It Has Certainly Been a Week...

Looks like I’ve not yet been yeeted, correct as of Monday 18th March.

Thank you so much to every single individual who reached out with words of comfort and sympathy following the news that dropped last week.   You don’t know how invaluable reading those messages was; I’m deeply touched.

I thought I’d be more “based” about the revelation, yet by Friday morning, I was in pieces. Further news broke out then about how a certain other e-commerce creator-driven platform was cleaning up its act too.   Said platform is a popular alternative for those selling… grown-up wares, shall we say, and I know a fair number of individuals who’ve had to hurriedly shut up shop.  And as is the case with this era, people have been quick to air their grievances on social media, myself included.

I shan’t lie: it’s frightening seeing certain individuals I know (or knew of by proxy) vanish for various (speculative) reasons. Too heavyset; producing too much content that “stimulates the lower baser emotions”; too public with their wares (arguably speaking; I’m not pointing any fingers and I’ve no right to be pietistic; ‘people in glass houses’ and all that)…

As I stated last week, I suspected something like this would be forthcoming given what happened Thanksgiving Week (tail end of November) 2023, which was addressed by this platform mid December.  And the reasoning behind it, I knew since 2022, further evidenced by Gum​roa​d’s very public statement last weekend.

Please the investors. Chase the money. Money, money, money…

What I hadn’t taken into consideration was the increased socio-political pressure going on in the US – which naturally I wouldn’t do, because I’m British. I’ve my own Government to contend with.  So, alas, the ongoing saga of platforms self-sanitising won’t end anytime soon, and there won’t be much of a happy ending for those who don’t produce the most vanilla content imaginable (hinted at here and here).

So, what am I going to do? As I said last week, carry on until such time I can’t.  My fretting won’t fulfil my commitments, I owe people.

And the common consensus is that I’ll be alright for the time being.  I hope that’s true.  The past eight years of doing art full-time have been extremely fulfilling for me.  Granted, it’s not always been sunshine and rainbows but I’ve been less depressed as a whole compared to the late 2000s/early 2010s.  Plus, a lot of people like what I do.

Thank you so so much for supporting me in this—if what I do can make someone feel less isolated in their…penchants, then that’s good enough for me.  Especially given how bleak the real world is, this decade in particular.  Pestilence, war… now this…? Ugh.

For what it’s worth, given the majority of supporters are American, there’s a mailing list thing going around in protest of recent developments, viewable here.

And I myself am keeping a very close eye on what this platform’s response to the outcry/backlash is. I’ll write everything up as soon as I hear what’s what.  Please bear with me.

In the meantime, I’ll do my best to continue with my commitments on here. Understandably, there’s no update akin to last week since I didn’t do anything past Wednesday morning. Sorry. I’ll get myself sorted out and work-work-WORK.

And yeah, that’s it I guess.

Thanks for reading.