with some yarn. It has swiftly become my daughter's fave toy so far. Calling it done as I have a bub to tend to...and not to mention a uni degree to finish...

always take pride in the DIY

Just got back from an overnight stay at Monarto Safari park. Very proud I was brave enough to draw the majority of the animals I saw, instead of seizing up and telling myself my art is 'no good' yadda yadda. I chose to make art.

On another note, some people are wondering how I made my portfolio website, but I can tell you but you ain't gonna like the harsh truth. If you are the sort that prefers to use site builders, you won't really understand my interest in coding.

I whinge here now because someone asked me, and I was considering making a tutorial for how I made my site. I said; I love programming and thus, have worked hard to learn the skill, but could write up a tut to help demystify some of it. Then they messaged again saying oops cool, but they aren't interested in learning (programming).

Um........

Unfortunately but....if you aren't interested in programming, you can not make that custom Homestuck wannabee-webcomic-whatever site. 

You realise web development is a skill?

Not a waste of time, or something beneath you?

Unless you want to PAY ME to design ya' a website, for actual money, then no, I'm not spilling my guts on a tutorial that will go unappreciated. If you're an artist and actually likes my style and would pay a tiny bit then yeah, I'll consider, but for people that don't seem to understand how coding is a skill, and that you don't conjure cool designs out of thin air, I don't care.

Anyways, vent over. I'll leave you with piles of zoo drawings for now.