u/iron_lettuce

I've tried posting my art to various subs to see where it sticks and how people respond to it. Pretty much all art subs I've posted on have been incredibly friendly, with people commenting nice things and sometimes even checking out my other work. This led me to believe that art communities on reddit are filled with really neat people.

Enter r/art. Oh boy.

So I post a hand-painted portrait of a woman lying on her side. There's a mysterious hand resting on her hip, though it's ambiguous who this hand belongs to. Immediately, people start asking about this hand and why it's there, so I'm like "oh cool, people are curious about the message of the painting!" Of course I respond and explain.

My responses get like 20 downvotes immediately. Immediately.

I'm a bit puzzled. This has never happened. Why did people not like my response? Was I being too vague or something?

Well, pretty soon I figure out that people think that this third hand in the painting is proof that the painting is, in fact, AI. I try to explain that the hand is metaphorical: it represents this and that, blah blah blah. Yes, I put it there intentionally. I'm like "they're just a bit overly suspicious I guess, but now they'll understand" :D

Downvoted to hell again.

Apparently people have already decided that this is AI and no explanation of mine is good enough now. They're difficult to argue with as well because they clearly don't seem to read my responses. That, or they lack reading comprehension.

This angry mob of r/art users also don't seem to understand the basic logic of the painting. It's not a woman with three hands: the third hand is very clearly not HER hand. If the woman already has two hands that are visible, it stands to reason that the third must belong to someone else. Yet I've got people here going "why are there two left hands lol. Clearly AI". They also don't understand the concept of surrealism. The fact that this hand seems to come out of nowhere is intentionally confusing, but instead it's taken as proof that the painting must be AI because there's "no logic" to it. As if surrealism is supposed to be logical.

After a while, the mods swoop in, snipe some hate comments and then locks the post for "AI review". So now I have to provide a stupid imgur link of me holding the painting, like I'm providing evidence in some court case, in order to save a dumb reddit post with 16 upvotes.

The mods decide that it's not AI and unlock the post. Cool. I gained absolutely nothing from this. They post a little comment that says "this post has been reviewed and it's been determined that it is not AI" or something like that. And then an hour later, some guy still goes "AI?". At this point I do what I should have from the beginning and delete my stupid post.

It doesn't make me too mad that people thought my painting was fake. I know it isn't, and they're just people on the internet. BUT I guess the thing that annoys me is how quick they were to ignore my explanations, and how aggressive and rude they became as soon as the accusation was thrown around. It's almost like they enjoyed going after me, exposing me as a "fraud" and whatnot, playing detective. If they actually like art, why are they so quick to go after artists? Why are they so quick to dismiss the artist's explanation of their work? And do they actually not understand the concept of surrealism, or does every painting need to operate on real world logic? Why are they even on an art sub if this is how they engage with art?

Ugh. I don't know if anyone actually cared enough to read this whole thing, I just wanted to rant.

tldr: Be careful on r/art, and if you want to post there for some reason, maybe provide a process image or two just to state your case before the mob even shows up.

It's a thing I really envy about some of you on here. When talking about starting HRT, so many women on here say that you "knew this was right from the second I started" and I wish so badly that I could be this certain. It's a massive source of dysphoria for me: that it still hasn't "clicked" completely.

My journey with HRT has been... rocky. Lots of false starts and stops.

The first time I started HRT was five months ago. I've stopped twice: once because I felt that I was making an "irresponsible decision", and the second time because I notices physical changes were happening very quickly, and so I panicked a bit and decided to have a month off of HRT to reevaluate. That was good for me, mostly because it gave me time to think and do a lot of therapy. Now I've started again, feeling more certain that these changes are preferable to the alternative, but still far from 100%.

There is no such thing as 100% certainty for me. I always doubt my own mind, thinking that I am either tricking myself or that I'm not sane enough to know what's good for me. My anxiety disorder makes me see all change as a potential threat, and my social phobia makes it difficult to evaluate what I think and feel. For me, it's always about what other people think and feel.

So when people say "you'll know withing 3-5 months if HRT is right or not", I feel a bit alienated by that. Do you never have these intrusive thoughts? Are you never worried that you might be wrong?

It feels like I want so badly for my body and emotions to develop, but then there's this surge of fear that comes in out of nowhere and slaps me back down to earth. Every single time.