So starting January 1st, Facebook will be amping up mining data for their AI, and creating fake AI accounts for whatever evil scheme the Zuck has planned, probably to fuel the culture wars and redirect people’s anger at rich people to minorities. Over the past year I’ve enjoyed being on Facebook less and less, as it is already polluted with stolen AI “art” (aka slop), not to mention 2024 being an election year which always sucks to be on the internet for, and Tangerine Hitler won, so things are probably going to be even worse this year. I hate politics. We live in a dystopian oligarchy, in a country where the majority of people are brainwashed morons. Voting doesn’t change a damn thing, at least not on a fundamental level. What can one do but either seethe over issues beyond your control, and let it take a toll on your mental health without having the power to do anything about it, or stick your head in the sand and embrace escapism. I try to stay somewhere in the middle, but it really requires deciding what and what not to care about. Selective apathy is the only way I hold myself together.
During and after the disastrous Artsakh War in 2020 I had to decide to either follow Armenian news and be an emotional wreck and never sleep, or, unsubscribe from all Armenian news Facebook pages and YouTube channels, and leave the r/Armenia subreddit. I’m not proud of it, but I chose the latter, for my own mental wellbeing. I know the refugees don’t have that luxury. Before the war I was glued to Armenian news. The loss of Artsakh emotionally destroyed me at the time. I was hurt that nobody seemed to know about it or care. Then the Palestine genocide began, and I came to the sad realization that no matter how many people care about something like that, it’s not going to do anything to stop it. No one talks about that US soldier who set himself on fire for Palestine last year anymore, and the genocide resumes. It’s a cold comfort, that the results of the Artsakh war probably would have been the same regardless if non-Armenians cared about it or not. Social media doesn’t have an influence on that. Doomscrolling all just amounts to pointless self-torment.
It’s a lot harder to shut out the news in a country you live in, however. And in the US, your choices are to be either misinformed or uninformed. The other news channels besides Fox are centrist at best. No matter how “left” they might seem they’re all owned by corporations and they will never bite the hand that feeds them. And they profit off fear and rage. I’m not giving them that. I haven’t trusted the US media since they lied about weapons of mass destruction as an excuse to invade Iraq. But the people in this country have goldfish memory, or assume that was just a one-time goof up or something. “Oopsie daisy, there weren’t any weapons after all and millions of people died for nothing, but you can continue to trust us!” And it’s been nonstop Trump for almost ten years, and I am really sick of seeing “honorary president” Elon Musk’s punchable face on every other post, he seems even more ubiquitous than Trump these days. I don’t even care if it’s a post making fun of the guy, they’re still giving him the attention he so craves. I am just so sick of seeing his ugly mug. Something about him just makes me want to beat his ass. I’m not even on Twitter and I still have to see the fucking human Scrooge McDuck everywhere. So whenever I see him at all I leave the Facebook group or the subreddit. This is my litmus test, because I want to see less political crap on my feed. I won’t go as far as to unfriend people over it, unless of course they’re in support of the guy.
Now these were just my problems with social media before all this AI nonsense began. As an artist, I have to decide how I am going to coexist with AI going forward. I have been uploading my artwork to Facebook since beginning my webcomic Alcatraz High School. When I heard about AI stealing people’s art, my only hope was that my art really isn’t “good” enough to steal, I know that sounds self-deprecating. I wasn’t expecting to make money off my art anyway, but now that AI is around it’s even less likely. Do I want to continue posting my art on this website so that the Zuck can steal it? I need to answer that question for myself. This all seems like a big scheme to force anyone actually making a living off their art to get a “real” job and go be slaves to the system, along with being some kind of overly-complex psy op to keep the working class at each other’s throats. And I don’t know why it takes a nuclear reactor to generate a stupid picture where the people have 12 fingers. In the beginning, when people were just using it to generate silly images, have funny conversations with the chat bots and make new Nirvana songs with Kurt Cobain’s voice, I admit I liked the novelty. This was before I understood the ramifictions of AI. The novelty was short-lived, because of course, the technology quickly was used for evil. The oligarchs at the top of the hierarchy have always hated artists for not being bootlicking slaves. They’ve been trying to figure out how to get rid of them for a while now. But I’m going to keep drawing, writing, and living life on my own terms regardless. I know I am privileged to be able to do that. Even some professional artists are having to work at fast food joints because of this.
I have to ask myself, why do I even bother with Facebook and social media at all? Well, it’s to stay connected to family, meet like-minded people and make friends, follow some educational pages and show off my creativity. So my plan is to use it only for those things. No more doomscrolling. I need to get back to how I was before Facebook. I used to read books, play video games, write and draw more. I waste too much time on social media. Not posting my art anywhere isn’t going to stop AI. So I suppose I will keep doing it, if only due to the fact that I wasn’t trying to make a living off it anyway. I was thinking about making the leap to BlueSky too, maybe for the audience. Like I said I was never on Twitter anyway so I don’t need a replacement for it, I may just use it to post my art and blogs and such. That’s my plan for now, subject to change if things get even worse.
