~And we went into the woods
I went through my scans folder today and realized that I've actually finished an entire sketchbook without scanning any of it so... oops? I should really scan some pages from that tonight if I can. I should post more scans at some point too! I'm so far behind, haha.
Anyway there is something that came back to mind lately and I thought I might as well bring it up here, since I think it raises some interesting questions. Well, I think they're interesting from a creator's standpoint, haha. It's an odd situation even to be talking about, although that'll be clearer as I go on I think.
So, I think it was Jaz who linked me to this odd little utau song, a kind of chiptuney, upbeat thing that had lyrics that took a strange abrupt turn halfway through. With a bit more digging, I ended up finding a few other songs by that same person, all with a similar kind of style - chiptuney, upbeat, and lyrics that'd take an abrupt dark turn. There'd be a song about jellyfish descending on a town, and then a jelly would melt someone's head. Or two girls would go into an underpass together, and then one of them would stick their hand in a hole and their hand would get chopped off. This person also did some cute pixel art for each song, and they did some work on Yume 2kki, and I think did their own Yume Nikki fangame I can't remember the name of.
So, where this starts to get complicated - this person went through an increasingly dark period with their success, getting angry and frustrated and resentful, eventually threatening suicide and blaming their fans for driving them to it. They wanted to destroy everything they ever made, and if their work did survive, they wanted it to be attributed to some anonymous nameless person. They wanted to basically disappear completely, and alarmingly enough... after they made those posts along those lines, they did. :( I want to think they ended up getting some help and didn't end up killing themselves after all, but there really isn't any way to know at this point. I hope they're okay out there though.
Anyway, they tried to delete everything, as you'd expect, but their success had resulted in a number of covers and remixes and general fanwork of the things they'd made. What they'd made had resonated really deeply with some, and they wanted to preserve it. So, several people archived almost everything before it got lost. So even now, you can still find almost all their music and their fangame, if you look deeply enough into it.
There are people still making covers and remixes of their songs, but many of them do not credit the original person. They just list them as anonymous, or unspecified, or say that the original artist does not want to be credited. And when looking into the comments for these covers, I found a bunch of people honoring that request and censoring that person's name when talking about them. However, I also found several who refused, and it was usually for the same few reasons.
Those who refused said that trying to hide the artist's identity or erase what they'd made was basically just asking for more attention - something similar to the Streisand Effect. Trying to erase something off the internet was foolish and impossible, and they weren't going to play along with it. Some considered it an ego trip from the original artist, trying to demand and control how people interacted with their art, or attention-seeking dramatics from someone who was unwell. Others felt like it was stupid, since everyone knew who they were actually talking about anyway, and there was no power or significance to saying a name or not. Others felt that if the artist was dead, it didn't really matter what they wanted anymore, and it'd be a waste to destroy something beautiful to satisfy someone who wasn't even alive anymore.
What interested me most were people who seemed almost angry at people trying to honor their wishes in leaving them anonymous. They felt like the artist was entitled, or imposing on them by having these kind of demands about their work. Essentially, the artist didn't really own their work anymore - the audience did, and that change in ownership was sort of an implicit agreement when making their work public to others, and they had no right to demand anything of them. Other people censoring their name implied that the artist still maintained some kind of control, which they were insistent that they did not.
I think I see it in a certain way being someone who creates things myself... I have sympathy for this person for wanting to have some control over what they made, or to at least have their request to be made anonymous honored. I feel like honoring their desire to be anonymous is the least you can do, it doesn't even seem like very much to ask. But even that seems galling to a few, which feels a bit puzzling to me. Again I think I'm biased here though. I know after a certain point it's not reasonable to really expect or ask something from an audience - after a certain point, the art in question is just completely out of your control and there's nothing you can do. And to me, that's sort of a horrifying prospect if your art is being used for something absolutely abhorrent and there's no way you can make that stop. This isn't that kind of situation, but there are some bits of it that are similar. There's always that risk.
I dunno! It's just a strange, sad situation, and it's odd to talk about since what they wanted was just to disappear and for people to never talk about them again, and they wanted all those beautiful things they made that touched so many people to disappear too. I feel like an artist should have control over their work, to an extent... but there is always that inherent risk of it going out of your control when it's in public. I guess it sort of relates to the death of the author idea. You can't control how people feel or interact with your work, or what they do with it really. There are only certain things you can control as an artist. But is deciding to destroy all your work one of those things? Is preserving something beautiful against the creator's wishes doing a service, or is it disrespectful? I dunno, it's complicated. Every now and then a remix or cover of one of their songs will pop up on youtube and I'll end up thinking about it again. I do hope they're okay out there, wherever they are.
I also posted this at dreamwidth. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!
Anyway there is something that came back to mind lately and I thought I might as well bring it up here, since I think it raises some interesting questions. Well, I think they're interesting from a creator's standpoint, haha. It's an odd situation even to be talking about, although that'll be clearer as I go on I think.
So, I think it was Jaz who linked me to this odd little utau song, a kind of chiptuney, upbeat thing that had lyrics that took a strange abrupt turn halfway through. With a bit more digging, I ended up finding a few other songs by that same person, all with a similar kind of style - chiptuney, upbeat, and lyrics that'd take an abrupt dark turn. There'd be a song about jellyfish descending on a town, and then a jelly would melt someone's head. Or two girls would go into an underpass together, and then one of them would stick their hand in a hole and their hand would get chopped off. This person also did some cute pixel art for each song, and they did some work on Yume 2kki, and I think did their own Yume Nikki fangame I can't remember the name of.
So, where this starts to get complicated - this person went through an increasingly dark period with their success, getting angry and frustrated and resentful, eventually threatening suicide and blaming their fans for driving them to it. They wanted to destroy everything they ever made, and if their work did survive, they wanted it to be attributed to some anonymous nameless person. They wanted to basically disappear completely, and alarmingly enough... after they made those posts along those lines, they did. :( I want to think they ended up getting some help and didn't end up killing themselves after all, but there really isn't any way to know at this point. I hope they're okay out there though.
Anyway, they tried to delete everything, as you'd expect, but their success had resulted in a number of covers and remixes and general fanwork of the things they'd made. What they'd made had resonated really deeply with some, and they wanted to preserve it. So, several people archived almost everything before it got lost. So even now, you can still find almost all their music and their fangame, if you look deeply enough into it.
There are people still making covers and remixes of their songs, but many of them do not credit the original person. They just list them as anonymous, or unspecified, or say that the original artist does not want to be credited. And when looking into the comments for these covers, I found a bunch of people honoring that request and censoring that person's name when talking about them. However, I also found several who refused, and it was usually for the same few reasons.
Those who refused said that trying to hide the artist's identity or erase what they'd made was basically just asking for more attention - something similar to the Streisand Effect. Trying to erase something off the internet was foolish and impossible, and they weren't going to play along with it. Some considered it an ego trip from the original artist, trying to demand and control how people interacted with their art, or attention-seeking dramatics from someone who was unwell. Others felt like it was stupid, since everyone knew who they were actually talking about anyway, and there was no power or significance to saying a name or not. Others felt that if the artist was dead, it didn't really matter what they wanted anymore, and it'd be a waste to destroy something beautiful to satisfy someone who wasn't even alive anymore.
What interested me most were people who seemed almost angry at people trying to honor their wishes in leaving them anonymous. They felt like the artist was entitled, or imposing on them by having these kind of demands about their work. Essentially, the artist didn't really own their work anymore - the audience did, and that change in ownership was sort of an implicit agreement when making their work public to others, and they had no right to demand anything of them. Other people censoring their name implied that the artist still maintained some kind of control, which they were insistent that they did not.
I think I see it in a certain way being someone who creates things myself... I have sympathy for this person for wanting to have some control over what they made, or to at least have their request to be made anonymous honored. I feel like honoring their desire to be anonymous is the least you can do, it doesn't even seem like very much to ask. But even that seems galling to a few, which feels a bit puzzling to me. Again I think I'm biased here though. I know after a certain point it's not reasonable to really expect or ask something from an audience - after a certain point, the art in question is just completely out of your control and there's nothing you can do. And to me, that's sort of a horrifying prospect if your art is being used for something absolutely abhorrent and there's no way you can make that stop. This isn't that kind of situation, but there are some bits of it that are similar. There's always that risk.
I dunno! It's just a strange, sad situation, and it's odd to talk about since what they wanted was just to disappear and for people to never talk about them again, and they wanted all those beautiful things they made that touched so many people to disappear too. I feel like an artist should have control over their work, to an extent... but there is always that inherent risk of it going out of your control when it's in public. I guess it sort of relates to the death of the author idea. You can't control how people feel or interact with your work, or what they do with it really. There are only certain things you can control as an artist. But is deciding to destroy all your work one of those things? Is preserving something beautiful against the creator's wishes doing a service, or is it disrespectful? I dunno, it's complicated. Every now and then a remix or cover of one of their songs will pop up on youtube and I'll end up thinking about it again. I do hope they're okay out there, wherever they are.
I also posted this at dreamwidth. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!