Why hey there friends, watchers, bypassers & stalkers alike!
Time for a big ol' journal entry about stuff 'cause...why not?
Part One: Giving this group thing another shot...
Since my plans for a previous group of mine pretty much fizzled out, I elected to close it down to leave room for another, hopefully more successful one:
fresh-touring-orig.deviantart.…But then, I do not expect it to gain much traction due to its niche subject. I'm in the process of scouting DA for deviations worth featuring though...
Part Deux: I'll be damned if I come up with a proper title for this one
Oh boy, that's one hell of a rambling about to poke its head forth...
To be more specific, I'll be talking here about two things: How I'm really doing in terms of online presence and only then I'll be touching the meat of the subject, which is online communities' supposed deaths. Let's get it done, shall we?
As it is no secret to a few of you, I spent much of the last year pooling cash for a new laptop (A fairly worthwhile investment so far, considering what you get for its price, along with a "drawer" CD loader and a VGA socket, a rare sight in its category).
Now you'd think I'd be pumping out artwork much faster, right? Well, guess again: As soon as I hit the "power" button of that thing, a bit of an epiphany struck me:
Despite of what I've been telling myself for too long now, I cannot simply claim I'm 100% satisfied with my way of doing things.
So I went on about my usual projects, trying new stuff, accepting to get out of that goddamn bedromm a little more often to gain some inspiration, adapting my ass to new responsibilities and tighter schedules... So yeah, I'm still as active as ever, only I decided to rethink some of my priorities in life, hence my marked unwillingness to submit art as soon as I'm done polishing it.
Perhaps the biggest casualty of this shift in my relationship with social media is my Flickr account. With barely any time for carspotting, even less time for my little MBK Booster tuning project, increased difficulty to keep up with recent activity and my stats there hitting an all-time low, the future of that account is pretty much under a question mark. I've been considering a bit of a cleanup just like with my DA account, though I still don't know how I'll really go about it.
This brings us to what I actually wanted to talk about here: Too often, be it on DA or anywhere else, I keep reading the occasional "this place is dying" comment, typically referring to the end of an alleged golden age in terms of overall community activity from an individual's perspective.
I remember when
PJ059 once stated in a TMCP forum post (that was back in 2012) that he distinctly remembers when those forums were a lot more active. I keep running across those "leaving 'cause of lacking activity" posts on various social media. I browse through DA journal entries raising concerns about the site's ability to survive (with the earliest entries on the matter being from as early as the mid-2000s. I really wish I was making that up...)
So, is there such a thing as a dying online community? Well...I really don't know. There might be a few select occurences of such (usually a consequence of people in charge no longer being able to keep the proverbial ship afloat for any given reason), but most of the time it doesn't seem to me like a death
per se, but more of a consequence of real-life commitments, dwindling motivation, decreasing interest in the platform itself or a varying combo of all of these. Really, I cannot pretend to give an objective answer to this.
With that hopefully not-too-random thought salad out of my system, let's move on to something merrier...
Part Three: Getting to know me a little bit better, I guess?
Thanks to the awesome
Sakamoto-chi . But I'm not going through the trouble of tagging along 8 other peeps (last time I tried, barely anyone responded for some reason :'D )
Name: Ismaïl Taha
Star Sign: Pisces
Average hours of sleep: Sleep schedules are for pussies
Lucky Number: 69
Last thing I Googled: Like I'm assed to remember. Plus, I use DuckDuckGo anyway...
When I started this account: 3 years
Amount of watchers: 863
What do I post: Cars, car liveries, anime-themed car liveries...and the occasional (un)popular opinion.
Do I run any other blogs: I wish I could...
Do I get a lot of comments: Not that much, and to be fair I'm quite happy that way. Every bit is welcome though...
Why I chose my username: B-B-B-BIG FUCKING GUN!!!