My final journal for the day before I pass into the nether. You like a piece of art? Comment! You have thoughts you want to share about it? Comment! Did it touch you in any way? Comment!!!
Comments are the driving force behind any social platform, and a compliment can boost any artist's confidence and well-being, big or small, but especially small. It's the best thing you can do for any artist with a small follower count, and even medium sized ones.
It's why I try to leave a comment on any piece that touched or evoked a decent amount of feeling or emotion from me, regardless of how small it is! It's especially important for a platform like Sheezy, where personal connections and networking are far more important.
This isn't Twitter, Tumblr, Bsky, or Insta. Artists are going to get significantly less engagement here than they do on any other platform, and it can be incredibly discouraging. New artists stop posting, or just leave all together.
So we have to flex what unique benefits we have, and that is artist to artist communication! Longer form discussions you can't have on social media! These are the key reasons why it's one of my favorite places to be as a creative. You just can't get this type of discussion anywhere else.
Did I motivate you enough? Good! Now go, my young comment apprentice! Comment on so much art that your fingers start to melt off!
I don't want to get spammy with the journals, but it feels nice to have an anonymous, yet public place to dump my thoughts that isn't social media. On here, it feels quite wonderful to be me, without any of the expected behaviors and trained roles I am expected to slide into given society's expectation of my gender. It's such a forced, harmful performance, and I feel like no one will love me if I act true to myself. It's not even doubt or insecurity, I know so based on how people react to the things I say, or do.
I feel like I am trapped in this shell, and it's pretty damaging to my mental health the more I think about it. I'm not queer or anything, but I would call myself non-gender conforming, and the idea of acting like myself in public or with groups of my fellow sex make me want to throw up. I weep for the people who share my same fate, and hope we can work towards living in more loving, accepting, and kind world. Know you have value regardless of what society thanks of you for betraying whatever performance they expect of you. <3
I am grateful to have this space, and hope we can continue to provide this welcoming, healing aura for all to come.
I felt so overwhelmed and stressed when I first logged back in, but looking at all this amazing art has really boosted my mood, and filled me with a strong warmth. Life for me has been so unbelievably rough and needlessly cruel, but I feel very hopeful and happy right now.
The Deviantart nostalgia is hitting so hard right now. It feels so refreshing to have such a nice community of artists I can browse without dealing with the awfulness that comes with a full social media platform. Just a cozy corner on the internet for artists, by artists. I really do look forwarding to posting my stuff on here again, even if it doesn't get a ton of reads. This place makes me so, so, SO happy. <3
This will be short. I don't know when I'll be active again, or if the few aquantances I made on here remember me, but man I do miss this place. I hope I can become at least slightly active again soon, but it's hard to focus on creative endeavours when basically everything is working against you.
I Hope I can chill with the Sheezy homies soon, the new update has me super excited. I am especially a big advocate for forums over a Discord server for many reasons, and the new additions slated for the rewrite seem excellent.
Hope all the new and old peeps are doin' okay, and I especially hope the Sheezy writer community has grown. Even just a teensy bit. If not, I'll do my damndest to promote and write all over the place when I get back.
But yeah, peace for now. Tomorrow is another day.✌️