The creator of these images is Matt Bernstein, one of my favorite educators online -- he makes incredibly clear, forceful collections of information like this one. He's queer, has fantastic nails, and has done a lot of education recently from his perspective as a Jewish person on why supporting Palestine is so important. Here's a link to this post, which he created for World AIDS Day on 12/1/23.
"Artists being scared of AI are like people working with editing, cutting and assembling photos traditionally being scared when Photoshop and digital photo editing became a thing. Fearing new technology" No you dingus. You know what you can do with photoshop???? Photo editing. You don't just tell photoshop to do it for you, YOU still need the skills to do the work. Generative AI models steal existing artwork, feeds it to the garbage machine and spit out garbage based on a prompt. It's not the fucking same you wet piece of bread. We as artists aren't nervous about a new TOOL that can HELP us in the WORK we do. We're not scared of technology. We're frustrated about idiots like you not knowing how to apply new technology in a useful way
This year's Tumblr April Fools thing is really nice cus it's like slightly interactive? Like, I see friends who have booped me and I can boop them and it's really nice.. Especially when you're like me, always nervous about bothering people. I see people boop me so many times and it's like oh! I can do that too! I am happy to! I will interact with you! Idk, makes me happy..
1 000 000 paws attack
I drew him again nobody is shocked
DEVOURING YOUR RIPPERDOC ART I ADORE HIM
YeeEEEEESSSS EAT WELL MY CHILD YEEESSSSS
Love this little guy
insightful conversation with the boys
I hate seeing AI art slop literally everywhere I hate having to squint suspiciously on every peice of fanart to figure out if it's AI shit or made by an artist. I hate how I just cant trust any image on google or social media anymore. I hate how the place I work for is actively talking about how to use AI internally. I hate it here. I want none of this. Who asked for this? I wish I was a librarian
Just this week in games:
- EA laid off 700 workers
- Sony laid of 900 workers
- Rockstar announces in-person work mandates for all employees (a 'soft layoff' that will force some staff to quit, which likely means that actual layoffs are forthcoming)
In 2023 6,000 games workers were laid off. Now in 2024 over 10,000 workers have been laid off, and there's still 10 months to go.
Not to be hyperbolic, but I think this is perhaps the worst year for video games ever if we're measuring by number of layoffs.
I really feel the need to make it abundantly clear to people who are like "yeah this could get really bad" or "could this be a crash?".
I need to emphasize: This is currently incredibly bad and not normal for the games industry. This is currently a post-pandemic crash.
Rolling mass layoffs at every major studio is not standard video game industry behaviour no matter how bad the industry sounds.
The population of an entire town's of people in video games has lost their jobs in the span of two months and that number is growing every week. As a reminder, job hunting in games usually takes upwards of 2 months, depending on how lucky you are, so most of these people are likely still without jobs and some may not ever work in games again.
My LinkedIn Feed is a near constant churning of new "I am seeking employment because I just got laid off" posts, by people I know who have worked all over the industry and have plenty of experience. Every week someone I recognize loses their job for no reason.
It's not the end of the world or games or anything, but I need people to understand this is currently a very huge and not normal game industry problem. It's a crash and it's happening.
Working in the game industry rn is so exhausting....
Demons on their day off. I imagine Sebastian does face masks, drinks herbal teas, reads the news and probably some saucy romance novel... Claude reads and writes poetry and eats sweets...
I am so fucking scared. I feel that... you know it's not about death. I'm not so scared of death. I'm so scared of being displaced. I want to go back to my home--and I'm so near, by the way... Gaza is so small. But I can't go there because the Gaza Strip is cut into pieces, and vehicles and tanks are in the borders between these pieces so I just can't go anywhere inside my homeland. My place. And... it's unacceptable. It's unimaginable. You know I have never imagined before that one day someone would just grab me from my... my homeland. My place. And just throw me away and prevent me to come back.
By the way, we don't know if we could go back. If we could go back again. Ever. And I'm so scared that they could displace us from Gaza Strip to the desert. [Bisan's voice breaks, she breaks into tears] We will die in the desert because of hunger. They displaced us to Egypt. To the north of Egypt, to Sanari desert. People just die. We will die.
[Sob] I don't know why do you guys are watching without doing anything to end this. Just in the... just stop it. Just stop it. Stop it in any price, stop it in any cost. Just stop it for anything. Just stop this. It's a nightmare. I can't continue just thinking about the displacement more and more. It's a nightmare. And I can't-- I can't keep it alive while thinking of being displaced more and more.
I just wanna go back to my home.
-- Bisan in a heartbreaking voice memo on Instagram, 2.14.2024
If you were complaining about wanting to watch the Super Bowl on the same day that Palestinians died from airstrikes, you are guilty. If you have the financial means to help and you didn't, you are guilty. If you have a platform and you didn't use it to spread the word on the horrific things going on in Palestine, you are guilty. You are guilty you are guilty you are guilty. Living a completely normal life while thousands of people die in front of you should be garish, it should be insidious, it should make you feel disgusting. Yet here you are complaining about watching the Super Bowl. You think Palestine is an inconvenience to your day. I'm disgusted to my core. I want nothing to do with you. You are guilty and you are complicit.
For those of us who still have humanity left to spare, please donate to the PCRF. Buy esims. Any last penny you could spare could make a huge difference. These people are literally enduring mass starvation and displacement in live time. This is not okay. Please try to do what you can. Spread this to anyone who has the means to do even more.
This is the "let's be kind!" "kindness is so attractive!!" "let's care about each other!" site until people get genocided, but the genocide itself doesn't directly affect you lmfao. every fiber of my being is repulsed. no one will forget that you were quiet.
Some organisations that get food and water into Gaza to consider donating to:
