I’m trying not to get all in a twist over this but it’s difficult.
Look: regardless of the questionable design decisions that Tumblr implements, if you aren’t posting original content, then you have a goddamn fucking responsibility to due diligence with regards to properly sourcing the material you post.
I know, I know… it’s a pain in the ass. Tin Eye was never especially good and Google’s image search grows worse seemingly by the hour. But you should at least make an effort.
And let me preempt the customary rejoinders:
- If you are one of those folks with the boilerplate this came from the internet and is assumed to be public domain disclaimers, you suck and by virtue of having that posted on your web page, I pretty much view your intellectual acumen as similar to someone who has experienced a craniotomy, had their brain removed and had a Pantera fanatic who hasn’t eaten anywhere other than 7-11 for a week use your brain pan as a toilet before you’re stitched back up. That’s not how public domain works. Not even close.
- But, even worse than the shit brains are the folks who piss and moan about how attributions fuck with their aesthetic. Okay, look–here’s the thing cock noses, contrary to popular belief image makers out there making bank are the exception that proves the rule: frequently those people whose work you dig enough to repost will never make a dime off their work. In effect, they do it because they can’t not do it. It always a struggle, the expense if fucking monumental and frequently the only thing they’ll ever get out of it is people associated the name of the maker of the work with the work they made. That’s it. So, if you’re like oh, many credits/attributions are such a bummer, man; they ruin my blogs aesthetic. So you mean you’re blogs aesthetic that exists completely of work made by folks other than yourself? And in case that’s too subtle for you, let me translate into less equivocal language: you’re not creative enough to develop a personal aesthetic, so you steal one and call what you’ve stolen an aesthetic. (An illustration: if you see a car abandoned by the side of the road–door open, keys in the ignition. Why don’t you just jump in and take it? Well, you know that once it’s reported stolen, if the cops pull you over it’s going to be you carted off to the pokey for grand theft auto. Same principle applies here. Just because you found it like that doesn’t mean it’s yours to do with as you please. Further, so many people who get pissy about how credits ruin their personal aesthetic have shitty grid layout, infinite scroll Tumblrs. Fuck outta here, you idiots.)
- You don’t get to claim academic fair use either. Your aesthetic doesn’t teach fuck all to anyone–it’s just pompous pretentiously self-fawning masturbation in public.
I feel like none of this really needs to be said–but within the last 24 hours I’ve had a spate of reblogs where folks have stripped credits/attributions–yep, I mean you @fanaticluck; fix it or I’m blocking you.
Look, I realize probably 95% of you follow for this blog for the pictures and could give less of a rat’s ass fuck about the commentary. That makes me sad but it’s fine. Delete my comments. Go for it. But you have a responsibility to keep the credits (as applicable–if I haven’t found the source then I can’t very well fault you for kicking my reference to my difficulty in finding a source to the curb) in-fucking-tact. Period. End of story. If that’s too much to ask, then get fucking lost, you parasite ass douche backwash Slurpee. And if you keep reblogging from me and removing credits/attributions, I will block your ass.
A final note to image makers: I mostly side with you in this. However, I take issue with the prevailing trend where it’s expected that captions will be left 100% in tact, as-is, no alterations. Many of you include links to all your various (excess of, if you ask me) social media portals. I understand, you want people to see your work. But–in this single small way–you are being kinda of entitled and arrogant. If someone likes your work, they’ll Google you and get to see more. The typical user who just consumes the picture and scrolls on doesn’t give a fuck less.
Galleries and Tumblr are nowhere near comparable. But think of it like this: you think a gallery is going to put your every social media account under every picture? Get the hell over yourself. The minimum is: artist (with link to portfolio site) – work title (if any) and date produced. If those minimums aren’t met, raise holy hell. But if they are and you get shitty with curators about not respecting your ostentatiously formatted self-promotional links, then you aren’t in this for the love you are in it for recognition and you need to check yourself because you’re just as much a part of the problem as the folks you excoriate for fucking with your captions.
Acetylene Eyes 