display their cruelty on-line because their anonymity lets them get away with it. IRL assholes risk pushback for their assholery but on-line ones can just sit in their parents' basements eating doritos and getting off on being mean. The good thing is that they can be deleted or blocked or otherwise ignored.

...while running to the proverbial banks.
Most can buy anything in the world...not enough though....gim-me the entire world.

Big hugs my friend.

77 million Americans

I've seen the art you've posted and it's really good. If anybody said otherwise, fuck them. Keep posting it and don't let assholes who think they're critics discourage you.

Can ignore people who say my work is ugly.

I am learning a whole new genre of art, and excited to learn, and maybe it doesn’t look so good just yet. Even so, if I post something ugly, aren’t I at least encouraging others, who may say to themselves, “hey, I can do way better, maybe I will pick up my art supplies again!”

It's especially mean for people to snark about anybody's beginning attempts at a new method, so poop on them, and keep at it.

For one thing it tends to get pretty dark. Then I start thinking maybe I should put the camera and/or paint brushes down.

A lot of my mom's art was an expression of her inner demons and I don't want to be like that.

I'm likely to abandon web sites and email addresses when things start to get dark.

Think you should not give it up.

💙💙💙

Do you think I should abandon web sites and email addresses at this time? To be safe?

Stalking me here and trying to harm me.

you might want to change your email address or give up some other social media - but that's a big hassle. Unless you've been hacked or are being trolled in a way that threatens your safety or invades your personal privacy or your financial information, just deleting or blocking the trolls is probably all you need to do.

That sort of thing.

It was far worse a couple years ago.

I think deleting and blocking might be enough. Who wants the hassle? And why should I be the one to leave DU, just because of nasty trolls?

You have support here.

Feels like family to me, real family. I don’t want to give all of you up.

💙💙💙💙💙💙

You're so talented! I'm so sorry someone here was ugly to you.

I haven't visited the art group in months.

That seems to be working.

The last email address I abandoned was because of a stalker.

I've been on the internet since the late 'seventies and have a pretty thick skin but I was afraid this one would show up on my doorstep.

They didn't. Maybe they figured they'd won, depriving me of an email address and internet identity I was fond of. I haven't heard from them since.

At this point DU is my second oldest surviving internet identity and the only "social media" I subscribe to. I've never used the email apps on my phones and keep my most important contacts on paper, some of those in my head.

Maybe I'm too cautious (some might say to the point of paranoia), and maybe I should stop letting violence forty and fifty years behind me feed my present-day anxieties, but here I am. Meds and therapy have made the PTSD survivable but haven't "fixed it."

If you do change your email address you don't have to do it like I tend to, "cold turkey." I've quit meds cold turkey too, which is another thing I don't recommend..."

Embarrassingly, I've discovered more than once that I've had financial stuff I'd forgotten about tied to a particular email address. I once lost a cell phone number because of that, which caused even more problems...

It's a good idea to keep a separate email account for bills and business.

Sorry for what you have gone through.

I hope you will be safe now…

💙💙💙💙

Doesn't matter if it's dark. Some of the greatest art is dark.

I am sorry that I have not said so before now.

And I’ve been excited just to be exploring something new. But I think I made a bad mistake posting it.

If I figure out how to, then you have to keep posting 📫.

keyboardists huddled in their parents' basements.