Articles & Texticles

One of the interesting dynamics of publishing a blog is the positive affirmation bounced back to the author in the shape of comments left by readers.

In the case of many artist’s blogs, it seems that the need for positive affirmation ( call it ego strokes if you will ) is one of the main drivers for the blog’s existence. And why not? Particularly in an industry such as animation, the admiration and respect for an artist’s work that is voiced by one’s peers is a highly valued commodity, especially when contrasted with the paucity of praise available from employers who often need to withhold praise, for fear of the resulting demands for pay rises or promotion.

Even a cursory scan of the comments left on artist’s blogs by other artists (and wannabe artists) shows that they’re almost universally positive.

It’s extremely rare ( prove me wrong here! ) to find negative comments on these blogs, even though there may be glaring weaknesses in composition of the pictures, or other easy-to-criticise “faults”.
It seems to be a strong element in the unwritten etiquette of commenting, that one should not dent the ego of the person holding up their work for approval by visitors.

I’m charmed by this behaviour, and its delicate application by the hundreds of visitors to a blog who have, more often than not, never met the publisher of the blog, nor had a chance to agree amongst themselves that this is the correct way to behave.

As I recently read in Lynne Truss’s excellent book on modern manners (and the lack of them) called “Talk to the Hand: The Utter Bloody Rudeness of Everyday Life (or Six Good Reasons to Stay Home and Bolt the Door)”, it isn’t the compulsory aspects such as laws that mark a civilization as being civilised, but the voluntary and unnecessary social actions of humans that characterise a civilised society.

So it is with comments, I feel.

My own recent little moment of validation chuffiness* as a blogger sprang up a couple of days ago when I discovered through my blog’s Incoming Links list, rather than through a comments box, that one of my principal art search web tools was actually linking back to me! (Click the thumbnail image below.)

ArtCyclopedia has also linked to several other essays on my site, which at the same time as giving me a validatory glow, also makes me a bit guilty about not posting any new articles about obscure painters recently. I vow to get on with it!

*Don’t expect to find this word in a dictionary! The nearest translation is: a momentary ego-puff caused by recognition of some trivial achievement, that arrives suddenly out of the blue.