My friends know that I’m terminally afraid of posting my art online, but my followers don’t. I want to share some details about where this feeling comes from. Believe me, it’s not just anxiety.

Dno Arty

Russians have their own bootleg Facebook called Vkontakte (VK for short). Its popularity has been in decline in recent years, but it used my go-to social media to chat with friends, look at memes, or post my thoughts. Like Facebook, VK had groups – communities formed around specific topics. One of those groups singlehandedly instilled fear in the minds of thousands of young artists, making them believe that posting their art online is not worth it as long as it’s “bad art”. I’m talking about Dno Arty, of course.

If you don’t understand Russian, you have no idea what that means. Let me explain. “Dno” (дно) literally means “the bottom”, and “arty” (арты) is “drawings”. You could translate the phrase as “The Gutter of Art”, but I would rephrase it into “Bad Art” since in this context “dno” means “bad”.

The point of Dno Arty, in theory, was critiquing art made by beginner/less experienced artists: anyone who stumbled upon an amateur artist on Vkontakte could make a critique of their art and suggest it to be posted in the group. In practice, it was harassment of children and teens.

Firstly, the critique wasn’t constructive at all. Instead of patiently explaining to the artist what mistakes they made and how to correct them, the critics would tell them that “the anatomy is broken” and that “the character must be suffering because their spine is twisted”. Of course, all of this was conveyed in harsh wording the likes of which you’d see on 4chan or lolcow forums.

If the critics gave any advice, it usually boiled down to “learn anatomy” or “learn color theory” with no further guidance – which is a tip that’s practically useless to a beginner. Studying art academically takes years upon years, you can’t just tell someone to “study anatomy”, you stupid cunt… Perhaps I’m too harsh, as most critics were also children – it’s just that they were insecure about their art and wanted to fit in, so they joined in on the bullying of fellow artists.

A decade ago practically every Russian artist online knew about Dno Arty, so its impact could be felt in every art-focused community at the time. For example, I was first introduced to this culture in a group about Transformice – an MMO I used to play as a young teen. Fellow players would post their fanart of the game, and others would harshly criticize it in the comments. Whenever I’d look at the critics’ art, I’d find out that they’re also amateurs. It was teens being mean to other teens. I was scared of becoming a target too.

Long story short, Dno Arty was basically the Russian version of Deviantart Cringe, and people turned young artists into lolcows. Some of the group’s frequenters believed that “bad artists” should be ostracized off the internet because they are sullying the image of art. If someone thought that your art was “bad”, you had no way of protecting yourself from the trolls who want to make fun of you and your art. And if you lashed out or tried to defend yourself, you were in the wrong.

And yes, if someone made a post about you, you would get tagged in it; there was no anonymity, and you can imagine what that could lead to. Some critics would also include a photo of the artist – keep in mind the targets were often children.

At its peak, which was around 2016-2017, Dno Arty had thousands of followers. But I became a target in 2015, if I recall correctly? I didn’t even read the post; I just deleted my account out of fear. I wouldn’t post my art publically on VK for more than 5 years after that. Dno Arty doesn’t exist anymore, and the admins apologized for the harm caused, but the effect is still there. I’m still afraid of negative opinions about my art!

There are other reasons, of course.

I am a generally anxious person, I might have an anxiety disorder? It’s no surprise that I’m afraid of negative opinions about myself in general. It's not *just* Dno Arty's fault, although I did want to talk about it because it's something that's practically unknown if you're not Russian.

I have had several traumatic experiences of being publically shamed as a kid, most of which I will not share for privacy reasons. One that I will is from 2012: I posted my (even shittier) art on a Transformice forum and everyone laughed at it. That was quite bad!

The last time someone made a somewhat mean comment about my art was when I made a Tiktok with my art improvement (2015-2021). Some teen commented saying my art looked nice, but that my improvement wasn’t good enough. I didn’t take it seriously, but it shows that folks on the internet still make dumb, unsolicited comments about your art – art that you spent hours on, art that you know has flaws, art that you made of gratitude and reverence only to be met with scorn.

It doesn’t help that I have the urge to draw art that might be called “cringe”. I like drawing characters that are cute, I like dressing characters up in frilly dresses and maid outfits, I like drawing character interactions and pseudo ship art. The only thing that saves my ass is my practical skill – I try to make my drawings look good and appealing, and honestly I hope they makes more people realize they’re into the type of shit I depict.

I know a bunch of people like my art, so I want to keep sharing it. I want to be liked, you know? It’s a pretty common desire among living beings. On some days I’m too anxious to share it, so I don’t; but whenever I overcome my anxiety, if you can help it, be nice to me, alright? Nice comments make me less scared.

And yeah, this is the reason I don't check my social media notifications often. I'm afraid of what others have to say about my art. I also adjusted Tumblr's CSS (through Stylus the browser extension) to not show me the note count on my posts. I kind of want Cohost back. I'm sorry for saying its design sucks, I will tolerate it if it means I can exist online without seeing the fucking metrics.