The Hazards of the Blue Check Mark

Social Cred 'Aint All It's Cracked Up to Be.

I am thrilled and honored to be doing the kind of work I want to do, and being able to do it after so many years in this business.

I've heard it said that if you haven't made it by age 30, you won't make it at all, and if you're still in the business by age 45, you're washed up. I don't believe this, but there's some truth in it.

That truth is that this is an industry that chews up and spits out talent, and longevity is rare.

I am so deeply grateful to be able to do the books I'm doing now. It took me a long time to get to this point, but I'd rather be getting better projects and seeing my work getting better than - I dunno - doing the same thing for decades and seeing my work deteriorate, even if doing the same thing over and ever made more dosh.

Worse yet, not having the critical faculties to know the work has deteriorated.

Things feel strange right now. Good and scary and wonderful and terrible.

I've witnessed people I care about and respect get savaged on social media over and over. I feel terrible for them because I know there is really nothing I can do. Usually some of us send each other private notes, and the general consensus is that the more attention a problem gets, the longer it lasts. So, resistance is futile.

The internet has a long memory, is ruthlessly unforgiving, and has infinite energy for brutality.

Until the next drama pops up and someone else gets mobbed.

I wish I felt the people dishing it out were really and truly concerned about important issues. I'm sure some are.

But too often it just looks like power mad swarms, insane with malicious glee and strident righteousness.

We could all use some smiting once in awhile, but man-o-man.

I don't know what to think. I don't know if this aspect of our culture is going to mellow out anytime soon. Is it making things better?

I dunno.

I used to do a lot more smiting myself back in the day. But the bigger my social media following got, the more I realized the damage I could do that went far beyond my intentions.

The bigger you get, the more careful you need to be.

I shut down my blog over a decade ago (a blog crash made it an easy decision) and I wiped most of my social media. I decided I didn't want to go forward without being more mindful, and since my autoimmune disorder is exacerbated by stress, I needed to cut back my internet use as much as possible.

There's a rumor going around that all the comics creators got silenced by some kind of new contract that states we can get fired for mean posts. A quick look at my internet history will show I cut way back on posting - and cut my internet footprint - long before this contract thing rumor.

And long, long before this contract thing, people were getting booted out of jobs for being public nuisances.

I also realized that the bigger the following you have, the more people swarm you trying to get attention. Social cred is earned by getting the attention of the Blue Check Mark people (before you could buy one,) and the more outrageous the interaction, the more cred you earn.

You need nerves of steel these days.

For my own part, I don't have the interest or energy to take down people from my past who have wronged me. It's not that I'm wonderfully forgiving, it's just that I don't think they are in as much of a position to harm others as they used to be. While I still think some of them are creepy and exploitative cultists, that's not my fight anymore.

They're never going to apologize properly or make reparations. Just not gonna happen.

One of them died fairly recently, and I felt more powerful not saying anything than I would have letting out a volley on the crappy things they said and did to me in 1989.

Anyone who calls you up to rail that you only get things because you’re young and blond because you got a grant they wanted doesn’t need a post mortem from me.

Anyone who cries because I got better placement than they did at a convention has defeated themselves.

Anyone who disrespects their art enough to let it deteriorate like that has defeated themselves.

Their energy went into fan and pro politics, and the appearance of power.

My energy goes into my art.

My art has a future.

Me. With George Perez.

(originally published in March 2022).