Note: This post is the result of me writing directly from my thoughts and I haven't been writing for just about forever, so please forgive me for any mistakes or weird jumps in terms of subject or colliding sentences. Also sorry for being late into this. I don't know what takes me so long to finally express my thoughts, but late is better than nothing.

Before we start the rant, let me first explain what I have been doing in the past month or so.

I have mostly shifted all of my attention from programming to now doing art.

I do various kinds of art, mostly digital ones like pixel art, 3D (low-poly) modelling, making music and planning to also do videos and perhaps Vtubers.

I still do programming, but now only to game development.

I have cut pretty much all ties with my old programming past.

So, now you understand what I am doing now, I hope you will understand why I'm writing this.

In the past month or so, social medias, one after another, have been speedrunning on who can kill themselves the fastest.

First, it started with Twitter charging their (previously free) API and also their blue checkmark (although that was long ago).

This isn't a change that I think is gonna shut the whole thing down, but it definitely left a very bad impression on many active users.

Next, then came Reddit with the same move, but it's worse because the Reddit API is such a crucial part of how it runs.

It is how people run bots (this includes moderation bots among others), and 3rd party interfaces that are just way better than the Reddit app.

Many people also said that Discord killed themselves with the username change, but I can say this is just people overselling the situation and being dismissive to actually engage in the conversation about it.

I have also heard of Twitch killing themselves, though I haven't seen any mention of them yet on the big news, so I can't say anything about that.

I, and many others, have been greatly affected by these changes in social media, as now I'm left with not a lot of good options to advertise my art.

I have to go back to use Reddit, because I don't have any other options.

I have abandoned the idea of using Twitter before, but now, I have to embrace and also use it.

For other art-centric platforms (ArtStation, DeviantArt and NewGrounds), they seem to be pretty ludicrous.

But DeviantArt has turned themselves against the very userbase they have.

While I can't access to ArtStation normally for some reason (they must be hating us or something, nah just kidding).

The last option, NewGrounds, seems to be nice, but I'm not really sure how well I'm going to do there, considering that they are not known for 3D artists.

The only decent option for me is Discord, but who the hell uses Discord for getting comms and exposure anyway?

I have also heard of Artfol, which seems to be another nice option, but after losing 2 of my emails due to my uncarefulness and have to use a temp email to create a new account, I have lost my interest in making presence on it (but maybe in the future?)

So, I have exhausted every option for social platforms, and while a few are pretty nice, most of them are unviable options for me.

At this moment, I think I'm still gonna be using Reddit and Twitter like usual, despite not really wanting to use them.

It's because those platforms are where you get the most recognition and makes the most effort out of your art.

And they are also somewhat acceptable choices for me at this time.

But, in the future I will definitely move to other platforms where I can safely share my art without worrying about some big changes that I don't like.

So, thanks for reading this.

You probably wasted your time reading somebody else's opinion online, but at least thanks for trying to understand my situation and my point.