i woke up to a snowy landscape outside today. i don't know why, but it always puts me in a nostalgic and reflective mood. maybe it has something to do with a new year coming around, or maybe just the serenity of it all, as soon as the last cheap fireworks fail to imitate the stars. i started my first diary in winter. i started my venting account in winter (the vent app is gone now, good riddance). i started my first website in winter, my current one too. yeah, there must be something about this time.
and here i am, sicker than ever. i think covid has tattered my immune system beyond repair. i used to never get sick, now it happens every few weeks or so it seems. i am also more broke than ever - rising prices and stagnating disability money don't do my finances any favors. and yet my creativity seems to be blossoming despite it all. it's like i have some sort of drive that won't let me give up no matter how miserable i am. it's like a last shot of adrenaline before succumbing to your wounds, except on a loop. sometimes i feel like chance is keeping me alive artificially, long after my due. but what else can i do, other than persevere?
with every day i am coming to terms with being autistic - i guess it's basically confirmed by now, with how many professionals seem to see me as such. it really does explain my constant exhaustion with the world, the feelings of inadequacy. even after all this time, i struggle with feeling like i can never relax and just be me. i alwas feel like i have to put in extra effort to deserve a place in the world, to prevent 'friendship decay'. ironically, it seems to be straining my friendships instead. things really do seem to be easier when you are alone, but if they were better, would i still be this afraid to abandon everyone? i still long for connections. even a tre without a forest is connected to the world. to the root system, to the symbiotic mycelium, to the dirt of it all.
i have a lot of work to do. i want to build a life i do not want to run away from. i want to spend the rest of my days with my lovely darling. one of my year 2025 resolutions it to apply on a housing waiting list, so we can move in together. i have many more concrete goals. no matter how specific and small and necessary i made them, i honestly would rather let the snow cover me. i know it's silly to be angry about having to work on myself if everyone kind of has to do it, i just wish the work stopped for me sometime. even when i'm resting, i second-guess myself.
but well, at least i can write it all down. maybe it won't be as heavy on my brain if i do? i was reading back on some of my posts here and i am really glad they are still here. i am some sort of a thought hoarder and i am afraid of forgetting things and missing connections. i really shouldn't have to try to keep it all in my dissociative, hole-ridden brain.
'The present moment holds infinite riches beyond your wildest dreams.', proclaims my daily cat photo calendar i got for christmas. Hm.
originally posted on spacehey - source.
aka short thoughts on avatars, personas, vtubers and building your own brand.
i guess you could say i am having a small epiphany regarding my existence on social media and online as a whole. this will be very unstructured, as i am still not sure what exactly my conclusion is. however, i am curious to learn your thoughts on the matter and whether you feel the same.
the core idea of it is that the internet doesn't feel as freeing as it used to anymore. instead of a place to escape to, online spheres became a corrupted reality 2.0, yet another thing to escape from. i wasn't sure why i started feeling like this. i slowly removed myself from all the mainstream social media, then imageboards, forums, obscure apps. now that i am here, it feels like i am merely on a temporary stop before removing myself from here as well, after i finish coding my neocities.
but why? ever since i was about 10 years old, the internet was my escape. i could express myself freely while staying somewhat anonymous, i could meet so many people who liked me and who were like me. it was so fun, making profiles, choosing avatars, forum signatures. making characters in online games and eventually, when i learned how to draw, my own 'personas', an original character to go by. i could be exactly how i wanted.
recently, these things don't feel like me anymore. i think it started when i was very active on instagram, as a digital artist. i made a small following of my own, did some comissions, got some fan art. but it was draining. i quickly realised that to make it big, you have to have a certain theme to yourself, a brand. and so, after several hiatuses, i never went back. i am just not good at keeping a theme, being consistent and reserved in my art. after a while, it started to feel like people liked what i acted out for them, my 'persona' instead of actually liking me.
you see, i thought the internet was freeing, because i could be accepted there despite my shortcomings as an autistic, mentally ill and not-insteagram-worthy-kind-of-beautiful person. but that was, yet again, just another kind of masking. a way to fit in, to compress myself into a character, a tiny box that people could easily check.
i guess this is why the concept of vtubers kind of scares me. not because i dislike the idea or that i think people doing vtubing do something wrong, but... the fact that this idea is so appealing. and yet it perfectly encapsulates turning yourself into a character, a brand. even if you don't perform as some sort of entertainer alter ego, you are not a person anymore, you are a character design, there to be entertaining and looked at. you are a brand.
i really wanted people to like me, for me. i thought that online i could achieve that. and yet, most of the time, if you want to be entertaining and popular, if you want to share something on a larger scale, you have to start pretending. the internet, especially social media, grew into it's own social rules and ecosystem, new norms to present yourself and to mask. you need to be recogniseable to stay relevant. you need to be consistent to appease the algorithm. never experiment, because people follow you for one thing only. and that thing is not really you. it's lonely.