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Lopoddity — It's About Having Fun~
#lopoddity
Published: 2018-06-13 00:27:22 +0000 UTC; Views: 102714; Favourites: 6113; Downloads: 0
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Description
I dunno if you guessed it, but I like drawing cute little ponies....fanart of a children's cartoon. And every so often, someone feels the need to tell me that my personal interest is stupid, childish, cancerous....."cringe-y". Boy howdy, do I hear that word tossed around a lot. Cringe, cringe, cringe. We're all afraid of making something cringe-worthy. Something that could end up in those lovely "Bad OC" cringe compilations. I see other artists, especially young creators, getting policed and attacked for creating something that could-gasp!- be interpreted as the dreaded Mary Sue. So artists stifle themselves. Can't make your OC too colorful. Don't you dare make them related to a canon character! Better watch that backstory, lest somebody decry your character as an edgelord. You can have a nerdy interest, but you better not be too fucking passionate about it. Watch yourself. Don't be too different. Don't be cringe-y.
So here's my question to ye gatekeepers of content, ye knowers of all things cringe-worthy, ye adamant enforcers of creative conformity...........Who cares?
Really. Why. Why is "cringe" an issue? So what if someone makes an edgy black-and-red OC, or a sparkly mary sue alicorn princess? So what if somebody makes up an over-powered self-insert and ships them with a canon character? So what if somebody dares to be unironically passionate about a fandom or interest considered less-than-cool? Who cares if people have imperfect, cliche-riddled characters they love?
Cringe culture is mean-spirited. It demands creators conform. It's perpetuated by people who, quite oddly, get really bent out of shape at the sight of people unironically enjoying harmless things.
I say forget it. Trample it. Let people have fun. Especially don't be cruel to young creators- nobody learns to be a skilled artist or writer overnight. And this is by no means a statement against criticism, even harsh criticism.....but there's a big, big difference between giving constructive criticism, vs choosing to crap on somebody for having a "cringe-y" interest. Clicking on someone's work to tell them that it's cringe, or cancer, or that they should kill themselves.....that's not criticism. It's cruelty. The only point of it is to discourage and shame creators, often young, vulnerable ones. There is nothing heroic or helpful about this behavior. This is what I am standing against. To make things clear, I am not anti-criticism. I am anti-bullying.
Idk. I'm a teacher with an Art Education degree, and I believe one of the most important things is to encourage people's interest in the arts, not push them away (out of a mean-spirited attempt to seem cooler by proxy). My favorite Mister Rogers quote (applies to artists of all ages):
"Do you like to draw with crayons? I'm not very good at it. But it doesn't matter. It's the fun of doing it that's important. Now, I wouldn't have made that if I just thought about it. No matter how anybody says it is....It feels good to have made something."
edit: adding in a relevant C.S. Lewis quote as well, on enjoying "childish things"
“Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”
Join my Cringe Challenge here!
Cringey Pony OC Challengefigured my last status would work better as a journal SO
I've got a little challenge for all my artists that love making MLP OCs~
if you want to, i'd sure appreciate if ya'll would design the "cringiest", most "mary-sue/gary stu" pony your brain can concoct, and submit your design to this journal in a comment. I'd like to do a piece about how cringe culture restricts our freedom as makers and consumers of content, so I'll be picking one of your "cringe" designs and drawing it! I'd like to make clear that this is not meant to be mean-spirited, your mock OC will be drawn respectfully, and hopefully be used to get those haters of "cringe-y OCs" to question why they feel the need to mock other people's harmless interests.
You can go however nuts you want. Break every OC-designing rule, design however you goddamn want. Wanna show me a rainbow-haired alicorn with jewel eyes and two sets of wings? Go for it! Make a black and red overpowered dark lord that cries ink black tears. This OC was designed by , their original (much better, lol) drawing is here:
edit: comments disabled because it's late and i'm tired, and some of ya'll are getting real huffy about a drawing of a rainbow horse with a flowery anti-bullying message. will probably turn comments back on later. For now i think i'm good on being told to kill myself. Great job convincing me cringe culture is totes necessary tho!
urgh
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Comments: 623
Look, blocking is something I agree on. But when Loppodity blocked the comments, you got angry. So? Is blocking a solution, yes or no?
And I'm not affected by it. If I was, I would have stopped drawing. But many young artists are, and they are stopping drawing because grown ass people on the internet laugh at them and then defend themselves with "lol, it's cringy, it's just a joke". Like a bully would do. Art is not supposed to get a 10 year old kid to confront a grown adult because "its character is cringy and a Mary Sue". Art is supposed to be free. For you to do what you want, what you enjoy, without having someone making 10 minutes videos on you because "it's cringy lol eww".
And about mixing both. I thing that yes, it can be hard to distinguish between "This piece is bad. The colors are awful" and "This could be better if you did this". But a 10 minute video of someone mocking a kid's drawing? Nope. That's plain bullying, and this is the kind of behavior Loppodity is talking about. And like all artists, with time, they will learn to take criticism, and they will learn how to be better artists. Not by someone mocking them, but by a community who helps eachother. Cringe doesn't help anyone. First, lets get rid of cringe, and then we can discuss how to give criticism. And also, no one ever got anything good from shutting up about a problem. All things that require change, require someone to stand up and speak up. Loppodity did this with this message, with this drawing.
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That I can understand, while I do agree that someone making fun of a young artist's drawing is a pathetic move that deserves nothing but the disaproval of the world, it's also worth noting that the reason cringe worthy material exists is because most of the people who are criticized refuse to listen to any kind of advise.
I have a small theory, to me the cringe worthy classification is not an action, but a consequence, have a look at these timelines.
Artist creates content with questionable quality ---> Criticized ---> Listens ---> Changes over time ---> Proud of their art and respected by the community
Artist creates content with questionable quality ---> Criticized ---> Doesn't listen ---> Doesn't change/Replies aggresively ---> Continously commits the same mistakes to the point they are noticed by all kinds of people ---> Labeled as ''cringe worthy''
Of course, some people will jump to the very last stage before giving the artist a chance to see what their reaction could be and if they could improve, in such case scenario I do agree that those people should not be doing what they do, but in more cases than one this timeline remains true.
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The reason cringe exists is because some dumbass thought it was fun to mock some kids who ventured to do digital art and posted it on the internet. Those artist that get aggressive when someone criticizes their art don't enter in cringe compilations. They have their own separate videos, in which other artists highlight their mistakes and aggressive behavior, and most of these artists get lost on the ocean that is the internet, or don't get bigger channels/followers. Have you seen how big the cringe culture is? Have you seen how they speak of the artists in these videos? And they defend with "don't attack this kids" but then post the name of the artist or channel in big letters for everyone to see. You know how that timeline should be?
Artist creates content with questionable quality ---> Criticized ---> Doesn't listen ---> Doesn't change/Replies aggresively ---> Continously commits the same mistakes to the point they are noticed by all kinds of people ---> People leave it to go find better artists instead of messing with kids/people immature enough that don't deserve their time. They don't create videos, they don't link to the artist. They let the artist be and create what it wants. If it creates "shit", let it enjoy his "shit".
That's how things should be. Don't defend cringe as people who call out bad people. If you want to call out someone, do it respectfully, not mocking them and telling them to die and "why do you even exist lol".
Cringe culture should not exist. In any of its forms. It's bullying and it just harms some artists so other people can get a laugh.
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You're reaching really hard if you perceive an anti-bullying message as "controversial". This is not an anti-criticism piece, but if you'd like to pretend it is so you can feel justified in being an ass to people online, feel free.
I didn't close comments because people disagreed. I closed comments because I started receiving death threats....over a harmless drawing of a rainbow horse. That angry, kneejerk reaction to bully others for their interests is exactly why I drew this. That isn't criticism, that is cruelty, and there is no possible justification for it.
Five thousand plus favorites for a rainbow pony with a positivity message. Yes, I am very proud, thank you.
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''con·tro·ver·sial
ˌkäntrəˈvərSHəl,ˌkäntrəˈvərsēəl/
adjective
giving rise or likely to give rise to public disagreement.''
As far as I know, there's quite a percentage of people who disagreed with your statements, the nature of your message doesn't matter as long as people don't agree with your points, contradicting my use of words by also not knowing what the word actually means is already a bad start, just saying.
As for your reasoning behind you closing the comments, I don't know how long you've been on the internet, but this is how humanity works, some people lack the social cues to understand how harsh their comments can be, it's literally human nature, the things they say here such as a ''death threat'' is something they'd never say irl, I'm not saying that's a good thing, however, you NEED to develop a crocodile skin to that kind of things or otherwise this place will eat you alive faster than you can notice, it also greately hurts the credibility of your message at some degree because you are completely unable to handle the people who give that kind of approach, if you want to tell people you want something to change, then make sure you can actually change yourself to understand why they say what they say.
I can't take someone who gets upset so easily with the smallest of things seriously when they preach about change, I'm sorry.
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If complacency is the strategy you personally wish to take when dealing with online harassment, that's your choice. But that's not how I like to handle things. If everyone accepted shitty behavior as "just the way things are", nothing would ever change for the better. This drawing got a lot of traction, and people have told me it's led to them re-examining their approach to both creating and examining art, and coming to view cringe culture as mean-spirited perpetuation of conformity. That was my goal, I am happy to have changed a few minds, or gotten people to think, if only for a moment.
I dunno, my dude. Iiiiiii don't know if I can really buy into the "grow a thicker skin" mentality from someone angry about a rainbow pony.
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He's not angry about the rainbow pony tho. You keep bringing that up like it's a "fact" and that it matters, when he's talking about the message you're trying to spread, not the drawing itself. Bringing that up adds nothing, just saying.
Although I do agree with you on many points you make, I also agree that it's important to make sure to distinguish the difference between someone calling something "cringe worthy" just to be an asshole and someone calling something "a bit cringy" as a way to give criticism. If all they do is insult then yeah, just ignore them, but if they're actually trying to give good criticism then don't just lash at them, it's important as an artist to be able to listen and take criticism, as hard as that critic may be.
As for the points I agree on, yes the whole cringe culture tends to go far with things, and mark things as "cringy" just because they're out of what is seen as "the norm" and that can really bring an artist down, or even bring them to give up ideas they may have worked very hard on, and that's pretty sad. BUT, and many artists will agree, sometimes being told something is "too flashy" or "too dark" CAN help the artist improve, it just depends how you approach them about it.
I'm pretty 50/50 about the whole thing, but I have to admit Sourcy is right in saying that you disabling comments like that hurts the credibility and strength of the message you're trying to send. I know you received "death threats" but you can easily ignore those and focus on the other people that give their opinions, whether they agree with you or not.
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I know the person is upset about the message. But the message is "don't be cruel". Not that criticism is bad, not that young artists should plug their ears, not that we should all hug and exchange flowers and only give compliments. I feel as though my message being deliberately misinterpreted by people who simply feel the need to argue. My point is that people shouldn't be bullied for their harmless interests. If someone has actual criticism to give, or even simply wants to voice their opinion, fine. But going on someone's work to tell them its cringe or cancer or that they should kill themselves or drink bleach or whatever....that's not criticism. It's bullying, often aimed at younger, more vulnerable creators. There's no justifying online harassment like that. Obviously, I'm not expecting cringe culture to die over night, but my goal was to get people talking about it, giving their own experiences with it, encouraging others, having fun.
I would think that the fact I needed to disable messages only strengthens my case. I am a person like any other online artist, not some indestructible pillar of strength. I am affected by harassment and bullying like any other. I thought it would be good to take an anti-bullying stance. I have no agenda with this, other than asking others to be a little bit kinder.
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Yeah but you kept saying how they're "mad about a rainbow horse", but whatever.
Also, things being explained that way it makes more sense and is more understandable than how you previously explained things.
And I completely agree, just insulting someone (especially with the "Kys" stuff) is not criticism, and it's just a horrible thing to do.
And as for the comments I understand you can get affected by what people say, that's normal, but I wouldn't say it strengthens your case.
You want people to just have fun and be able to do what they want without worrying about what other people think, but then you do it and disable comments when people tell you what they think. It's a bit contradictory no? But again I can understand what some people have said may have affected you, especially those sending messages like "kys", that's never fun to get, but it's in those cases that you need to really stand your ground on your message and either ignore them, block them or both.
While the message of asking people to be kinder is great, it's gonna be hard to do sadly.
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Do you want to know the real reason I turned off comments? Because I was going to bed. I saw that this drawing was getting a lot of attention, and I didn't want to go to sleep and wake up to find it spammed with people accusing me of entirely irrelevant points, multiple iterations of "cringe" and "i hope you die", spam, etc.....as is the case every time something of mine ends up on the front page. Every upload I make brings new surprises. Would this be my second drawing to get spammed with twenty drawings of child porn by someone trying to be "funny"? Would this be my next drawing to get used by some random neo-nazis using its place on the front page as an easy platform to spout hate? If this drawing was trending within a few hours of upload, I didn't want to see the inevitable dumpster fire of a comment section I'd wake up to.
So I turned off my comments. I waited for this to stop trending so high. Then I turned em back on. People see a cartoon pony and go on the attack, because the mighty internet powers-that-be have dictated MLP to be a cringey thing to enjoy, something worthy of being mocked and hated. I've been experiencing this for years now. I don't regret my choice to take a stand against the bullying, but I also don't regret my decision to take a breather from the stress. The "disable comments" exists for the exact reason as the block button.
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Alright, that I can understand. Makes more sense than what I had previously seen/heard from you, and I completely respect that.
I'm sorry you have to deal with the spam and dumb messages from people so much by the way, sadly tho that's how the internet is.
It's not really something we can control, and though we can change some aspects of it, not everyone will join into that change.
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Aah, yes, the passive-agressive approach from someone who screams about being nice on the internet, if that's not hypocritical, I don't know what is, that is the warcry of someone who just lost.
Please, spare me the bragging, it's already bad enough your attitude stinks of hypocrisy by your way to communicate and the fact you cannot listen to reason unless it's favorable to you.
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I'm not bragging, I'm sharing my experiences. You good, bro? You're pretty hostile about this. If you really need the sweet sweet taste of internet victory, I can agree to disagree, if it'll make you feel better.
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Why would you complain about the amount of comments? When the message is a pretty damn big subject?
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I'm not sure what you're asking me? I haven't complained about the number of comments. This has been largely very well received, and I'm pretty happy with that. Even more so with the people who participated in my art challenge.
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I approve this message.
(Also, both the character and the art are beautiful.)
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This is honestly double-edged. It is also unheard that the one who "have the fun" started the problem by overreaction upon a civil comment, although I'm in no way denying people who do this cringe thing just to stomp the others. I suppose the maturest one is the one who leaves first without resorting to making scenes.
I can completely understand not everyone wants constructive feedbacks and just have the fun and it is completely their right. Those who insist on giving "constructive criticism" to those who don't want it, they don't know they're going to be worse while they could've just saved that to those who actually look for constructive feedback.
It's matter of courtesy. And being decent human being with humility, not to stomp others like you said.
Then again, it's Internet. Since one decides to share something to Internet, one has to be prepared for the heat.
Ha, to think an artwork could be a forum thread by itself.
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what even is the point of this message other than making dA more of a hugbox than what it already is
people bully others and shit on others and say "ew cringe" all the time, that's not going to change. but the more young artists gets messages that are baseless insults the more they begin to think that constructive criticism is as shit as said baseless insults. just look at all of the 30+ year old manbabies who have been on dA for 10+ years. they're still drawing inflation shit and have been shit at it since they joined. and they can't take any slight constructive criticism seriously thanks to all of the shitposting they been through. just trapped in their happy little world
no need to be all protesty about it, let young artists find their way through and have them be exposed in "cringe cultire" and have them learn what's "cringey" so that they can better themselves as artists and people
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The purpose is to shine a light on bullying and advocate for fun and freedom. It's not anti-criticism, it's anti-cringe culture. I'm saying it's mean to dismiss someone's personal, harmless interest as "cringe" or "cancer", just because it's not deemed cool. I'm not advocating for a "hugbox", just maybe for an environment where I don't get told to kill myself because I drew a rainbow pony with a flowery caption (something that happened a few minutes ago). Attacking artists for having "cringe-y" interests is not constructive and only stifles creativity, especially in newbie artists.
Bullying happens, sure, but that doesn't mean nobody should ever speak up about it.
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CRINGE
IS
NOT
AN
ADJECTIVE
STOP
CALLING
THINGS
CRINGE
OK?
OK!
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cringe is a feeling of disgust, you are right. the adjective is cringeworthy, and i don't think art is worth the cringe.
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i get the point your making but there is a reason its too much. like tone down the saturation and it might not look like a cartoon smoothie
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Let it be a SMOOTHIE, if drawing what they do makes them happy, let them at it, you don't gotta look at it, you can scroll past and let others be happy with their creations and their art.
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My problem with Black + bright red/bright blue characters is... they hurt my eyes. Physically hurt my eyes.
But then again, I can always opt to not look at them so... I don't make a fuss.
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If I could, I would give you a llama badge for making the perfect "agree to disagree" comment.
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xD Haha, thanks!
Tbh, part of this problem for me is I have odd eyes that like to see bright colors intensely, hurting me. And not even OC designs, in irl too. Bright red and bright blue are the worst.
But again, I can usually opt out and not look at things that I don't like. I don't personally have a need to call people out on it.
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Yeah, I figured it was a sensory thing. :3 Mind if I become a watcher?
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Knock yourself out!
And yeah, I recently had the personal misfortune of working with a black + bright red and bright blue OC xD But I finished, since I took the job on, and didn't harp about the colors aside from mentioning my problem once.
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I 100% agree that this cringe mentality needs to go. It hurts young artists and keeps them from growing and making mistakes, which everyone does because we are flawed beings. I’m for constructive and tactful criticisms however, but against blogs dedicated to bullying others.
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hehehee~ want to see my younger self’s most cringeworthy concoction? Pfft lol
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This really resonates with me because my worries are the same ones you described. Just today I deleted one of my drawings because I was afraid it would be too cringey! So thank you for speaking out about this,
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Ohh Dischord what did you do the princesses? I don't know Dischord what did YOU do?
Love it
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I really appreciate you speaking up about this, it seems whenever i look in the comments of someones artwork theyre pointing out their own flaws and calling themselves cringy. I It's a really sad defense mechanism because they're afraid to be attacked for what they enjoy or their amateur* artwork.
*(but tbh, the younger generations art is not amateur at all and is fantastic. have you seen the shit they do on youtube? wowy)
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I think people whining at people who are just having fun should be considered "cringey". They need to chill out and put their time and energy into actual problems.
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I agree for the most part
putting other people's art in 'cringe' youtube videos and posts is going too far. I can't say ill totally defend something like- fetish art and other disturbing material but it's not that hard to not comment threats and harass or just use this chrome.google.com/webstore/det…
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Them: "Ew that's cringy..."
Me, an intellectual, rubbing my hands together: "My dude, you know not the true meaning of cringe, allow me to show you just how intense it can be!"
They say my interests are cringy, I say go all out. Death by cringe. Cringe those people out of your life. Cringe away! Hell yuh!
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Agreed. I may have stopped caring about what's "cringe-y" or not, but I still don't post a lot of my stuff online in light of witnessing this kind of behavior as a teenager. And it sucks, because if I did post more of my works, I could benefit from a lot more useful critiques from people, which in turn would help me improve.
But now I'm starting to realize that life's too short to worry about what has the "mainstream stamp of approval" on it. Do what makes you happy; write the stories that you want tell, draw the art that you want to draw, and make the most of your time.
You're the one who builds your universes, you're the one who creates your characters, and you're the one who puts effort into your art and writing. So when someone who didn't have anything to do with your work comes along and calls it "cringe-y", who cares?
The person from who you need the most approval is yourself, because you're the one who brought your creations to life, and you're the one who's time went into them, not some random person from a fringe minority who—let's be honest—really couldn't care less about you and your work.
And just like you, I'm not talking about the people who leave constructive criticism and comment about what could be improved, but about those folks who just post useless derogatory remarks.
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Can I use this as a profile pic if I give credit?
Too late, i'm doing it.
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Could not agree more with what you said. Let people have fun with drawing whatever they want! And nobody should feel discouraged by any of those know-it-alls who think they are sOOOO much better.
Have fun.
Enjoy it.
Feel free.
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