#stop caring about being an internet microcelebrity NOW

[hoofpeet]

Developing your art style while still trying to content-ify yourself feels like this

[frostbite-the-bat]

no but genuinely. i love shadow filbo dearly. he means a lot to me.

he marks a time for me where i began embracing what i like just... for the sake of it!

he embodies the things that inspired me to draw online in the first place. hell, sparklecat characters with bangs have made me stop cutting my hair. i haven't cut my hair properly since. just because i wanted the same bangs, not knowing how hair works. now i have what is best described as messy fluttershy hair. to many people just how long my hair is, is what defines me when they see me and my hair is in a way special to me.

and again - he was what inspired me to draw. in class i'd be drawing my own sparklecats at the age of like 8, with bangs and wings and little companions that sit on clouds that rain hearts. (and bolts and skulls when ANGRY!)

i put rainbows on everything. i thought nyan cat was the embodiment of everything good in the world. i listened to nightcore versions of songs only. i say, as i am listening to nightcore, right now.

because of all these old classic animation memes and sparklefurs and silly scene and emo song flash animations i'd find... i'd pick up ms paint and draw. i imagined just how i'd animate, finding even the simplest methods absolutely mesmerising. there is something to be said about me being this young with internet access - because it very much so had it's negative effects. not me watching fetish videos at the age of 8 just because it had pokemon in it. yea that did not have any lasting effects.

but despite all this shit - it raised me! and even just a few years later... like.. 2015 when i began posting online on deviantart for the first time, not being just a lurker... learning how The Computer works better - not only drawing on paper anymore and gaining more and more interest towards digital art... i was already nostalgic towards these earlier days. but still living IN it, y'know?

just having fun, doing my own thing! isn't that what art is all about?

well. then the cringe culture nation attacked. severe bullying at school. and in general, just shame - which i am still fighting in certain aspects. but it's a bit more complicated than just "shame". (more so fear of Things.)

i'd look back at things with either genuine "cringe" or a distaste. how DARE these people have fun? because deep down, i was simply jealous.

if i was going to reference anything old like this, like classic animation memes, it was framed as "JOKE" "NOT SERIOUS" because i feared i would be harassed, made fun of, or people would thing THAT is the best of my artistic abilities. but... it's not like that.

and now, more and more people are embracing this. and it makes me so happy. and shadow filbo helped me fight off these fears a lot and just let me love what i love and be myself.

maybe it's not an ""aesthetic"" that completely defines me, maybe it IS a tik tok trend to do nowadays - but i don't care. without any of this i wouldn't be here. those were my first inspirations. silly colorful cats animated to crunchy mp3s of songs using movie maker and 3 (three!) frames drawn in ms paint. it had so much charm. it had so much genuinity. and i could feel it even back then.

without it i might've not been here as i am now. there are so many things that go into this, of course. but i simply would not be the exact way i am. and i dunno. that's something to think about.

thank you so much, shadow filbo. one "mistake" with you i've had was thinking i should be a good creator of something and respond to every fan and fanart, which only stressed me out. i have... opinions! about being recognized in various places and, as some dub, a "NICHE INTERNET MICROCELEBRITY" (nothing against you fox </3).... yeah! not a fan.

another mistake was dubbing him as a "joke" always. and... he is! he is humorous! i am a jokey person! i like crunchy shitposts! i like being the reason people laugh! i will go to certain levels to even ridicule myself just for the bit, and i don't mind it. i'm hyper(active) and i am just a jokey person, that's that. but... him being called a joke was honestly just a shield from people taking him too seriously.

if people were to mock me for being nostalgic for nightcore, and rainbows, and edgy amvs, sparkledogs, scene culture and clothes, rave songs... all this!

but... no! people loved it! people loved it so much, it moved THEM to create art!

me, referencing things that made ME inspired to draw all those years ago - then inspired OTHERS to draw other things. to embrace themselves. to have fun. to connect.

it means so much to me. it's a bit odd to comprehend, too.

but it means the world to me. sorry if i am ever annoying about shadow filbo, and is often the first thing i bring up when bugsnax is brought up - but he is the highlight of my experience with bugsnax.

thank you so much, shadow filbo. and me and my wretched little claws, of course. for making them. and those that inspired me. those old friends i lost along the way, too. and those, that inspired those that inspired me. and so forth.

thank you.

[ocpdzim]

i get so sick and tired of seeing people defend rpf as “just fiction” because op is right it literally isn’t. i don’t wanna go into excess detail about it bc i worry it could be too identifiable and even now almost 10 years later i am still terrified of those fuckers finding me, but when i was a teenager i was sort of a microcelebrity on an online game and had to deal w rpf being written about me and it was very traumatizing. around 7 different people, including both other teens and full grown adults, were writing “fanfic” and drawing “fanart” about me and 2 other people, one of them an adult who had been abusing me and the other an even younger family member. even more people were cheering these pieces of shit on. they claimed it wasn’t harassment and that they were doing it because they liked me and the other 2 people they were writing their garbage about, but it was harassment whether they meant it that way or not and made it harder to break away from the aforementioned abuser. i pretty much scrubbed and remade my online presence from the ground up afterwards.

and i don’t care if your victim is an actual celebrity, they still have internet access and could come across your rpf. in fact, actual celebrity victims have come out and spoke about it being traumatizing for them too and damaging their relationships - their fame doesn’t protect them from the damage and if anything i wouldn’t be surprised if it makes them more vulnerable. it is not ok.

rpf people - please think about the impact of your actions for one minute. its not too late to stop doing that and find a fictional character to write about instead. or even just continue your bullshit but not post it online and enjoy it in private where there’s 0 chance of the person it’s about ever seeing it and being hurt by it.

the fluffiest most 'wholesome' fic about a real living human teenager with a high likelihood of seeing it is 100 times more harmful and ethically fucked than the nastiest most taboo thing you can imagine being written about fictional teens and i wish people would talk about that more tbh

[heavenlyyshecomes]

theme for genre asks - instagram / tiktok culture

standing on the shoulders of complex female characters, internet princess

"we consume so much, now, that perhaps we don’t know what it means to exist as something unsellable. i had to give up journalling because i couldn’t stop writing for the people who would read it after i was dead."

speaking to no one, fragments on microcelebrity, social media is not self-expression, the new inquiry and just all of rob horning's writing in general

"Broadcasting makes attention not a condition of communication but its outcome, its product. It alienates attention and makes it a commodity."

selling brands while staying “authentic”: the professionalization of instagram influencers, loes van driel, delia dumitrica

on the internet, we're always famous, the new yorker

"Everyone is losing their minds online because the combination of mass fame and mass surveillance increasingly channels our most basic impulses—toward loving and being loved, caring for and being cared for...—into the project of impressing strangers, a project that cannot, ..., sate our desires but feels close enough to real human connection that we cannot but pursue it..."

under the influence: watch(wo)men, longreads, part of a series on the influencer economy

the paradox of online body positivity, vox

It was after the “bodies that look like this” trend began taking over TikTok in December that creators began speaking out about its inherent double standards. […] “Long story short, skinny people are talking about acceptance, fat people are talking about liberation.”

trick mirror: reflections on self-delusion, jia tolentino

the anxiety of influencers, harper's magazine

the age of everything culture is here, wired

the age of Instagram face, the new yorker

see also: digital society, internet culture, ig culture, real life's topics

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/how-an-arizona-couple-helped-fuel-the-wayfair-sex-trafficking-theory-azcentral/

How an Arizona couple helped fuel the Wayfair sex trafficking theory - AZCentral

Last weekend, an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that online furnishings retailer Wayfair is trafficking children through listings of products with inflated prices and human names erupted on social media.

An Arizona couple helped fuel the rumor by posting on Instagram that they had purchased a $17,000 desk from Wayfair and would share their experience with their followers.

The theory that pillows and cabinets being sold at https://www.wayfair.com for thousands of dollars is somehow evidence of a child trafficking scheme has been debunked by independent fact-checking publication Snopes. It gained traction through a July 9 Reddit post on a forum dedicated to discussing conspiracy theories, Snopes notes.

Maddie and Justin Thompson, of Gilbert, are not convinced.

“There is not one person in this world who can tell me this is not true right now,” Maddie Thompson said in a 40-minute livestreamed Instagram video on July 10. “This cannot be stated as false until it is proven false.”

The video appears to have been taken down on July 14. Instagram has not answered a request for comment.

Who are Maddie and Justin Thompson?

Maddie Thompson, a self-described “microblading artist, creator, entrepreneur and social media maven” on her website, is the founder of a beauty products company called Madluvv.

She is among at least a dozen Phoenix-area social media influencers who shared — whether with disbelief or conviction — the conspiracy theory to hundreds of thousands of followers. Social media celebrities such as reality TV star Savannah Faith Chrisley, model Amber Lancaster and singer Maisy Stella have also posted Instagram stories about the topic on their verified accounts.

On her Instagram account, Thompson often shares posts of her children and friends as well as what she calls her “red-piller” views — a phrase she used in her Instagram Live video. These include beliefs related to QAnon, a far-right conspiracy theory that President Trump is working to expose high-ranking officials and celebrities involved in a child sex-trafficking ring.

Thompson’s Instagram following has more than doubled, from 17,000 to 44,000 followers according to social media analytics site Social Blade, after she posted her video and dozens of disappearing Instagram stories about the theory.

Justin Thompson, her husband, also has gained Instagram followers and he now has more than 13,000.

Why the Thompsons bought a $17,000 Wayfair desk

Conspiracy theorists point to Wayfair products that are listed for thousands of dollars and identified by human names and connect those to reports of missing children with the same names as evidence that these children are being sold online. They believe that after the transaction is completed, a child — not the furnishing — will be delivered to the buyer.

Justin Thompson explained in the video that he ordered a $17,000 Wayfair desk to prove the human trafficking theory by revealing that the company is not actually delivering these high-priced products to buyers. The Thompsons said in the video that they will dispute the transaction with their credit card company and do not intend to pay $17,337.98 to Wayfair.

After making the purchase, Thompson said in the video that he found the original listing for the desk and called MDD, the manufacturer, to ask why the name, product number and price were changed to be sold on Wayfair’s website. The company agreed to conduct an internal investigation into its relationship with Wayfair, Thompson said. We reached out to MDD and will update this story if they respond.

He also expressed suspicion about a call he said he received from Wayfair after he placed the order, in which a customer service representative asked whether he wanted to open a free Wayfair Professional account.

Wayfair Professional — like corporate and business membership programs offered by stores such as Office Depot — offers members-only pricing, a personal account manager and deals, according to its application website. The Republic was unable to reach a Wayfair representative who could explain this program in greater detail.

Justin Thompson also posted a video in which he calls Wayfair customer service and asks a representative why a $13,000 cabinet was removed from the site to be renamed and repriced. The representative hangs up after a nearly five-minute interaction. The video has garnered more than 400,000 views in three days.

Aftermath of the Wayfair trafficking theory

In the ensuing days, Wayfair has removed many of the products from its website. Facebook — which owns Instagram — has added links to articles by Reuters and Lead Stories as “related articles” with a fact-checking sticker at the bottom of the comments for posts about the theory.

A petition at https://petitions.whitehouse.gov requests a U.S. government investigation into “human trafficking and the correlation in prices of items sold on Wayfair.com and Amazon.com along with the concern of the possible selling of underage children coordinated with the prices set.”

As of July 14, the petition has 69 signatures. If it reaches 100,000 signatures by Aug. 11, it will receive an “official update” from the White House within 60 days.

Wayfair denied the trafficking claim and defended its prices — and also claimed a “pricing glitch” on some product pages — in a statement to several media outlets. And despite claims on social media that the company’s CEO, Niraj Shah, stepped down, Wayfair confirmed this too was false.

“Recognizing that the photos and descriptions provided by the supplier did not adequately explain the high price point, we have temporarily removed the products from the site to rename them and to provide a more in-depth description and photos that accurately depict the product to clarify the price point,” Wayfair said in a statement to Business Insider.

The Thompsons and others who believe the claims they’ve read and shared on social media are not satisfied with Wayfair’s response or fact-checking articles. Neither the Thompsons nor Wayfair have responded to requests for comment for this article.

‘Something I never woke up to until quarantine’

The Thompsons seek to educate people on child trafficking, they said, and are “passionate about letting children’s voices be heard.” They were both abused as children, they say at the beginning of their July 10 video.

Maddie Thompson said she learned about child trafficking just in the past few months, since the new coronavirus pandemic began, she said in the video.

“This is a super important situation, something I never woke up to until quarantine,” she said. “I started learning a lot about child trafficking, and it’s becoming more apparent to me that it’s a huge issue that is more of a pandemic than anything else.”

People, especially those with jobs that allow them to work from home at this time, are “looking at the internet a lot” and have more time to consume information, including conspiracy theories, said Diana Daly, an assistant professor at the School of Information at the University of Arizona.

It’s easy for a fringe conspiracy theory such as this one to make its way to the mainstream, Daly said.

“Bad information has no burden of proof to stop its rapid trajectory. That’s why it’s like a virus,” Daly said. “This definitely sounds like people with too much time on their hands on the internet.”

One possible reason the Wayfair theory gained traction so rapidly is that the topic of children “gets people worked up,” Daly said.

For a “microcelebrity” like an Instagram influencer, Daly said, it’s valuable to gain the trust of their followers.

“If you post something a little more (fringe) and you get a lot of followers … you have a self-interested inclination to go with it if you’re willing to go with it,” Daly said.

“As long as (a social media influencer) keeps peddling that information, she’ll gain followers with a willingness to entertain conspiracy thinking with an interest in micro-celebrity.”

Human trafficking in Phoenix

When an Instagram viewer asked why the Thompsons don’t take their allegations to the police, Justin Thompson said, “Cops don’t go off suspicions,” but that they want “a fair investigation and assessment.”

The Phoenix and Gilbert police departments have received no calls related to the conspiracy, according to Phoenix Sgt. Ann Justus and Brenda Carrasco, public information officer for the Gilbert Police Department.

Dominique Roe-Sepowitz is the director of sex trafficking intervention research at Arizona State University. She said she cannot speak to the veracity of the Wayfair conspiracy theory but she appreciates the opportunity to raise awareness of human trafficking, which “happens every day” in Phoenix, she said.

Roe-Sepowitz is on the Arizona Human Trafficking Council and the Mayor’s Human Trafficking Task Force in Phoenix.

“The reality of trafficking is heartbreaking,” Roe-Sepowitz told The Republic. “There’s nothing intriguing, nothing romantic” about people who go missing and are trafficked, she said.

“The overwhelming majority of missing children reported are endangered runaways,” according to nonprofit the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and  “91% of missing kids reported to NCMEC were children running away from home or foster care. The second highest rates of missing children were abducted by a family member who did not have custody. Less than one percent were nonfamily (stranger) abductions.”

“Of the nearly 26,300 runaways reported to NCMEC in 2019, 1 in 6 were likely victims of child sex trafficking,” according to NCMEC’s website.

“Technological advances, in particular the internet, have facilitated the commercial sexual exploitation of children by providing a convenient worldwide marketing channel,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The majority of human trafficking victims in Arizona in 2019 were adult women involved in sex trafficking, according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline. That year, 234 trafficking cases in Arizona were reported to the hotline.

“Arizona is a prime transit and destination area for both sex and labor trafficking in the United States,” according to a 2019 report on human trafficking by the office of the Arizona Attorney General.

What people can do about trafficking

If people want to learn about sex trafficking in Phoenix, Roe-Sepowitz recommends watching a PBS “Frontline” episode she appears in titled “Sex Trafficking in America.”

“We have a real issue in our community,” Roe-Sepowitz said.

People who have posted about child trafficking on social media can “translate their attention” to volunteering for and donating money to credible organizations, she said.

She encourages: “If you see something, say something.” Common indicators of human trafficking, according to Roe-Sepowitz, include a person you might see in public who:

Seems uncomfortable or is experiencing stress, especially if accompanied by someone who seems to have power over them.

Has all of their belongings with them.

If asked, doesn’t know where they are.

To reach the National Human Trafficking hotline 24 hours a day toll-free, call 888-373-7888 or send a text message to 233733. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children can be reached 24 hours a day at 800-843-5678

Reach the reporter at kimi.robinson@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @kimirobin and Instagram @ReporterKiMi.

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