fryguy64

After over 14 years, I've finally deleted my Twitter account.

Twitter was very different when I started using it in 2008. Small communities would build up around a common purpose, while still being accessible by - and visible to - the rest of the userbase. It became a "community of communities".

But Twitter never found a way to monetize that approach. They instead leaned into that most heinous of words: "engagement". Its features were designed to spread and promote messages with the most engagement. The metric wasn't interested in quality. As such, it became a place fuelled by hate-clicks, preying on our worst instincts to point and laugh at idiots - which were also in plentiful supply.

The platform wasn't built on hate, but on hate it thrived. And in its new owner, it has found someone willing to sink any redeeming features. There is no community of communities any more, only engagement.

I haven't enjoyed using Twitter for a long time. It was getting hard to stomach by 2016 and it hasn't improved much since. That's a long time to be plugged into something hateful that makes you stressed.

But I would also occasionally chat to big YouTubers, Twitch streamers, writers and illustrators. I would see brilliant comics and jokes. I would see what other gamers' shelves looked like. Little moments that, even now, are possible over there. And I will miss them deeply.

Staying was starting to feel like continuing to vote for a political party that has diverged too far from your views, simply because you have always voted for them before. And that's just not the kind of person I am.

I'm quite fond of Hive Social so far (@Fryguy64) and I'm keeping one eye on Mastodon (@fryguy64@mastodon.world) but I'm also planning on doing a little more here as well.

After 14 years and over 150 entries deep, I'm still thinking about Nintendo monsters. And now I'm considering compiling a bunch of them into a book.

I'm not sure if there is enough interest to make something as niche as a "Nintendo monster art book" viable, but I wanted to try and gauge interest before I start trying to figure out how to make it happen. So...

Would you be interested in buying a Nintober art book?

Leave your responses in the comments!

The book would likely contain mostly existing Nintober monsters, but with new artwork. I lost most of my original files in 2012 and my techniques have come on a long way since I started. It wouldn't simply be my dA gallery in a book. I expect I'd throw in a few new ones as well.

And if you have any experience of this sort of thing, I'd love to hear some ideas of where to get started.

So DA is introducing an AI that automatically has access to everybody's art. It's "opt out" as we say in the web business. It's assumed you support the change until you specifically say you don't support it.

The problem with assuming "opt out" is that only a complete moron thinks it's a good idea. Someone who either thinks their idea is so brilliant everyone will love it, or someone who cares so little about you that they don't care what you think.

And opt out is always a bad call. There are consumer and privacy protection laws all over the world protecting consumers from "opt out".

The assumption that all artists support having an artificial intelligence take a copy of every piece of art in our galleries and spit out machine-learned replicas is such a stupid assumption, that many are deleting all their artwork and accounts without delay.

It's a garbage thing being done by garbage humans. Once they cotton on to the lost subscriptions and the community wipeout, I expect they'll U-turn on this decision in a heartbeat.

If they don't do so within a week or so, I will also be deleting my account. I'd say follow me on Twitter instead but... well, that's also a dumpster fire right now.

There are going to be a lot of internet-homeless people in the coming months.

Happy October everyone! I know a lot of you have been eagerly awaiting the return of Nintober. I haven't done it for a few years now as I simply don't have the time to commit to it. Job, family, the usual.

However, I still love drawing videogame monsters. Last year I did a bunch of NES villains (first & third party) which I only posted to Twitter (I should try and track them down and upload them). This year, my theme is Monster Heroes! I put out a call on Twitter to help come up with some character ideas:

• The character must be playable in a videogame

• They don't necessarily have to be "heroic" (I had to call the theme SOMETHING)

• The character must be a monster or dead/undead in some capacity (I decided that aliens/dragons don't count unless they are monstrous aliens/dragons)

• I will include character transformations

• I will not include characters from fighting games - so no Darkstalkers, Blanka, etc. There were too many to choose from, so I've saved "Fighting Monsters" for a future year's theme :)

• As always, I get to decide what actually counts (e.g. no, the greatest monster is not "man")

I had a LOT of suggestions, and I've got a lot of things I'm keen to draw - many from retro games, but also a few from more modern games. If you think you have any really good ideas for Monster Heroes, please let me know in the replies!

Have a spooky October everyone!