Just a few days ago, this 3+ year old video I threw together to learn the basics of some video editing software I hadn't used before got swept into the unpredictable YouTube algorithm. Completely out of nowhere, it went from virtually no views to over 1.5 million in the span of about 4 days. The video was made when this was still my tiny personal channel to mindlessly dump videos onto, and was only ever intended to be seen by a small group of friends.
If you're reading this, then chances are you've seen it, but I'll summarize it for the sake of this being a comprehensive overview of the situation. The video shows artwork a reddit user posted of a character from a game. When asked by another user if it was traced over the official in-game artwork, this person claimed that is was only "referenced, not traced". However, it's blatantly obvious that the image was filtered and/or traced directly from said source. The video attempts to comically address the absurdity of the "referenced" claim by showing the exact image they pulled via google images, and comparing them directly in an image editor.
What I didn't really think about until it was just pointed out to me was the possibility for targeted harassment to happen all these years later - As it turns out, the user has been getting harassed practically nonstop online for the past few days on their social media accounts, ever since this video hit the algorithm. While I do think art forgery should be respectfully pointed out when encountered, harassment of any kind is absolutely unacceptable. This person has long since moved on and has been working on building their portfolio of completely original art, which is very respectable and should be wholeheartedly encouraged.
Despite this, many people on the internet have gone out of their way to point out that they used to forge artwork. While there is a tiny handful of constructive comments, an overwhelming amount of the responses range from mean-spirited sarcasm, to full on death threats. Given my complete inaction up until now, I cannot help but feel responsible for this. The video gaining rapid attention was obviously out of my control - However, leaving the video up when it did gain attention WAS in my control, and doing nothing lead people to harass the artist. While I didn't know the artist was being harassed until minutes before removing the video and beginning to write this post, I honestly should have seen this coming from a mile away given the nature of the internet - I am very familiar with just how cruel the beast can be.
I cannot in good faith leave the video up knowing full well that someone is getting harassed. No one deserves to be harassed, full stop. Personal growth should be encouraged, and I'm disgusted to see so many people bully this person without a second thought, literal YEARS after the fact. A lot can happen in 3 years, but I'm willing to bet most of the harassers are too young to know that just yet. If you are one of the people who participated in the harassment and somehow made it this far, I strongly encourage you to do a lot of self reflection, and apologize to the artist. You were born with a sense of empathy, please use it. It takes guts to own up to something you did wrong and move forward from it, and our world would be a much better place if that were recognized by everyone. You do not know what was going through someone's head when they did something. Our brains are scarily fragile and malleable, which is both its greatest weakness and greatest strength. Please recognize that while everyone is flawed, personal growth is very attainable and should be commended. Rubbing someone's past mistakes in their face years after the fact does absolutely nothing for ANYONE when they've already grown from it.
To the artist - I'm very sorry for this. I don't know if I have the guts to contact you directly just yet, and I'm sorry for that too. I'm still processing this given how sudden it all is, but if you want to contact me, please feel free. I'd be glad to talk. I apologize for the unnecessary stress I've brought upon you, and I hope you can forgive me for being so careless. I hope you continue to make art and keep getting better. I quite like what you've been posting recently, especially the one with the birds.
Well, I guess that's it, can't think of much else to say that would actually add anything to this. Thank you for taking the time to read all of this, I genuinely really appreciate that. Be good and honest to each other.
J.O.E. VGM
Just a few days ago, this 3+ year old video I threw together to learn the basics of some video editing software I hadn't used before got swept into the unpredictable YouTube algorithm. Completely out of nowhere, it went from virtually no views to over 1.5 million in the span of about 4 days. The video was made when this was still my tiny personal channel to mindlessly dump videos onto, and was only ever intended to be seen by a small group of friends.
If you're reading this, then chances are you've seen it, but I'll summarize it for the sake of this being a comprehensive overview of the situation. The video shows artwork a reddit user posted of a character from a game. When asked by another user if it was traced over the official in-game artwork, this person claimed that is was only "referenced, not traced". However, it's blatantly obvious that the image was filtered and/or traced directly from said source. The video attempts to comically address the absurdity of the "referenced" claim by showing the exact image they pulled via google images, and comparing them directly in an image editor.
What I didn't really think about until it was just pointed out to me was the possibility for targeted harassment to happen all these years later - As it turns out, the user has been getting harassed practically nonstop online for the past few days on their social media accounts, ever since this video hit the algorithm. While I do think art forgery should be respectfully pointed out when encountered, harassment of any kind is absolutely unacceptable. This person has long since moved on and has been working on building their portfolio of completely original art, which is very respectable and should be wholeheartedly encouraged.
Despite this, many people on the internet have gone out of their way to point out that they used to forge artwork. While there is a tiny handful of constructive comments, an overwhelming amount of the responses range from mean-spirited sarcasm, to full on death threats. Given my complete inaction up until now, I cannot help but feel responsible for this. The video gaining rapid attention was obviously out of my control - However, leaving the video up when it did gain attention WAS in my control, and doing nothing lead people to harass the artist. While I didn't know the artist was being harassed until minutes before removing the video and beginning to write this post, I honestly should have seen this coming from a mile away given the nature of the internet - I am very familiar with just how cruel the beast can be.
I cannot in good faith leave the video up knowing full well that someone is getting harassed. No one deserves to be harassed, full stop. Personal growth should be encouraged, and I'm disgusted to see so many people bully this person without a second thought, literal YEARS after the fact. A lot can happen in 3 years, but I'm willing to bet most of the harassers are too young to know that just yet. If you are one of the people who participated in the harassment and somehow made it this far, I strongly encourage you to do a lot of self reflection, and apologize to the artist. You were born with a sense of empathy, please use it. It takes guts to own up to something you did wrong and move forward from it, and our world would be a much better place if that were recognized by everyone. You do not know what was going through someone's head when they did something. Our brains are scarily fragile and malleable, which is both its greatest weakness and greatest strength. Please recognize that while everyone is flawed, personal growth is very attainable and should be commended. Rubbing someone's past mistakes in their face years after the fact does absolutely nothing for ANYONE when they've already grown from it.
To the artist - I'm very sorry for this. I don't know if I have the guts to contact you directly just yet, and I'm sorry for that too. I'm still processing this given how sudden it all is, but if you want to contact me, please feel free. I'd be glad to talk. I apologize for the unnecessary stress I've brought upon you, and I hope you can forgive me for being so careless. I hope you continue to make art and keep getting better. I quite like what you've been posting recently, especially the one with the birds.
Well, I guess that's it, can't think of much else to say that would actually add anything to this. Thank you for taking the time to read all of this, I genuinely really appreciate that. Be good and honest to each other.
4 years ago | [YT] | 593