So This Happened

I did something kind of dumb and got what I probably deserved. Rant under the cut.

Earlier while tumblr was down, I remembered that I had created accounts on Pixiv and Anipan and decided to try posting some of my art there for a little extra exposure. I'd seen someone else do it, so I thought, why not?

Anipan works well enough for a beta site, even if my titles and descriptions won't show up. But on Pixiv, a primarily Japanese site, I felt more apprehensive - I know about the controversy there about art being reposted without permission and such, and I knew flat out that I was out of place there as an american with basically no knowledge of the japanese language. 

But the site was accomodating enough for non-japanese folks, so I managed to set up my profile and submit my first art piece pretty easily. 

In a futile attempt to be... polite, I guess, I ran my english text through google translate and copy pasted them in the appropriate places, including the tags.

My piece briefly appeared on the front page, and it looked just as out of place as I feared - not only was the title in english and japanese, the artwork itself was distinctly non-anime since I'm actually not very good at emulating anime styles.

It looked so ridiculous I took a screenshot of it, loaded it in photoshop, and scribbled the fat american version of myself that you see up there. I was planning on posting that by itself because I thought it was funny.

A little while later tumblr came back up and upon checking it I noticed I had some messages in my inbox, a rare event for me. 

Opening them, I discovered them to be 2 identical messages written in japanese. Through google translate, they read something like this:

"speak japanese! disappear off pixiv! brat shit!"

There's really nothing quite like getting insulting in another language. I was surprised, but at the same time not really - it really wasn't very smart of me to link my tumblr account on my pixiv profile, and with all my english text next to poorly translated japanese I was obviously a dumb foreigner.

I know it's only one person and I should take it with a grain of salt, but I don't want to leave myself open to possibly more angry messages and have removed most of my profile information and placed my art on private, tags removed.

I'm not one to stick my nose in other people's business especially if it's in another language I don't know - I already felt out of place but I had some small hope that maybe my dumb foreigner art might be appreciated by someone over there, but if this is the reaction I get I won't push my luck further.

That guy, and other pixiv users, probably have all the right to bash on dumb americans like me, stereotypes and all, considering what foreigners tend to do on pixiv.

If anything this confirmed my long-held suspicion that pixiv users are downright sick of foreigners stealing and reposting their art without permission and invading their website, which was meant to be a japanese-only space, but now it's very easy to make an account via facebook no matter who you are or where you're from.

While on the subject I went ahead and removed any contact information from Anipan as well, which also seems to be dominated by anime artists except I can't tell if they're all english speakers, some japanese, or from all over the world. Either way I'm not taking chances.

This might be a rare occurence and I probably look like a stupid childish coward, but this seriously dampened my mood and I wanted to at least vent about it. Any insult, joking or not, can affect someone negatively, even from a complete stranger from another country.

I'm new at this, I'm still learning, not just artistically but socially as well, so at least humor me.

Cheers.