Foxfire

Honestly if you have a tablet for long enough, the marks on the surface become pretty evident. Before my cheap huion tablet of several years finally gave out, parts of it felt like drawing on top of a vinyl record because the marks were so numerous and dug through the surface. In a way it was pretty cool to think about the amalgamation of all the strokes I ever used to create so many different things, all overlayed on top of one another onto a single "page."

I think this question sidesteps something even more fundamental. Pouring your heart and soul into describing a world through words is creative writing, and obviously has artistic merit in and of itself. Why is creative writing such an apparently unworthy art form, that all of that effort would be better off tossed into the trash, and replaced by a machine generation based upon it instead?

If you genuinely have the desire and capacity to write in depth about worlds, and things that happen within them, simply posting that writing would be wonderful. Visual mediums are not the end all be all of artistic expression, or human communication in general. I write comments and express my ideas through words all the time, and I appreciate when humans do the same for me in return.

Ooh haven't seen this, gonna be a fun read today. Thanks for the link!

Yeah, giving Google unfettered access to your attention span with their algorithm (or any giant corporation) is just a disaster waiting to happen. None of them are interested in your well being or helping you in any way, only to keep you engaging, and to try pushing narratives to the masses. These very same algorithms also determine how creators act and what they post, since disobeying the nebulous 'algorithm' results in having your video cratered.

As for PeerTube, I will tell you right out of the gate it won't be a major supplement to offset something like YouTube watch time. You will find some fun though, it's quite cool watching super indie stuff you end up enjoying, think like 2005 tier YT where people just kinda post stuff for fun. If you are a creative (e.g. artist, musician, maker, tech reviewer) and have the rights to your videos, MakerTube is the instance I'm on, and they would be happy to have you (my channel). If you aren't a maker, you can browse the instance list and try to pick a server you're comfortable with (all of them have an info page which shows their rules and what you can do). I know that's tedious and overwhelming though, so I spent a little bit mulling for something I'd consider acceptable as a starting point and found Peertube.wtf. They seem to be open signups, allow video uploads with a high limit, non-US, a proper no bigotry policy, looks good at a glance anyway!

Adding to say I have the same experience. Not banned, never used a TPA, but downloaded RIF Is Fun when people were writing up a storm just to see what was even going on. When the blackouts happened, I saw the more and more unhinged shit the Reddit administration was doing to stifle the protests and decided to make my blackout permanent from then onward. My exposure to the Fediverse has entirely changed how I interact with megacorps and software now. If it's not FOSS or DRM free stuff on my device, I don't want anything to do with it. Obviously getting to 100% on that is a very tall order, but I've been making a lot of headway since 2023.

Even in spite of the vast disparity in quantity of content, I would vastly prefer Lemmy to current Reddit without contest. Even aside from the massive brain drain the blackout had, and all the ad related enshittification, imagine being punished for even upvoting awesome things like Luigi Mangione? Now instead of the countless years I spent leaving my art and constant comments to boost some boneheaded corporation, I can post them here and be involved with a movement controlled by individuals. A movement made for and funded by each other, instead of lining greedy pockets.

I think we would also do well to consume less content frankly. I'm closing in on two years since I've stopped viewing YouTube videos, and watching creators on platforms like Nebula or just buying indie media has been fine enough honestly. I also donate a fair bit to a creative focused PeerTube instance for my short videos.

Don't take this as an all or nothing call though. Reducing reliance on the YouTube monopoly for your eyes, and being more adversarial to YouTube to any degree more than before is a net positive. Run ad blockers, use alternative front ends like Invidious, directly download videos with YT-DLP, and redirect your content consumption to more friendly platforms (or just reduce watch time in general). There is no true alternative to YouTube, but that doesn't mean we should throw in the towel, or refuse to reclaim any bit we can back.

You post shit? Well well, you've come to the right place!

I use Krita for everything, I love it so much. I also won't act like it's perfect either, despite it being my most used software by a landslide. Personally my biggest desire now is improved workflow for text editing (e.g. editing text directly on the canvas, being able to box and justify text, vector pathing for text so you can make it bend or wave). From what I understand it is something that is being worked on, and I will be even more indebted to the wonderful folks at KDE once further progress is made on that front.