Keep It Clean, pt. 4

Here is the link to the images:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NlCUr0KuDKt9Qikw2q6G9Y4ZxNSxONSo

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KEEP IT CLEAN

My life the last 12 years or so has been devoted to social media. At first it was a flirtation, posting when I felt like it. Then it became a fun distraction. But soon it became an obsession. One to be analyzed, obsessed over, and discussed at every level. Each new platform I encountered was like this, and I’d repeat my pattern of not caring in the beginning to eventually allowing my identity to be denied by my popularity on that website, app, or platform.

First it was Flickr, which was a photo sharing site where you could post pretty much whatever you wanted. When Iw as first starting out sharing my photography, back in 2004-05, the site was in full swing, the first major photo site that photographers adopted. At the time I didn’t even shoot nudes, only posing soft lingerie images and beautiful, timeless women in dresses. About a year or two into my using of it, and becoming popular with almost a million views on my profile alone, the company Yahoo bought it, immediately restricting access to any work it found unsuitable for children to view. In an instant, my account was nullified, ring from tens of thousands of views a day to the single digits. It was infuriating, learning me to create other, separate accounts that eventually also became restrict. Eventually, about three years after my beginning on Flickr, I simply walked away.

Then I tried Tumblr. By 2010 everyone had a Tumblr account and you could still post nudity and whatever the hell you wanted, within reason. By this time I had begun to dabble in nude photography and was pleased to have a place where I could share it. I only had an Android phone, and though I longed to have an Instagram account, that platform was only for people who owned iPhones.

But Tumblr suited my needs well, and I used it off and on, sometimes not posting for days or weeks or more. Of course, not long after Yahoo acquired Tumblr also, and everyone who had been aware of what happened to Flickr began to voice their concerns. Yahoo assured all Tumblr users that they had no intention of changing anything, but we were all a bit skeptical.

Finally, around 2011 I purchased an iPhone and created an Instagram account. As usual, I started slow, and it took me at least two years before I began to grow a following that engaged in my work. By 2015, I had jumped to 100K followers and felt a swelling of momentum. Models I’d admired for years suddenly reached out to me asking to collaborate on ideas. By the sheer number of followers on my account my work was given new authority, new respect. And by the end of 2018, I’d amassed 256K followers.

But unbeknownst to most people, that summer Trump had passed the FOSTA-SESTA laws , which was intended to crack down on sex workers advertising online and help stop the ease of the use of the internet for sex slavery. Unfortunately, the law was written so broadly, the work I shoot with models was lumped in as advertising for sex workers. Suddenly the government didn’t have to censor people because the giant internet companies were doing it themselves. Soon Tumblr, which had been growing more restrictive, was taken off of the Apple Store because some of its users had posted child pornography. This allowed Yahoo/Tumblr the perfect excuse to erase all accounts that feature nudity outright, hoping to be allowed back on the Apple Store so as not to lose money. 

This meant the 27K followers I’d built up over nine years was suddenly made impotent. I used to average 100 likes an image. Now I was amassing 5-10 likes per image. A week later, my Instagram account was deleted. No warning, no word. I just went to open the app one morning and my account wasn’t there. I filled out the robot form they offer for you to complain if you think your account was wrongly deleted and haven’t heard back from them. Not once. That was over a month ago.

So in one fell swoop, all my work I’ve put into all my social media accounts was gone. nullified. And I haven’t mentioned the half dozen accounts I’ve built up on other sites and apps that were eventually crashed, went bankrupt, or simply dies from lack of engagement due to the larger internet companies swallowing them all up. I’ve tried every platform, I’ve downloaded every app, and stuck with the ones that worked. Well, those no longer work now.

People continue to tell me that some new platform will arrive soon, that there must be one coming. but I think they are wrong. I think the free-wheeling times of the internet being a place of unlimited expression are over. That’s not to say that the internet is a horrible place. It’s obviously amazing. But things are changing, and as usual, no one cares until it’s long gone and they can’t do anything about it.

This is where my mind has been the last several weeks, and I’m finally coming out of my anger and depression to talk about it publicly. Thankfully, as long as possible, Patreon will be a place that is UNCENSORED. Please support your local artists, please do what you can to fight censorship in all its forms. One voice matters, your voice matters. 

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Thank you as always for your continued support, it means so much to me! If you have time, please leave a comment about what you like about my work here as well as a note I can share with the model. Keep in touch!

Here is that link again:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NlCUr0KuDKt9Qikw2q6G9Y4ZxNSxONSo