I‘m banned from facebook, twitter and even LinkedIn. Especially LinkedIn. I’ve already been banned from YouTube. I’m so banned from YouTube, I can’t even watch YouTube videos if I’m signed in to the corresponding google gmail account! That’s a pretty hardcore ban.
#TommyRobinson himself isn’t even that banned from YouTube. Right? And yet for some strange reason I am. My new YouTube channel that concerns learning languages doesn’t push any boundaries and so they allow that to stay. I’m banned from Quora. I’m banned from RedBubble. Pretty soon I will start to call myself a “dissident artist/designer”, because it appears that’s what I am.
I recently tried to get the Etsy “community” to be a little less junky, although that didn’t go so well. I didn’t mention any names. I just felt it needed to be said.
Because everyone there seems to be patting themselves on the back and congratulating one another as they encourage themselves to sell ever more crap. Wonderful! But the world does not need ever more crap. The world needs minimalism and zero waste. That’s what it needs.
But it was like poking a hornet’s nest. It was a lot like posting a hornet’s nest. Or maybe not? I’ve poked hornet’s nests back when I was a small child and didn’t have an affinity to wasps. And I got less of a reaction.
The moderators locked the thread after only a couple of pages, even though I only replied once. At least one of my replies was censored/deleted when I said “Craft is not art, that’s why it has it’s own special word: craft.” .
Perhaps they saw this as some kind of “attack” on the craft part of the arts & craft movement as a whole? It wasn’t meant to be. Crafters got very narky indeed, very defensive. Probably because subconciously a lot of them are indeed selling stuff that is basically absolutely unecessary. Bloody non-zero waste crafters! CAno not they take any form of constructive criticsm?
Next, shortly after pointing out the lowering standards on Etsy, I mentioned the zero waste movement. And that didn’t seem to resonate with the Etsy community either.
Of course at least one member mentioned the previous “anti cheap craft” post (and that’s a form of discrimination, isn’t it?). They called me an art snob. Which is fine, because maybe I am? Whatever. I don’t care. I am an art, illustration and design snob then. I fully admit it. I don’t try to censor people for saying anything about my shop or art in general. I can take it.
If I had have continued along this “go against the grain” approach, I’m reasonably confident that before too long I would have been booted off that Etsy forum. I won’t be doing this however because I am making money from my Etsy shop.
So I am completely done with the Etsy community, after publishing only two posts on their forums. I have promised myself that I won’t ever get involved in it ever again. I’ve turned off all of their email notifications.
UPDATE: It turns out that despite my promise of more involvement, Etsy decided to ban me for a week anyway. Because I talked about zero waste. Because I wasn’t “politically correct”. but the kicker is that now they are promoting upcycling. That’s okay, I’m not that miffed, becaus ethat was my original goal. But they did treat me very differently and the reception this woman is getting is completely different from mine a few days earlier.
Now keep in mind that I am banned from practically all social media, because I appear to say things that people are afraid to say. I am politically incorrect. I don’t try to be intentionally politically incorrect. I just am.
And so I only have instagram left. All that remains is instagram. The visual social media platform. It’s a lot harder to offend people, visually speaking. Not that I’ve tried or want to.
Does Ebay and Etsy count as social media? Not really… even so, I got one of my listings banned from Ebay. I tried to sell live worms. I did sell one bucket of live worms. But that was a big no no apparantly, selling compost worms. I must be a “bad” person or something.
So anyway, if you actually want to be banned from Etsy, if that’s intentionally your desire, then all you would need to do is attack the craft movement. First, call your shop “CraftWars”. Just create any old gloomy-looking series of abstract artworks and call them “art is better than craft”; “art vs craft”; “craft is not art”, etc. You don’t have to even write that on your artwork, just title it that. And then keep doing that. Post on the forums. That’s all you really have to do. And I predict that before long, you’ll be banned. Because 80% of the stuff sold on Etsy is craft shit. Right? So there you go.
For instance, if you criticise muslims –or even multiculturalism– today, if you do it enough to form some kind of noticable “anti-islamic pattern” of behaviour, you’ll promptly be banned. And this may happen sooner than you think. I’m fairly certain that if I sold my previous YouTube’s content on Ebay, it would be taken down. If I kept relisting it, I’d be setting myself up for a blanket Ebay ban. And I don’t want that, because I find Ebay useful.
UPDATE 2: It also appears I’ve now been shadow-banned from instagram, because I can’t upload any new photos. I tried at least five times. I can comment, I can like, but I can’t post. Very strange. I only found out about this when I tried to post the etsy forum ban screenshot to instagram.
