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Relatable Comics!!

5 years ago2,126 words

Here are some things that I didn't make, and which I talk too much about because I don't seem to be capable of doing anything better with my time at the moment. Enjoy!!

Posting this means I'll end up posting three days in a row, which makes me wonder whether the other posts will even be seen or if people only look at the latest one... but I seem to be incapable of doing anything meaningful at the moment due to fatigue and depression and all that lovely stuff, and the things my attention has been directed towards feel relevant to what I do and talk about, so I wanted to talk about them a bit, and also I write too many run-on sentences.

I used to follow the work of other creators online regularly years ago. I'd keep up with a few established sites with regular content and I'd browse their forums (I never posted though), finding new things that way. I was also active on deviantART, and came across the work of a lot of not-established artists too, just young, creative people expressing themselves. It felt like I was a part of that world, but I haven't been for a while, and I'm not sure what happened there... Maybe it's because of the avoidance stuff, or because I went to university doing a non-creative course and found myself in a different world, or maybe I just grew up and moved in a different direction, I don't know. Whatever the reason, I've isolated myself, creatively, and I don't like that. It's something I keep wanting to break out of, but I always end up putting that off 'until I feel better', which is a time that never seems to come.

I mentioned recently that I've been wasting time ogling stupid Reddit content, which I've still been doing occasionally. It's not even that I 'like' it as such, it's just a matter of inertia at this point. I have tabs eternally open, and refresh them just because I can't summon up the energy to do anything 'better'. I'd much rather be reading books with valuable information, practising skills like digital painting or meditation, but it all just feels so much harder than mindlessly bingeing brief videos of 'doggos' farting or whatever that don't even penetrate the thick miasma of depression to produce so much as a smile. "Oh", I think, worldlessly; "that was a thing. I wonder what the next thing is", and so on. They do nothing for me, but I continue anyway.

I'm not a member of Reddit so I haven't subscribed to any subreddits or however that works, but I follow links to new ones that seem like they might be interesting, and view either the top posts of all time, or the most recent 'hot' ones. There are a lot of interesting things that people post, but it's different from what I'm used to because it's mostly found content, posted and reposted endlessly. Years ago, I remember being unable to get into sites like Tumblr or Pintrest because I was used to the "look at what I've made!" pages and content of deviantART, but these were just like magpies' nests, just collections of pretty things the person had found but which they didn't really have any specific ownership over, so it almost felt unfair that they should benefit from presenting it. I get the impression that this is the norm with social media, sharing others' stuff, and I suppose part of the reason I don't actively use it is because of this. Not that there's anything wrong with resharing others' content - it benefits both parties, and it's exactly what I'm writing this post to do - but... I don't know. I suppose the mentality that I'd rather make than borrow has always been deeply ingrained. It used to bother me when people's humour consisted of parroting memes and lines from TV shows, and I always tried to be original instead... but I know now that's naive, that there are many valid social reasons why people trade content between one another like that. It creates a shared feeling of belonging equally, rather than the presenter/recipients-like distance between an owner/creator and an audience...

I found a subreddit called r/comics recently that feels noteworthy because it did actually pierce through the dark clouds, at least a little bit. I suppose it's because it's mostly created content, and it reminded me of what I used to enjoy and what I've been missing out on for a while, but also it's because the kinds of people who tend to create content like this tend to have mental experiences I can relate to more than I could, say, a retail worker or banker or something. A lot of artists turn to art because of inner demons like anxiety or depression - a fact I was very much aware of back in the deviantART days - and they tend to use their skills as a way of coping with that, as I try to with mine.

The comics posted to r/comics are very variable in quality, as is to be expected. Many are just... not good at all, though it'd be cruel to list examples. I do wonder when I see them though whether the artist genuinely thought they were good, and whether they were hurt by the lack of a response from the faceless crowd. Maybe they feel that it was the best they could do. Maybe some people genuinely can't do 'better'. It can't be nice, knowing that, after neurotically toiling away for hours, your work is nothing more than a blip in the endless stream of similar free content, given a second or two of attention at best before being immediately forgotten about. Some of the creators link to their Patreon accounts, and I'd be surprised if they were making anything at all from them, though I don't want to check because to do so would empathetically hurt. It's hardly as if I'm looking down on them with pity from up on high; while I've had some taste of success in the past, worrying about how my work will be received - and it not being received quite as well as I might like - is something I'm intimately familiar with. It's a strange thing, to worry about that; anyone creative who puts their work out there has their mind in this area much of the time, but I suppose it's alien territory for people with ordinary, pragmatic jobs that don't rely on favourably sparking the whims of anonymous masses to get by... Or actually, I suppose sharing on social media has familiarised everyone with it? "My post only got 2 likes!! Why??". Probably.

Anyway, I'm rambling about this way more than I intended to. I do that. Maybe other people would just write a post like this saying "look at these funny thigns i found [laughing emoji]" before being distracted by the next shiny thing, or something, and I feel like I'm 'doing it wrong' by being otherwise, but... well, I think too much, obviously.

It's difficult to know how many of these comics are relatable to most people - especially young, non-established people who might browse Reddit frequently - and how many are specific to people with the particular mental quirks I and apparently others are burdened with. Making them relatable seems to be part of almost a formula, since it gets a reaction:



Link: ∞ That's one Relatable Raven ∞

(That has 48.5k upvotes.)

And lots of young people are having a tough time at 'adulting', so maybe seeing others expressing a similar sentiment soothes the feeling of struggling alone. Or maybe it's just an ego thing, where we like seeing things that "are sooo me" because 'me' is really all we truly know all day every day. Comics like "i cant sleep at night cuz i drink coffee lmao" seem likely to appeal to a large number of the people seeing them, in that way.

But there are more specific ones, and I wonder how many people can actually relate, deeply, to these. (I can, obviously, which is why I'm including them.)



Link: ∞ Any other awkward souls out there? ∞



Link: ∞ Feeling like a burden ∞

Being 'awkward' is a fairly common thing, especially for young people, which seems to be exacerbated by spending so much of our time behind screens rather than face-to-face with other people. But depression and anxiety seem more insidious, less of a funny quirk and more of a life-ruining demon. I know that I've been in that mental situation, where I've been offered support but just 'don't want to be a bother', so I suffer in silent solitude instead. I've been meaning to message a couple of people actually, but I keep putting it off, and decide on things like "they might be busy on the weekend, or at the start of the week, or the end, or on Wednesdays, so maybe Tuesday evening is the best time... Oh, but it was Valentine's Day, so they won't want to hear from me then, so I'll wait until next week...". Ugh. I'm ostensibly a grown man. It feels pathetic. But it's how mental issues work.

I've seen a few comics by this same person (the one who did the raven one, though I didn't realise that at first), who - knowing nothing about him other than these few comics I've seen - I'd guess has social anxiety (or, more cynically, at least understands it and knows people who experience it will like his comics).



Link: ∞ After party ∞



Link: ∞ hi ∞

(I'd spend the whole week - and many months more - being painfully revisited by that look of bewilderment on his face...)



Link: ∞ What has become of my life ∞

(That one's not about anxiety, but it makes me laugh because it's pretty much what I've been like this past week... Some people of the same species as me are brain surgeons, you know! Or musicians! Or married! Or are just generally functioning in the world, every single day!!)



Link: ∞ Distant ∞

That one fairly closely describes the particular pit I've been in for years. "I'm so lonely! Woe and wah!", then as soon as someone contacts me, I panic and put off even reading their message for days. I'm doing that at the moment. But then that causes me agony anyway because I don't want to be a bother! by replying later than they'd like...

Also, I'm surprised at the bizarreness of the art styles in a lot of these comics! They're all more different, more imaginative, than I would have expected. Some work well, some not so much. It seems that things like Adventure Time have been a huge influence on the current generation of young artists, and this minimalistic, absurdly, garishly stylised look is the norm at the moment. Comics with two gamer guys on a couch, or with stolen pixel art, used to be stereotypically common, but I don't really see those anymore. Interesting how things change. I wonder what the trends'll be a decade from now.

I had all these plans for what to do over the weekend, but I've been unable to do much at all because I still feel so bad... This has been a bit of a distraction, at least. I think a lot about how I'm using my creative work to explore the mental perspective I must see the world from, so it's interesting to me to see how other people are going about that. Though I've also been thinking about how easily shared these things are compared to what I'd be making, and how that's both a good thing if they get more exposure, but less of a good thing if they become forgettably disposable as a result... Hmm.

Anyway. I'm tired of being tired.