My 2 Cents #8: The Do's and Dont's of Facebook

Think back to the first time you remember Facebook changing their layout. You were probably annoyed, a bit confused as to how the new functions worked, and repeatedly asking yourself, "What was wrong with the old version?" Of course, time passed, you adjusted, learned what stuff did what, and fell back into a comfort zone. But in what seemed like no time at all, Facebook changed again, and you were back to that annoyed, confused, "What was wrong with the old version?" rant. Every time, the same old thing. We complain, flood the News Feed with statuses whining about the new layout, repeat over and over how much we hate Facebook, and within two or three weeks, the flood subsides and we stop noticing the difference, because it's not really as bad as we thought it was. We just don't like that we have to take the time to re-learn how to use Facebook.

I see this a lot, and I can guess that if you spend much time at all on Facebook, so have you. It's a long-running trend, really. Not complaining about Facebook so much as complaining in general. I'd estimate about 75% of the statuses I see in my News Feed are one person or another making a complaint about something either unimportant, or vague but personal. These aren't necessarily complaints that the individuals care to elaborate on, or talk about even face to face, privately. They just feel like letting people know that something in their life is amiss. I admit, I've been guilty of it on more than one occasion. Sometimes you just write up a status to see how people react to it. It's a commonplace practice that's slowly becoming habitual.

I'm convinced that people forget exactly what Facebook was created for in the first place. Despite what movies such as The Social Network (which I must confess, I haven't seen yet) seem to portray, Zuckerberg didn't build his empire off the concept that everybody wants in on everybody else's drama. Facebook wasn't designed specifically for people to be able to voice complaints to anybody that will listen, it wasn't created just so people could make themselves look cool or sexy by showing off pictures of themselves taken with a camera phone in a public bathroom making pouty faces in the mirror. Facebook isn't for bragging about that awesome party you went to last night and got drop-down drunk, even though you're only seventeen, and it's not so that parents can monitor their kids or ex's can spy on each other. Facebook was designed with one idea in mind- to stay connected. Keep in touch with friends, maybe make some new friends, and let everyone you care about know what's going on in your life.

However, in the last half a decade or so, Facebook has somehow mutated into a grotesque dinner theater of drama and meaningless showboating, because here on the internet, the whole world is your audience, so you have to always be "on." It's depressing, really, that we can take something so innovative and simple, and turn it into Jersey Shore.

Yeah. I went there. I can't stand that show. But that's a rant for another day.

My 2 Cents #7: The Light At The End Of The Tunnel

Nothing like a sleepless night sitting in front of a Photoshop window to get you thinking, right?

2011 is one of those years where the hits keep on coming. And we're all feeling it, I know we are. I've never been one to believe in prophecy or anything, but when you look at all the stuff that's happened in the last year, you do tend to wonder if the End of Days really is up and coming soon. You know, ignore the celebrity deaths for a moment- your Amy Winehouses and Dwayne McDuffies and what have you- and take a glance at the big picture, here. The United States is running out of money. I mean, for the love of God, Apple has more money than the US Government. Congress, President Obama, and several scores of other politicians are trying to figure out where to cut the fat without getting too close to their own wallets, while the CEO of Nintendo (Yes, the video game company) was willing to cut his own salary in half in lieu of an upcoming decline in his company's sales, rather than screw his own employees. On top of this, we have tsunamis and tornadoes and earthquakes just coming out of nowhere all over the world, taking thousands of lives, and there are still nutjobs in Norway and here in the US who still seem to have it in their head that the world can afford to lose a few more and go gun crazy. People are losing their money, their jobs, and their lives, and there isn't a damn soul on this Earth that can explain why, apparently. Well, guess what. I can tell you why. I can tell you why Mother Nature is destroying entire cities, why what was once considered the richest country in the world now has barely a penny to their name, and why Amy Winehouse was found dead in her London home.

Because it's been happening since the beginning of civilization.

It looks bad. It is bad. But not a damn thing we're going through is anything new to the world. It may be new to us, to our generation and maybe even the generation before us, but empires rise and fall, storms roll in and out, and people- even famous ones- are mortal. Is it hard? Of course it is! I've had to watch my dad struggle for the last year working two jobs and just barely scraping by enough to support him and his household, while I've known others to sit around with nothing but the breeze in their hair have their whole lives handed to them. Couples have split up, jobs have been lost, people have been hurt. We're all overwhelmed, here, the lot of us. But it's not all bad. Despite all our family's financial struggles in the past, we managed to get up enough cash for one last family vacation. My niece's first family vacation, where we celebrated her second birthday. My best friend is starting his first year of college this year. Another good friend moved into his first apartment this summer. Hell, we even got a puppy!

My point is, there are some big, bad things out there right now. The big and bad kind that, no matter how hard we try, we can't dodge. That's a fact. But you know, cliche as it sounds, it's the little things. The family vacations and the puppies and the second birthdays. That's what we need to keep looking at. They'll be what will tide us over until the storm passes. They're what give us hope.

I think we could all use a bit of that right about now, don't you?

My 2 Cents #6: The Next Step

Yesterday, it was announced that the United States had not only finally caught up with Osama Bin Laden, but had killed him. It was a day that will go down in history, and most of us didn't even know until the day was almost over. I uncorked a bottle of champagne, poured a glass, and took the time to relax and savor the end of the hunt.

However, today, my Facebook and Twitter feeds were flooded with commentary regarding last night's events that, at times, left me downright appalled and ashamed. There were people using this single victory as one more thing to rub in the rest of the world's faces, saying things like "Britain can have their dogshit wedding, look how we spent our time." Others were raving about how Bin Laden didn't suffer enough, that he needed to be publicly castrated and drug through the streets by his neck. America is a great country, and finding Bin Laden is undoubtedly a victory we have every right to celebrate. But why should we tarnish that by being petty and cruel? Why should we endeavor to cross that line and bring ourselves down by making ourselves the ignorant, barbaric warmongers so much of the world believes us to be? What's done is done, and now we have the choice of either sitting and squabbling with ourselves over whether he really got what he deserved, or we can turn our attention to the plethora of other problems we as a nation face.

We're still dependent on foreign oil.

Our economy is still barely limping along.

Many of our soldiers have still not made it home.

We still have a lot of work ahead of us, America, and it isn't healthy or fair to dwell on our anger when there is still so much to do. I understand that I, as an individual, lost close to nothing from the September 11 Attacks- I was scared and angry just as everyone else in the country had been, but I lost nothing I couldn't regain with a little focus. And I understand that it's easy for people like me- who were really so far away from the real tragedy- to not understand the overwhelming rage that many Americans may feel right now. All I know is that we have had ten years to grieve, and it will serve us nothing to spend another ten doing the same.

We've proven, once again, what we can do if we stand together and put our minds to something. Now let's really show them.

My 2 Cents #5: Plagiarism Is Just Plain STUPID

Not to beat a dead horse, but things like what I'm hearing with the Rob Granito fiasco really get me steamed.

I'd heard bits of talk in the past, and even seen some of his work on DeviantART once or twice, but it wasn't until recently that I heard about Granito's prolific plagiarism practices. Which isn't a huge thing, sadly- you see it every day. It's a sad fact, but it is a fact- hell, one of my own designs was plagiarized on DeviantART. There's simply nothing I could do about it, sadly. But no, it wasn't the art theft that got me worked up. It was Granito's attempt to blatantly build up his reputation by claiming to have had a working relationship with the late Dwayne McDuffie that had me gritting my teeth as I read this article on AOL Comics Alliance ( http://www.comicsalliance.com/2011/03/28/rob-granito-scam-artist/ ). 

But! Aside from his obvious attempt to capitalize on McDuffie's passing, I can't completely hold "tracing" against Granito. Oh sure, I can hold the whole profitting from it part against him, and I do, but tracing is a very legitimate practice in artwork.

If you're a STUDENT.

I trace. I trace A LOT. Because I find that, often when I have trouble figuring out how to draw a part of the anatomy, or the position of an arm or a leg in a certain pose, if I trace a figure or another artist's work that emulates that pose on another piece of paper, it helps me figure out how I myself should draw it. Tracing is a wonderful learning tool and is extremely useful for problem solving. In truth, much of the time I do more tracing than actual drawing. But I never, NEVER, claim traced work as my own.

Granito shows that he has at least some rudimentary skill in art. If he didn't, he wouldn't have been getting away with it for so long. What this prolific plagiarist as prooved is that he has no idea how to be original. More often than not, I'd guess he doesn't do his own stuff because he can't THINK of stuff to call his own. His brain lacks the creative structure to supply him with original ideas, so he takes from other artists (Bill Watterson, Ty Templeton, etc) to fullfill his artistic pipe dream. And I can feel him there- I have a hard time finding my own style, and a lot of the tracing that I do is an attempt to find a style I'm comfortable with by obvserving how other artists have approached the same problems. But when he tried to pass it off as his own stuff, he crossed a serious line. Luckily, as I've stated repeatedly in the past, the art community is extremely tight-knit, and to wrong a few of us is to bring all of us down on your head.

My 2 Cents #4: Freedom of Faith

Recently, a video on YouTube was shared with me in which a girl praises God for the destruction in Japan, saying that it was the Lord sending atheists a wake-up call. You can imagine that I was appalled by this girl's blatant and outright disregard for human life, purely because she disagreed with their spiritual beliefs. While I was later informed that this video may have been part of some elaborate hoax on the girl's part in order to get attention (no official word yet on whether or not this is true), the sad fact is, there are indeed people in the world who think this way. Of course, most generally, this stereotype falls on the Muslims, due to their seemingly fanatical jihads, which often cause the deaths of dozens- even hundreds- of innocent people.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are the Christians, who are stereotyped as being the first to condemn people for any common sin that they themselves have likely committed. Now, anybody who's ever met more than one believer in the Christian faith can tell you that this stereotype doesn't apply to all Christians- or even most of them, for that matter. But there are individuals out there, unfortunately. Just as in every religion, each person believes something a little different, and as horrifyingly vile or completely absurd as it may seem to you, the fact is that it makes total sense to them, and they're only doing what they believe is write.

That being said: NOTHING will EVER justify the spilling of innocent blood in any way, shape, or form. In the law of both Man and God, killing an innocent will bring you nothing but punishment, not reward.

I understand that many believers of other faiths believe that in taking the life of a so-called "infidel", it will put them on the fast track to Heaven. Well, while I try to be as understanding of other people's point of views as I can, the fact is that you could never convince me that it was okay to kill somebody else unless it was the only way to keep them from killing somebody else. And trying to tell me that thousands of innocent people who either died or lost their homes completely deserved it simply because they had different beliefs than you will achieve nothing but to convince me that you're a monster. That's just how it is.

Intolerance is a severe reality- intolerance of Race, Gender, Religion, Social Status, and who knows how many other varieties. And the sad reality of it is that this is never going to change. Sure, the world may develop greater or lesser levels of understanding as time goes on, but there will always be at least one person out there who will simply hate somebody for being different. But if there's anything that makes me feel better at this, it's that there will always be people out there that will hope and pray that I'm wrong. 

My 2 Cents #3: College Pressure

My name is Devin Parkman. And I... am a college student.

I recently had a discussion with a friend of mine in which he insinuated that I had no right to be stressed about school, when it wasn't nearly as difficult as a real job. Now, you can imagine, I got a bit heated about this, especially hearing it from somebody who never actually went to college.

College has the potential to be the most fun time of your life. But there's also a lot of pressure involved. College is the stepping stone between being a kid and being an adult, after all, for a great many people. And, for many of us, our dream careers depend on our ability to obtain that printed and framed piece of paper that we covet so dearly. And the teachers aren't about to just hand it over so easily.

Take, for example, a test I recently took in Art History 1. This test was, single-handedly, the most difficult test I have ever taken. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the material, but the sheer amount of information required to be memorized for a single test was outrageous! We covered 40 pieces of artwork in the unit, and were required to know them by name, date, region, and artist. Sure, only 10 of them were going to be covered on the test, but the teacher refused to tell us which ones. This was followed by naming the different parts of common Greek architecture- a section that I'm pretty sure I got every question wrong. And at the end of the test were two essay questions in which we were asked to compare two pieces of artwork as in depth as possible, one page each, fifteen minutes each.

Now, the sheer pressure of that one test was enough to match that preceding any final I have ever taken in school, and I could tell I wasn't the only one- five or six of us had a last minute study session in the lobby of King Hall using flash cards, each of us panicking in our own ways. Art History 1 and 2 are required classes for art majors. If we don't pass the class, we don't get our diploma.

College may not be the most difficult part of life, but it's certainly no cake walk. For many of us, our entire future rides on every decision we make, every grade, every chapter in every textbook. But many people, professors included, don't seem to realize this. And they especially seem to have a tendency to forget that we have other classes besides theirs. I have yet another teacher which has apparently decided that doing two separate projects at the same time is a good experience for us- two in-depth design projects that require research as well as creativity. However, to date, we haven't been given more than the last fifteen minutes of each class to work on these projects in class- being expected to do the rest on our own time. For me, these projects coincide with a Masonite sculpture I have to do for 3 Dimensional Design, and a research paper for Composition 1 in which I have to explain the concept of character design for animation. I'm lucky that these were the only classes I'm taking this semester. Other students are not so lucky.

I'd have to say that if there's one thing that sets a full-time job and college apart is that, at the end of the day, you don't have to take your work home with you at a job. Sure, there are exceptions to this, such as if you're an architect or an illustrator or writer, but generally if you work in a factory or restaurant or whatnot, once your shift ends, you get to go home and relax until tomorrow. Since this semester has started, I've had little to no chance to do much of anything after school outside of home, bogged down with papers, design work, and more thumbnail sketches than I can even begin to count.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't assume that a college student has no real reason to be stressed out. Many of them have a lot on their shoulders, and have to couple that with a night job as well. People with full-time jobs may forget that these students are working their butts off to get the same kinds of jobs or better.

My 2 Cents #2: Creativity & Mortality

Recently, artists JP Morgan and Clement Suave passed away, and I've been reading spending a lot of time on DeviantART reading the journals and comments expressing their condolances. But what keeps catching my attention are the memories that other artists continue to share about him. This really showed me how much of a sense of community the Art Industry- whether it be comics, animation, fine art, graphic design, etc- has built over the years. Even here at Emporia State University, the Art Department takes leaps and bounds forward to bring the entire body of art majors together as one big family. The way that we can all sit together in Art Forum and laugh and socialize, and then the way we all marvel at the works of the various artists who come in to share their work and experiences with us, it makes me realize how much I love what I do, and what I hope to achieve in the future.

I first heard the news from LeSean Thomas on Facebook, and then later I heard it from Alex Garner and comic colorist Blond on DeviantART. It made me realize how often people in this industry whom fans like us often see as simple- yet idolized- individuals have worked together and interacted, even befriended, each other. The Art Industry isn't just about creativity, but about a mutual respect for people who find new and creative ways to do what we do, because it's what we all strive for in everything we do.

Both JP and Clement will be sorely missed, just like figures such as Michael Turner and Mike Weiringo were before them. But I have a feeling in my gut that if they had any inkling about how strong an effect they've had on their peers, and in hopeful young creativists like me, they'll be looking down on us now with pride and fulfillment. 

My 2 Cents #1: A Guy's Perspective

I'm not sure why, but a lot of girls actually do seem to come to me asking for advice "from a guy's perspective." As if, somehow, we're complicated. Ladies, the fact of the matter is, we're not. Hell, a lot of women are only complicated because they choose to be. Sure, we're not all black and white, but too many people focus on all the unimportant little details. If you want to understand a guy, here's the way to go about it:

1. Ask him.

Yep. it's as easy as that. Stop trying so damn hard to try to get in their head. Ask somebody how they feel about something. If you don't think you can trust them to be honest about their own feelings, then maybe you shouldn't care about what they're feeling so much. But the fact is, few people really have a reason to hide how they really feel. This isn't some TV drama, people. If a guy likes a girl, he may be too nervous to go up to her and tell her, sure. But if a girl is curious if a guy likes her, she really can just walk up to him and ask "So, are you into me?" If he is, hell yes he's gonna tell you! If he isn't, He's not going to let you think he is.

All men aren't pigs. In fact, most of us aren't. Women just always remember douchebags longer than they do decent guys. So please, girls. Don't overthink it. Just come right out and face it. It's a lot more painless than the alternative.

(The below is a conversation that spawned from one of my readers. I've removed their name in order to respect their privacy)

Reader: And when a girl asks "Why can we not have guy friends but guys can have girl friends" the answer is? 

Me: The answer is? Whatever dude expects that out of you is way too insecure for his own good. Put your foot down and tell him "I'm going to have my friends, and you are going to have your friends, and gender isn't going to matter one way or the other." He's nervous that some dude you'll be hanging out with will make a move on you, and he's even more nervous that you might notice and like it. If he trusts you, and if you've given him real reason to believe that you're with him and him alone, he won't make any stipulations about who you hang out with. And if he does? Maybe you're with the wrong guy.

Reader: And your book is being published when?

Me: Lol do I sense sarcasm?

Reader: More of a "damn I hate when he is always flippin right" kind of sarcasm lol. In all honesty most girls do know the things you have stated we just chose to believe otherwise. Sometimes we like to think guys will change bcuz most of us would do it for them in a heartbeat.

Me: Oh, guys will change. We're not as set in our ways as people think. We just have to believe in why we're changing. Plus, a lot of guys may not realize how willing a girl would be to change for him. Which is maybe something that should be communicated when that point comes. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, in a relationship is Two-Way, and that's how a guy is going to see it. They aren't going to do something that they don't believe you'd be willing to do as well.

Reader: ‎...I'm sure the whole I think I have a "special" exception to your point of views is a little cliche at the moment but it is how I feel. Ya know the whole "I don't wanna be with you but I don't want you to be with someone else either" scenario? Why are guys like that?

Me: This is going to start out sounding insanely dickish, but nobody has a "special exception" when it comes to stuff like this. As for the whole scenario with "I don't wanna be with you but" etc etc, not all guys ARE like that. The ones that are, though, could have any number of reasons for it. Really it depends on what they're looking for in a relationship. It's likely that, while they don't necessarily regret the decision to end things, they aren't entirely sure it was the right decision, if that makes any sense at all. They want to be out there and test the waters and see what else is out there, but they don't want to risk the chance of deciding that they want to come back to you, only to have missed their chance completely. Again, that's where you need to put your foot down and let them know that you have better things to do than put your life on hold while they're out doing what THEY want to do.