Goodbye Blue Bird.

Hey, from now on, I'll be totally inactive on Twitter.

I'll leave my account 'as is' with a link to this article in the most recent Twitt.

I'll not close or delete my account to prevent bad intentioned users to recreate fake accounts in my name and impersonate me. But that's all. Consider my account now as a ghost, only around to archive what was done in the past.

I already started to unfollow many accounts around January, I archived everything, deleted DMs, and over the last month I only connected to it to copy/paste news from my blog. So, I already was a zombie on the platform.

Why it took me so much time? Well, I opened this account back in 2010 and, over the time, it received the attention of 14K followers. I can't hide I'm writting these lines with a mix of proudness, embarassement (to share with pride this number of followers) and also a little pinch in the heart to leave this account. I'm an artist and I always wanted to expose my art, comics, and tutorials to the widest possible amount of eyes. 14 000... For an artist living of online patronage and donations... That's why you can imagine it was for me a super difficult decision to take.

I'll not write the "why" I'm deserting Twitter in the details. You probably already read many reasons to do so about the platform and its toxicity, social issues, bias towards minorities, political bias, nest to fakenews, home of the pro NFTs, bots making AIArt and always more excesses... My reasons are a bit a mix of all of that at the same time, and it's well enough. I'm tired and exhausted of Twitter. They'll continue without me. I don't want my art and data to contribute anymore to that.

It's also because I had a couple days ago a hard time to reread my words on this article I published last year: "How proprietary social-medias are shaping the future of Pepper&Carrot". I write on this blog-post my efforts to adapt and comply to this system, trying to get my piece of the cake by guessing the secrets rules of an algorythm that deboost or boost contents. Changing my format, my art style, anything to get the grace of a bit of attention of an algorythm...

It's never have been in my nature to conform into such a submissive position and it hurts me to read it. It feels like I was ask to sit up and beg to get my sugar, and I was in the process. I rebelled stronger against situations for fewer reasons in the past. That's why I'm not painting with proprietary software, that's why I'm not on proprietary operating system, that's why I don't sign usual contract with my publishers, that's why I'm using the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license... etc...

I realised this social network had a lot of influence on me. It was for years the place where I had the largest audience and the most of engagement. Nowadays, when I look around me, I see many familiar nicknames and avatars on Mastodon. I guess this is visible also by the large increase of followers on Mastodon (~ 22K followers) I received recently contrasting with the lower and lower engagement to my posts on Twitter.

That's why I'm ready to deal with the consequences of stopping the maintainance of my Twitter account. I'm proposing many other alternatives solutions to follow my work (you'll find links on the top right of this blog), and if you want a short introduction to understand Mastodon − the alternative I advice the most − check this video.

For a conclusion on Twitter, I'll abstract from my memory all the shitstorms and the dramas and focus on never forgetting the positive stories I experienced on it, the people I found on it, all the one I followed, all the one who followed me, interacted with me, shared and replied to my post over the last 13 years on it.

Thank you, I'm grateful for all the years of interaction we shared. Now let's build something better.

Have a good sleep, blue bird.

___

Note: This article is not a call to pressure any individuals or projects to follow my decision. I'll never blame anyone for being still on Twitter (or using proprietary software, Copyrighted license, etc...). I even think big projects like Krita, Inkscape, Framasoft should keep a presence on Twitter and remain active. Their presence is a necessity, especially on a network like that.