There’s an awesome guy who does the geek auction every year at What the Hell con. Last year, 2010, he gave me his geek auction application and asked me to fill it out. He said, “do what ever you want”. I said “are you ssuuuuuuure?” He grinned and backed away. I filled it out with the input of some other twisted- er, other artists, and handed it in without him seeing it. Under the questions “what’s your favorite fandom?” I asked the room what the most innocent childhood cartoons they could think of were. We came up with Care Bears and My Little Pony. I just added the word “slash fic” (meaning fictional erotica written by fans). The auctioneer women just went from there. The pointed out that one of the guys had to be the Bear and one had to be the …”Pony”. At one point they got one guy to carry the other around on his back. Everyone died laughing and the guys seemed to have a good time. Um, apparently he had such a good time that he never forgot it and uh, is going to exact his revenge.
So, the banner ads are gone.
We never really liked them outside of the fact they helped pay the bills. However given current happenings, we’re super not comfortable with them anymore.
In our household we have started boycotting certain companies, and meanwhile I see these same hyper-corps living (relatively) rent-free next to our art. It just doesn’t sit right. Why pester you, our readers, to funnel more of your money into the hands of greedy oligarchs?
I tried blocking the companies from advertising on the site, and it actually worked, but there were just so many companies to block. Even if I blocked them all, ultimately some of the big tech companies would still be profiting greatly, giving them yet more money to wield against our collective interests.
So I just pulled the plug.
I was expecting to feel some great anxiety, but instead it was a great relief.
As for what’s next? We don’t know.
We might use the space to promote other things in the future, or nothing at all, but for now it’ll be a message of thanks(that some of you may already be familiar with).
Thank you for your support.
-obby