If You Don't Have Anything Nice To Say Don't Say Anything - Tumblr Posts

Sorry, but even though I can see you've got your heart in the right place, I can't agree with this. The problem is, a lot of them DON'T grow into maturity. They're surrounded by sychophants who tell them every duece they ever drop is god's gift to this world, and they grow into horrible, insufferable adults with terrible art styles who vomit horrible art all over places like dA and tumblr that other people are forced to witness. And god forbid if someone tries to give them some advice to make their art match their age- they baaaw to their legion of white knights, who defend them no matter how much of a cancer they are.

This issue with everyone spending all their time online and attached to social media like it's life support is that children these days haven't learned to keep anything to themselves. Does everyone REALLY need to put ALL their yaoi sparkle wolf OCs up on a public forum- and that's the crux of the problem here; the internet is PUBLIC. Showing your art to your friends at school is different from putting it up on a billboard. If people see something they deem as cringeworthy, they're going to comment on it, as is their right. If you don't want people complaining about what you do, don't put it out in the open for people to see. I have so many fanfics that I would never post online, because they're personal, very cringe worthy things I did for myself. I know people would say it's mary sue smut, so I keep it where no one else can read it because, believe it or not, it's possible to create something and NOT imeadiately put it up on display.

Instead of trying to tell people "don't have opinions if they're mean" maybe teach kids that they shouldn't expect to have praise heaped on them for every little thing they do. And if a few negative comments are enough to make you stop doing something you enjoy, then you probably didn't enjoy it that much to begin with. When people says something is "cringe", they usually have a reason for saying it (unless they're being trolls, but if you're going to be online, you need to learn to deal with trolls anyway). I get encouraging kids, but for fucks sake, they need to grow a thicker skin. This generation's gonna end up running away from a picture of someone frowning if this shit continues...

Another reason to stop ‘cringe culture’

I’m a teacher. Today I was covering for a grade 9 science class. Decent kids, if a bit rowdy, and didn’t want to do their work. Wtv, it was textbook work. Not the point.

1 girl (reminder that these kids are, like, 14/15) was doodling bust portraits (head & shoulders) in an art book. I had a squiz and asked her if they were her characters. She said they were and excitedly told me she had so many characters for this one story of hers. I laughed about how I wished I could draw mine, and moved on.

Later in the class, I hear her enthusiastically telling her friend all about her main OC - a gay kitsune prince with a tragic past. It was so, pure, classic Deviant Art: my first OC. And you know what? I loved it. I was just sitting there half overhearing, smiling to myself and glad that her friend was engaging and interested in her story and characters.

This is a girl who will become a creator. She will draw and write and imagine, get better and better. She’ll probably move past this stage and start making more nuanced characters (she was already lamenting she didn’t have enough girl OCs). But this is where she started. This is where so many of us started. I had a tiger catgirl, goth witch/sorceress OC in high school. I found my original design for her recently. Look what I create now.

Let kids be kids. Let them explore and invent and go wild and be cliche and make overpowered OCs. Let them have their anthropomorphic animal OCs. Let them try everything before they settle into maturity.

For fucks sake; let them have fun.