I've never been much one to use Twitter, so I'm not too upset at deciding to walk away from it permanently, but it seems like that platform has become exceptionally worse in the past few months.

Oh, and just to note: I was bullied by Twitter's idiot squad for tweeting that Laura Ingraham is a sycophant to a misogynist. Her cancel cult decided to get Twitter on me for that, since otherwise they wouldn't have noticed because I was talking with Bette Midler.

Honestly, they probably didn't know what “sycophant” or “misogynist” actually meant, but they were sure that because I was agreeing with Miss M, I was deserving of being harassed by Twitter's inane staff. I love how their initial ten minutes also turned instantly into twelve hours locked out of my account, for daring to login…which is exactly what they told me to do to unlock my account. Genius!

They've done such a great job of fighting the rise of fascism and bullying online! No, wait, I think I mixed that up. They've done such a great job of supporting the rise of fascism and enabling bullying online!

From its inception, I've never been a fan of Twitter. The whole platform seems structured to foster low information/low context gossip-peddling and flame baiting. I feel like it just encourages a lot of unhealthy communication and behavior patterns.

I think that, at the very least, it has contributed to the decline of effective communication between people and become far more divisive than it has any right to be. People are lazy on twitter, because of the character limit, which was only ever something to try and hide how garbage the platform always was by being presented as a feature.

It's also really telling when big-time public figures constantly advising people to do completely irresponsible things don't get anything but a thumbs up from twitter, yet anyone else gets their account held hostage by a staff of buffoons if a pack of flunkies decide to take exception that someone dared to call out the celebrity they're creepily devoted to.

Hell is other people. Social Media (not just Twitter) can bring out the worst in people. But Twitter is especially heinous because of the character limit. One can never quite explain things fully.

There are folks there whose life plan is to be offended, offensive and close minded cretins on the prowl resdy to attack anyone who dares question their often very questionable belief system. Idiots on parade as an old friend used to say.

Two things I really hate:

1. News stories pepper with Twitter quotes, usually screenshots of what some wanker halfwit on Twitter said about some big event- NOT news, just reaction tweets

2. Posts on Facebook that consist of a whole lot of screenshots of an idiot's “story” from twitter, that they posted in ****ing installments of 128 or 256 characters at a time.
For ***k's sake!

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
Twitter knows.

As a platform it seems to encourage the very worst humanity has to offer, while making it very difficult for the best to flourish. A window into the horrific world we might live in if everyone could anonymously do and say whatever they wanted.

I set up a twitter account once, I think I even posted a thing or two before realising it was a pointless shallow shit show. I never bothered with instagram and whatever other social media things that are cool with the kids these days. I barely bother with facebook save to share memes and keep in touch with friends and family abroad. Overall social media pretty much just pisses me off for similar reasons to what has been said by everyone else.

Promotion on Twitter got even my stuff new readers and those elusive “likes”.

Just don't get drawn into commenting on politics. Stay away from their agendas. I like parody and one belly laugh is worth 10,000 syllogisms.

Generally speaking, attention to one's work is capricious enough, but it also is important to consider where it's being drawn from.

A platform presenting a major flaw as its only distinct feature – the completely arbitrary character limit, for example – actively whittles away the amount of attention and focus users expect to spend on anything or are willing to spend. I couldn't rely on any audience I would get from social media, certainly.

They do bring out the worst in people, because it's lazy to be horrible and most people are terribly lazy and selfish.

It's especially shocking to me how bad twitter is, and how much worse it's become. Even social toxicity aside, it's technically garbage as well. Not only do they run the (amazingly poorly-coded) platform badly, but they actively present it in the worst possible way when they have an obviously superior option: tweetdeck, which makes the experience at least less horrible than the default UI.

But they actively hide that genuine feature, and were even very clearly recently considering making it a paid feature, because they were and are completely aware that it's the only remotely functional way to even interface with their site!

I think people just don't realize and aren't aware how much just them going along with bullshit and even just being there actually provides credibility and weight to any group, platform, host, anything like that. People gradually start to adjust to their standards, because they're lazy and don't want to fight them or even disagree. So these frankly shitty platforms and sites grow exponentially larger…and then crumble under their own weight eventually, but by then most of the worst people involved got what they wanted and got out.

I hate twitter because it is such a horrible, nightmarish place because of the politics and the arguments I kept getting into. I just wanted to follow a lot of my favorite artists who, for some ungodly reason, post exclusively on that platform but I kept getting pulled into some kind of nerd culture war no matter what.

I didn't care about ether side, and was very frustrated by both. After being told I was wrong, my life was shit and I should die because I only had five followers over a few years and that some how made this raving loony “right” caused me to just quit, there was no facts, no opinion, no views, just “I got more numbers than you so I win!”

I will never understand WHY artist post on there, especially adult artists who know that any minute they will pull a tumblr and purge them all and their work.

Not everyone is as great and perceptive and talented as others are, so we have to depend on imperfect platforms to build an audience. It's been a perceptible and consistent increase for the junk I do so it's worked.

But it's an awful platform with lots of awful people.

That said, there are plenty of good folks there. So just like real life you limit your engagement with toxic people and the things you can't change and stick with the good.

Always remember that you're not half so smart as you think you are, keep an open mind and be willing to accept superior evidence as a reason to change your views. Then Twitter becomes so much less of a hassle. Don't preach but listen and learn.

I may not know much, but I know a bit about dealing with people. I've worked in customer service most of my life. Better to keep your mouth closed and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Twitter can bring out the worst in everyone but it can also be a useful tool. But like any tool it can and will hurt you if improperly used. People who try to be the smartest person in the room are also the ones who tend to smash fingers and skin their knuckles because they're not as good with tools as they think and the tools are obligated to teach them a lesson that it's unlikely they'll ever learn.

Been through too much to let something as inconsequential as social media get to me. Hell is other people.

No, that doesn't really track, sorry. Keeping our mouths shut when dealing with idiots and bigots is what got us into this whole mess to begin with. It tends to be the more intelligent who are more tolerant, more patient, and in all more willing to give someone the benefit of the doubt, even when they've demonstrably proven that they're not worth the time.

When you have people who are okay with my people being gunned down in the streets given deference and an equal voice – or often, a louder one – I'm afraid you have gone past the point of acceptability. There is no defense for that inequity; when lives are being lost directly because of irresponsible public statements, there must be accountability, and there isn't. When people with less followers are treated as less important and their voices given less value, and for no other reason, there is a significant problem with a platform.

Furwerk studio wrote:
I didn't care about ether side, and was very frustrated by both. After being told I was wrong, my life was shit and I should die because I only had five followers over a few years and that some how made this raving loony “right” caused me to just quit, there was no facts, no opinion, no views, just “I got more numbers than you so I win!”

I will never understand WHY artist post on there, especially adult artists who know that any minute they will pull a tumblr and purge them all and their work.

This, however, is completely true; the platform is all about numbers, and supporting any platform with yourself bolsters those numbers. It's exactly as was stated a few podcasts ago, and something I've always said: by staying at a place and using it, by being part of the platform, you are supporting and encouraging that same platform and whatever it chooses to do. It's the same with tumblr, which is the path they're headed down.

Social media always has an agenda, because they're all companies who want to profit off of you. Just being there and just using the platform helps them.

But I will agree, hell is other people indeed.

Sorry, I am a bit late to this conversation, but in the past year I have been relying heavily on social media to develop a fanbase namely Facebook and Instagram. Like someone mentioned, it's a necessary evil these days for marketing purposes. Lately I have been dealing more and more with social media strictly with my webcomic account. I only really follow other webcomics. I can't deal with a lot of the divisive politics.

I recently joined Twitter as a way to expand readership, but it's really overwhelming and I am not sure how to best use it to market a webcomic - before I really only used it for train updates or local news.

The amount of content especially in recent years has just exploded and sites like Facebook and Twitter rely on robots and algorithms to moderate content and ads. The way it is executed is not effective and still a lot of very toxic content gets through to readers, but then other content is suppressed that really should not be suppressed.

@lcstein I think Instagram is your best bet rather than the other apps/sites.
As long ans you use the right tags you should be good.

Linking is limited to your bio unfortunately and you can't be rude in the images you share so it rules out adult comics, but for most of us it's a very good medium for getting our comics out there and promoted. You can even put up your full comic if you format it right and you can write a LOT more than Twitter too.
Facebook doesn't even share your stuff to the people who are fans (or only to maybe 15% of your fans) unless you pay them, so it's pretty useless.

Twitter is too junky these days

TBH, I really stopped promoting my comics months ago though I still follow fellow creators. I've found that a number of them have political agendas that they push along with their comics. Some are pretty extreme but I'm accustomed to crazy political views. Between college and the Army I've seen the whole spectrum.

I'm mostly interacting with historians, movie buffs and model builders these days. I avoid politics. It's a mania. Belief systems are full of cognitive dissonance and people believe weird things despite any and all evidence to the contrary.

And Tantz_aerine got me into this with pushing promotion on Twitter. So I blame you Oz. You got me into this and now you say it's worthless. ROTFLMAO

Yup, you're right and I'm crazy. LOL.

ozoneocean wrote:
@lcstein I think Instagram is your best bet rather than the other apps/sites.
As long ans you use the right tags you should be good.

Linking is limited to your bio unfortunately and you can't be rude in the images you share so it rules out adult comics, but for most of us it's a very good medium for getting our comics out there and promoted. You can even put up your full comic if you format it right and you can write a LOT more than Twitter too.
Facebook doesn't even share your stuff to the people who are fans (or only to maybe 15% of your fans) unless you pay them, so it's pretty useless.

Twitter is too junky these days

Yep. I feel like overall, Instagram has been the best bet, but I am finding I am not really getting followers or likes through hashtags alone. I don't really have that stuff that clicks with people, I am coming to find out :(

I have also recently learned about “shadowbans” (using too many of the same hashtag and how Instagram can suppress posts that use too many. I worry that my stuff may be suppressed. I also have a “business account” because I have a Facebook page and wanted to use Facebook's “creator studio” platform that makes it really easy to multi-post images to Insta from the PC.

Other than “Creator Studio” Facebook has been pretty useless for growing readers. Early when I started to promote my stuff to a wider audience, I made the mistake of buying ads on Facebook. I figured spending $30 for a few days of ads may be worth it…wrong. They hooked me again with a “free ad credit”… I got hundreds of followers, but maybe only 2 or 3 consistently engage with the content. And now, I fear when I try to promote on Instagram organically through hashtags, I worry my stuff is suppressed to encourage me to pay for more ads because a) I have a business account and b) a history of being a sucker.

I also can't really “verify” my business on Facebook because it's not an official business, it's just me posting my comic once a week LOL.

Instagram will definitely suppress “naughty” posts. I may have been using the #catsareassholes tag too many times…

lcstein wrote:
Instagram will definitely suppress “naughty” posts. I may have been using the #catsareassholes tag too many times…

Wow, I wasn't aware of shaddowbans! Ugh, poison AI is ruining everything…
One thing with Instagram- like Drunkduck you increase your popularity as a side effect of interacting with others, so faving other's posts and friending others who use similar hashtags is a great way to go :)
Also commenting on posts and stories etc.

bravo1102 wrote:
And Tantz_aerine got me into this with pushing promotion on Twitter. So I blame you Oz. You got me into this and now you say it's worthless. ROTFLMAO

Ah, you're missing a key lesson from history: things change and the good man has to move with the flow. Those who resist are doomed to fail. ^_^
To be fair it's a lesson I also forget but it's good to bear it in mind!

The internet changes so fast. I mean, a site like DD is a holdover from the old days but we DO still have a purpose and serve needs that a lot of newer stuff just can't…
But staying up with Social media is a never ending, shifting thing. There are all sorts of other services to be aware of- tiktok, Reddit, Telegram, etc.
No one can keep up with all the things.

Good points, the goalposts are constantly shifting. Maybe we should start a social media thread/section, where people can give tips and relate their experiences of what's currently working or not working. Things change so quickly as you say, it would make sense to pool our knowledge, steam ahead and avoid potential icebergs.

OzoneOcean, apparently “shadowbans” are a thing. This post does a good job of explaining the concept: https://hypeauditor.com/blog/is-your-instagram-account-blocked-restricted-or-shadowbanned/

The creator of the other webcomic group I am in authored this really good post on using social media. Here is the URL: https://iheartwebcomics.com/social-media-dos-and-donts/?fbclid=IwAR13kEOPltIz0x8-jgTn0CZvB5LRfS6igF5q9iSplkU1TVXTLd1TjUWAz9M

The advice is really sound and effective. It was where I also learned I was doing things wrong - namely, not posting enough, but using too many and the same hashtags on the stuff I did post (apparently this is something I Heard that can get you “shadowbanned”. I also was more passive with posts - just posting something once a week and hoping people would like it. I mean it does happen like that for some people :), but in my case it has not been like that. Talking to other creators, some mentioned they went viral, but others built their fan base one brick at a time, so to speak. So it really depends.

I try to make a point to interact with stuff I think is good, particularly for people who are starting out (I think newer creators appreciate any feedback a lot more - I know I do). It is not in my nature to be social either in person nor online, and it can feel like work, but it is more rewarding in the long run.

I second Ironscarf's idea to have a separate thread or board just for this topic because things are really changing and what worked 5 years ago does not work now.