Good afternoon everyone, I’m Donnie Lemonie the most impartial, non-bias journalist to ever exist. K is taking the day off and has brought me in here to cover a special topic he admits he’s too much of an opinionated jerk to handle these stories with the journalistic integrity that Donnie Lemonie has. Speaking of high integrity, Twitter! The topic of today’s news is specifically how twitter is a great place to share beautiful and creative artwork to your followers. What could possibly go wrong…
STORY 1: FIXED YOUR ART
I, Donnie Lemonie do not consider myself to be a gamer. Let’s just say a rousing game of Sudoku or a riveting crossword isn’t the root cause of all violence in America but that is neither here nor there. The one game I have heard of is Pokémon. Recently the new Pokémon game, Sword and Shield was featured during the Nintendo Direct at E3 in which they revealed the first gym leader Nessa who has emerged as an early fan favorite. Nintendo having the loyal fan base that it has, it’s no surprised that this inspired a lot of digital artists to get inspired and create some fan-art of this new, fun character design. I mean if I was an artist instead of a world class journalist, I would be an eager beaver to draw those life-preserver shoes.
One incredible piece of art {Click here to view} was created by a Japanese artist, najuco or @Naju0517. I think honestly it looks fantastic it a nice soft colored blend and I love the flowing curved lines that seem to fit the aquatic theme of the character. Unfortunately, you’re art is all wrong…apparently. Another twitter user that I don’t know how to pronounce emoji it could be either: JAShazam MINbee or maybe JA Minnesota so I’ll address her as @jasminjoestar. She decided to take her artwork and repost it slightly more saturated color scheme while also commenting:
“Fixed it for you. Please don’t lighten darker skinned characters! Thank You!”
– Jasmin Joestar
Excuse me? Oh no I feared the morality police would show up but it’s even worse… we have a case of the high horse Mounties. Congratulations we solved racism everyone, just stop using pastels and high tinted colors. Brilliant Jasmin Joestar, your medal will be received in the mail real soon. I understand skin color is a huge part of identity these days and representation shouldn’t be masked or taken away but c’mon is this something to be so condescending about. If the artist’s style and artistic choice is to use light colors and it still reads as the character that we know what they look like then how have you drawn her wrong.
Imagine you’re in kindergarten and you worked all day drawing a fire truck and before you can go and show the teacher little Timmy goes and say that’s not how you draw a fire truck and takes another red crayon and crudely scribbles on your fire truck. Little Timmy deserves a punch in the nose if we are being honest. Najuco, I give a lot of credit for handling the situation diplomatically, responding with a reasonable request:
“For any reason, it is prohibited to process the illustration and upload it without permission. Please delete your post now”
– Najuco
It’s kind of embarrassing already to try and shame the artist and I really don’t understand why this couldn’t be a comment like “Hey, how did you decide upon your color choices, I’m not sure if it reads the character’s true natural beauty” just why are we so malicious and accusatory that this artist was either ignorant or intentional of this interpretation? Now Jasmin Joestar decided she wasn’t done dropping knowledge because not only is she an art expert, but she is a copyright expert as well.
“Actually, I’m within my right since I changed your art in terms of review and criticism and the purpose for learning. I’m not profiting Except for putting in your place.”
– Jasmin Joestar
Wrong. Here’s a fun fact, K while he doesn’t consider himself an expert, he has taking a course on Entertainment Business and Legal from a former lawyer and got 100% on both the mid-term and final… so he kinda knows what he’s talking about. He was telling me how Jasmin Joe star is referring to fair use clauses that are factors in determining whether you can use pre-existing material to create your own art. Now, what she is saying is true that it is non-profit, and holds the purpose of criticism and commentary, but that’s not how fair use works.
These are only some of the considerations and just because this is true it still might not pass as fair use because it fails to be transformative. This is similar to Rogers vs. Koons and Cariou vs. Prince in that it’s copyright cases in which minimal changes were made to the original and failed to deliver it’s own message or identity in the marketplace (Read more at 99 designs 5 copyright infringement cases). Someone could easily mistake this edit with the original, therefore the changes aren’t substantial enough and Najuco has the right to control how her work gets distributed (though if she is a Japanese artist these don’t apply internationally anyway).
Now if Jasmin had done similar to something as this post and a component of it was to edit the art work to make a point of how the character should look to support her commentary or criticism on the subject then that is fair use. Or maybe it’s not fair use as it ultimately would come to a subjective ruling with unpredictable precedent so just because you do it non-profit or for educational purposes or you think your effort is transformative the courts might disagree. But, sorry Jasmin you don’t know what you’re talking about and your condescending attitude has made you kind of seem really rude.
Just because I’m a sucker for irony…. It’s MAUI TIME!
Everyone loves Dwayne the rock Johnson’s Moana character, especially Jasmin. Jasmin despite being a fair-skinned Arabian, she decided it was perfectly fine for her to Cosplay as Maui. *there is a edit going around that without looking further makes it look like either her leotard or make-up is darkening her skin and this is not true depiction of what happened and Jasmin has addressed you don’t wear other’s skin color*. It’s still a little unfair that Jasmin, you get to depicit other cultures or races in however you see fit but someone drawing a character in light colors? NO GET THAT AWAY! Getting dangerously close to black-face and “wearing the skin” of another ethnicity. That’s fine, nothing to see here.
I’m really only doing a post like this because I believe my audience either doesn’t exist or is mature enough not to be one of those people who thrust themselves into drama and feel they need to go give people a piece of their mind. I, Donnie Lemonie trust you guys so please don’t let me down. That’s because Jasmin and Najuco settled this issue in private and seemed to reach some sort of understanding and Najuco has asked no one to defend her or harass Jasmin.
Good for them, I’m glad both sides could be mature and reach some sort of resolution… if only everyone could be like this.
STORY 2: RARE HORROR BREAKS
Twitter is both a place to share your favorite art and run your business. One such business is Rare Horror. Rare Horror is (was? hehe) a twitter account and blog that is dedicated to cool things horror related. They share a lot of horror memorabilia and fan-made arts and crafts. They have a pretty respectably large following and like to us their following to promote the work of others, however the other day the shared this one thing that they probably regret.
It literally turned into the “Everyone disliked that” meme. What they shared, was a Samara from the ring horror movie embroidery available on Etsy from the amazingly talented StabandStitch. It’s neat, it’s nice work I love the use of perspective to make it look like Samara is crawling out as she does. Oh no, I started to appreciate the artwork that it distracted me from abusing it to promote engagement on my platform. Gross speculation, perhaps but Rare Horror decided to promote this piece and some of their followers had what really should have been a simple request… can you tell us who made it.?
Rare Horror knows what they’re doing, I’ve seen this before in a past snafu. Mat Pat of Game Theory was criticized in the past for live streaming an indie title and using click bait title drawing on the similarity the game had to Undertale. This promoted a lot of discussion on what should be considered appropriate credit to the creators of the game. The main criticism was that crediting links weren’t in the description of the video because of how linking away is considered detrimental in the algorithm which same goes with content on Twitter that appears as advertisement. Rare also defended himself by saying I provided enough information so that if anyone interested could search it and find it easily, this is fair. I looked up only using the words from the now deleted original tweet and I was able to easily find it on Etsy and the exact piece was one of the first results to come up.
This whole situation as I step back from it seems more gray an issue as Rare isn’t necessarily stealing the content as he’s pointing at a picture of it and saying this is cool instead of directly infringing on copyright. However, they’re still using other people’s art without permission and aren’t crediting the authors and artist of these works and while it isn’t anything too heinous it still seems…scummy.
The real problem of this situation that got it all the attention it did was Rare got incredibly immature and went deep on the defensive of what appeared to be a couple simple requests to just credit the artist. Rare exposed a lot of true colors by responding to the criticism in very vitriolic ways calling out those who requested they credit the artists are “morons” and that anyone with “half a brain” could google the item. Rare went on to belittle detractors based on the number of followers they have and finished off by a final message to anyone who complained “Fuck You”.
K is usually a level-headed and fairly neutral party did he offer any sort of moderation or insightful participation in the discussion.
Rare keeps using one quote that one of their followers found the art piece on Etsy and he keeps posting SEE, SEE THEY FOUND IT, WHY CAN’T YOU!
Am I the only one who thinks it’s phrased in such a vague way [“ Must have. I found this on Etsy”] that it honestly sounds like this person had already bought it before you posted it you blockhead. One of the most telling moments was after losing a thousand followers within 24 hours Rare decided to mock someone saying “this has happened before bet you’ll never even have a thousand to lose”.
This is someone who obviously feels some sense of pride for running a successful channel that is really build on the back of other people. A lot of sleuths checked out his blog and the reason why Rare doesn’t wanna credit the artist is because he has it set up that you can pay for them to promote on their twitter. Rare claims he’s not profiting which maybe it is mostly just keeping the domain and costs of running his operations but again are you really wanting to support these artists and projects or are they fodder for your content farm. I also realized just another clever business tactic is that when marketing that they show their twitter analytics so you know what you’re paying for. Except they use the month of October… I wonder if there’s an influx of interest in horror during the month of Halloween. I mean that one’s just good business hopefully if you’re going to pay for their service than you should read the analytics carefully.
I honestly expected Rare would reluctantly apologize and block anyone like me, I mean K who had bruised his ego but the real result is so much funnier. Let’s play a game. You through a childish temper tantrum over a couple people who politely requested you do something:
HOW DO YOU PLAY THE VICTIM?
A) It’s my birthday and everyone is bullying me
B) Hold a Sweepstakes to reward loyal followers within hours of the backlash
C) Beg the artist who has no idea what is going on to forgive you
D) Claim that your twitter rival who cheekily posts the same art with a link crediting the artist is stealing your content idea.
E) Wait, why is all the above an option? You’re kidding right, surely no one is that pathetic?
I hate twitter… what a cesspool of toxic behavior. Kids need to go back to whacking each other with sticks at least they’d have an excuse for being this stupid. All of these happened. Rare banned anyone following his rival Dead Central from entering a sweepstakes because since Dead Central posted the etsy work with a link; he got jealous that they were seen as a “hero” for ripping off their idea. Wow putting a lot of time and effort into making something only for someone to come in take all the credit or not acknowledge your contributions at all… I wonder how that feels. Is irony lost on everyone these days. Rare you’re coming across like a complete jackass, please if anyone finds themselves in this situation just at least try to understand why people are questioning you.
I finished my rough draft for this and woke up to find the plot thickens! I already didn’t have enough time for Elon Musk what could Rare Horror have possibly done to make matters worse. How could you make this any worse?
Do you:
A) Harass the artist for “f***ing us in the ass for doing a kind deed”
B) Pretend you’re a different person taking their “shift” on the social media account
C) Block the Etsy artist on Twitter
D) We all know it’s all the above again right.
Who pretends to be someone else to avoid being associated with drama, I Donnie Lemonie could never imagine doing such a thing? In seriousness, someone came in and kind of tried to just sweep everything under the rug, just be like wow can’t believe this big mess we will give artist credit now. On the Rare site it does say “we” so maybe this is possibly someone else, but I can’t believe they have the incredible oversight to be working social media in shifts. Still it appears they blocked the artist after the new identity took over so unless they come forward in the next 24 hours with a Twit long extensively apologizing and announcing termination of the giant baby who was running the account then there’s nothing more to it. I don’t know what to say guys and gals. I think Rare horror is too far gone, they’ve kind of exposed themselves as a despicable person and I don’t know how anyone can be standing by this type of behavior.
I quickly interviewed K to see as someone who reacted to the whole ordeal as it was happening how does he feel with how things ended up transpiring.
“As much as I want to continue taking jabs calling him Edward Scissorpants because dude got F***ED despite being D**KLESS… who cares. I don’t like that all this attention is probably just another ego inflator and that something so trivial has wound everyone up. He’s got a large following and a great majority just don’t care or think what’s he’s doing is perfectly fine. Honestly, I’d encourage you to follow someone with some integrity. You like horror, follow: Heather Wixson (@thehorrorchick), follow Zobo With a Shotgun (@ZoboWithShotgun), follow Scott Weinberg (@ScottEweinberg). I hope Rare will maybe do a better job of reading the room but that’s them and I can’t change them I can only do me. I’d be honored that people cared enough to hold me accountable and want me to do the right thing even if I don’t agree with them 100%. I’m always going to try to follow those who do it for the passion and joy of it and respect their followers and fellow content creators. Like to think I’ve done a pretty good job of that so far”
– K (K at the Movies)
I couldn’t have put it better myself. Unfortunately, I am again updating the story as Rare Horror is now gone private on both their sight and twitter. The Great evil has been defeated! To put jokes aside this whole debacle is rather unfortunate. Rare obviously knows a lot about optimization and was providing a fun space to view horror content… it’s just unfortunate they just couldn’t see themselves as fallible. I really wish someone would have talked them down a bit and some understanding could have been reached. I have a complicated relationship with second chances, I do believe people can re-evaluate themselves and change and should be allowed to make mistakes and grow out of them. At the same time it’s in the name “2nd chance” and I just think how many people do we not give a first chance that deserve our follow, or attention or support. I know a lot of people like K feel that rare is the antithesis of them, someone who creates content because they enjoy doing so despite lack of adulation or monetary gain. As far as I’m concerned, Rare Horror good riddance.
Kristy Puchko of Pajiba.com did a better job of showing the receipts and also chronicles the debacle with a greater deal of screenshots and details I didn’t cover.
ENOUGH NEWS FOR TODAY
Twitter is a place for sharing both artwork and opinions. In doing both I think we all can try to do a better job at making sure we do so respectfully. At the end of the day there’s another human on the end and we can always learn and improve ourselves if we’re open to the idea of it. I’m Donnie Lemonie the most well-informed and handsome journalist around. Help me stay in the loop, with the scoop. Comment down below what you thought of our twitter tea. Be sure to like if you like me, Donnie Lemonie and K has asked me to be sure you help him reach his follower goal of “whatever gets me the level of self-righteousness as these people” whatever that means. Thanks for tuning in, good night and good news.
Twitter has gotten to be so bad for everything. People getting their art stolen makes it worse.
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It certainly is a platform for the wolves and the wicked. While I do share the cynicism, you can find a lot of neat stuff on there too. I saw “someone” was suggesting doing like a collaborative anime space blog tour and I was like “I don’t know what that means exactly but it sounds really cool, I’d look forward to and be sure to try to support and interesting effort such as that”.
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*Whistles* I don’t know what you are talking about…
But thanks though. I hope it is!
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