The hermit crab and social media

Once upon a time there was a hermit crab, smol and elusive to the world. It drew from the misconception of the general public, that it’s kind were not very sociable creatures. So it spent it’s time curled up in it’s shell, occasionally popping out to grab some grub.

A few days later it died.

Why did the crab die? Naturally the first answer would be, cause it had no friends, right? Yes in a way but that isn’t the main point. Hermit crabs are species that are known to be social to one another. They thrive from interacting with one another and in captivity need more than themselves to live a long, along with happy life. The same I guess applies to humans. We need social interactivity in any form. If not, most of us find ourselves losing touch with our human side. The same forgoes with artists, animators, game developers and the like. We need to interact with each other. See each other’s ideas and more importantly share our ideas as well.

A link to the social dynamics of hermit crabs

So how do we do that?

Social media is a powerful tool. That I can say is true. However it is at times a double edged sword. What can be potentially good opportunity to take within social media could also have a negative impact if done wrongly.

The one rule I’ve learnt, the most important one, is don’t be an arsehole. The reasoning behind this? To put it in more obvious terms, being one can cause the general public to dislike you and ruin your chances at job opportunities. It doesn’t matter how good your product is, in most cases if you’re not a appealing person not many will be willing to view your work. This of course comes with that common belief that if you don’t like someone, why bother looking at their work?

There is however exceptions to this case, as the extremely intelligent lecturer, Aaron, has brought to my attention. Celebrity personalities such as Kanye West, are known for their vivid personality. He is to many an asshole. Yet he owns that persona, he embraces it into his own kanye hands. He may receive polarising reactions but he gains respect for acknowledging that he is in control of his persona.

Kanye West is Kanye Best, amiright?

Taken from: https://victorwli.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/yeezy.png

What did this lecture help me achieve social media wise?

For my personal self, the use of social media was not an avid venture that I pursued. I could probably relate back to how my general personality was or perhaps the dislike of wanting to have any form of interaction with the general public. So in a way I described myself before my more active use of social media as a hermit crab.

Funny enough hermit crabs are very sociable creatures

Taken from: https://media.tenor.com/images/798c43a4c32611a3c64223e3fd208f82/tenor.gif

Like the hermit crab I used to scuttle around chucking a lil of my artwork around here and there. However it was hard to find motivation. I would occassionally get boosts of inspiration by seeing other artwork but there as no real social interactivity. Eventually the posts that I made once every 3 works or so turned into 6 weeks and then eventually months.

The only sites I used during this time was Deviant Art. It allowed me to share my art, however it was intended to be site aimed for fellow media practitioners. It was in weird way a very isolating environment. Yet I still was very reluctant to see how social media was an important aspect of my artistic career. In particular how spreading my artwork on these platforms can help open up job opportunities and spread my branding.  Instead I viewed social media platforms like a foreboding presence that loomed over my presence.

A more accurate representation of how I used to react to the idea of sites like Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Taken from: http://orig07.deviantart.net/a015/f/2013/024/3/8/v81asen_by_hotemetoot-d5smjp8.gif

An old Deviant Art account of mine

Snipped from: https://notafatpanda.deviantart.com/

Yet after entering university I began to step more into the idea of using sites like twitter. It was only though after being thrusted into using it for assessments did I start to appreciate it more as a tool and a means of communications to an artist and their fans. It also served as a communication, a more casual way, to fellow people of the animation industry. Ultimately it allowed me to open my work up more. Along with encouraging me to produce more work and improve the quality of my art.