The state of fan artists on social media.
Cancel culture and over-sensitivity in fanworks.
As of the last decade or two, with the explosion of the internet, we’ve had an explosion of fan works dedicated to our favorite series or works of fiction made by people of all ethnicities and ages.
The rise of the internet has given everyone space to express their creativity and ideas, often being rewarded with a following for their efforts (if they’re lucky enough) and deemed by their audience as skilled individuals.
However, the problem arises when an everyday person is rewarded with a large following and immediately presumed to then have to take the responsibility of censoring oneself and making oneself overly safe and clean for the masses. If not, they risk potentially life-ruining smear campaigns simply for making a mistake that the audience will then twist and distort to look as offensive and horrible as possible.
This is what we call “Cancel Culture” and it is prominent in most social media sites, most notably Twitter.
But that is only a very brief description. What can cause such an event to happen, and what does this have to do with fan artists on social media? Allow me to explain.
For this post, I’m mostly going to be focusing on the artwork side of fanworks, as it provides a lot of examples for what I want to be talking about in this instance.
For a fan artist online, there are plenty of different ways you can draw your favorite characters. From outfits, backgrounds, color schemes, shading styles, it’s all up to what you want to create. However, with all the intricacies that come with art such as shading, lighting, and how it may affect colors… there will be people who don’t understand.
Enter: The Nessa controversy.
Below is one of the most infamous tweets from this controversy, depicting what some people were saying is a whitewashed image of Nessa, the (at the time) new Pokémon trainer. Others were saying it was simply just lighting or a pastel color scheme. The debate flooded Twitter for what seemed like months.
For context, this is the official art of the character.
There are plenty of videos on this subject, so if you want a more in-depth look into the controversy, you can look them up on Youtube.
Hundreds of fan artists were bashed, harassed, and attacked if their fan art of the character didn’t align with how other people thought it should look like.
I should clarify that whitewashing isn’t a term for art, and is mainly used by the film industry. It refers to when a white actor is chosen for a historically non-white character. A better term to use in these cases is “racebending”. However, for accuracy to the controversy, I will continue to use the former term.
While I couldn’t find a clear definition for the term when used for artworks, whitewashing is best described as taking a character that is canonically a POC (Person of Color) and either altering artworks of them or making your artwork of said character and making them white.
Another character that was subjected to this controversy was Marina, also from one of Nintendo’s franchises, named Splatoon.
The debate went on and on for weeks, causing many online fights and plenty of normal fan artist accounts to go private. Many people even argued that Nintendo also took part in whitewashing, when it came to in-game events called Splatfests, which had their official art that many times displayed the character with lighter skin.
Plenty of characters took the spotlight in this controversy, and possibly thousands of artists harassed and attacked. Why is this?
When a person or artist grows a large following, they may be expected to behave as such. For example, celebrities have managers and people who tell them what they should and should not say to appeal to a large fanbase and to avoid bad press.
However, fan artists on social media are just normal people who make mistakes just as we do. We put whoever has large numbers on a pedestal and that can oftentimes make us see them as just a popular fan artist that makes pretty pictures and gets a lot of likes. Someone better than us, smarter and more skilled. Someone who could do no wrong.
So when they falter, that expectation of them crumbles and their audience can feel lied to.
People want to be seen as a hero, someone who is smarter than the rest and is able to see through someone’s lies and deceit. So when a situation potentially blows up and someone gets “exposed” for being a horrible person, they can all look to that one person who triggered the entire situation and praise them, giving them that artist’s following and potentially much more.
However, this only becomes a notable problem for fan artists when they have a larger following. How one gets that following is very difficult.
Fanart is an oversaturated market; everyone is offering something. With so many players on the field, it’s almost impossible to grow to such heights as a new artist to social media. You’re constantly fighting to get eyes on your work, battling algorithms that don’t favor you and on a constant grind to get numbers up.
Beginning as a new artist and looking to do freelance work is even harder, especially if your work is commission-based. You’re forever keeping your eyes peeled for work, most likely only able to get one or two commissions every few months.
It will take months, in a lot of cases even multiple years, before your name gets out there and you become recognized. As well as time, it takes immense luck. Follow for follow and raffles will only accumulate dead followers that don’t interact with your works, and once you do get semi-big, people will start only looking to you as an end to a means such as stealing your artwork or only being your friend to try and look cool and get their own following.
Being an artist online is difficult. And not only difficult, but it’s also tiring and can be quite toxic. However, most of it comes from one social media site in particular: Twitter.
Twitter is by far the biggest social media site for people who create any sort of content, but it’s also where it’s the most at risk.
Twitter is an oversensitive and toxic environment, and unless you can optimize the site to a point where it isn’t so toxic like I have, I recommend just steering clear of it entirely.
If you are an artist or a content creator, I suggest places such as Instagram, DeviantArt, or Reddit; especially if you’re younger.
Your skills are unique to you, and you should be treated with the kindness and respect you deserve. No matter how big or small you may be, there’s always room to improve and you’ll always be a great artist as long as you do your best and treat others the same way you want to be treated.
No matter the controversy, art is art and should be appreciated as such. You’ll make it one day, so keep trying for now.
No matter the controversy, art is art and should be appreciated as such. You’ll make it one day, so keep trying for now.
