social media – The Art of David Stankowicz

Another Unexpected Turn of Events

Hey everyone!

It’s been a while but I’m back with a new update. I had a few neat things I was working on that I was excited to reveal and talk about. Unfortunately, the world had other plans and decided to throw yet another major curveball at me. I hinted at this in the title, but all puns aside, this isn’t really a joking matter. Simply put…

…My instagram account was hacked and hijacked from me.

Yes, I fell victim to the ever growing epidemic of scammers and hackers. Now normally I’m very good at weeding out a potential scammer/hacker, but this particular person hit me where I’m most empathetic. They posed as a fellow artist struggling to be seen and acknowledged. My red flags didn’t go up at first because this person communicated in such a way that felt like a real person with a genuine issue looking for fellow support in the community. As an artist currently in that place, I understand the pain and struggle to get out there and be truly appreciated.

So after a bit of back and forth chatting, they send me a link to an art contest asking if I can help them out and vote for their work. Right there the alarm bells should have been going off, but again, I was blinded by the empathy I felt having personally dealt with similar things. So I clicked on the link. As soon as I did though, I noticed the site was fishy. I used no names for anything, only referring to the artist by number and generic descriptions. Also, certain links and buttons that would work on legitimate sites were not here. So I left without entering any sort of information that would give them access to my account. But I guess these hackers are more cunning than I thought, because they must have had a way to get it regardless. Simply clicking the link was enough. I thought little of it at the time. However I woke up the next day to a notice that my email was changed and I couldn’t log in anymore. Followed by a series of “support” emails stating that if the account couldn’t be recovered then I’d need to pay $600 to get it back. At that point things were too far gone and I couldn’t get it back.

I lost all the progress and connections to fellow artists I made on that site. Gone in an instant. What stings more is that it should’ve been preventable, but the empathy clouded my judgement. So I had to live with the consequences here.

I had to start all over again. From the beginning with zero followers. Completely demoralized. Needless to say, I was feeling really down and unsure if I’d be able to recover. I say that because I started that account almost ten years ago and I had only connected with 360 people. So of course I’m thinking to myself that this will be difficult to come back from. I struggled immensely just to get to where I was at, and even then that’s not really a whole lot. Some people get that many followers in mere hours. That’s not how it has been for me. I’ve had to really work hard to connect with the 360 people I had. Now they’re gone and I have to try and work my way back. But I don’t have another ten years to get there. I can’t do that again. I had to try a different approach.

So I reached out to as many of my fellow artists as I could and explained my situation to them. What caught me by surprise was the overwhelming support they all gave me. Many of them were almost complete strangers to me, yet they helped me out and spread the word. I am incredibly grateful and humbled by that.
Since this event happened, I’m only a fraction closer to where I was, but I’ve made way more meaningful connections with artists now than I had before. So even though I’m still setback a lot, it feels like I have more. Perhaps by starting over, I’ve weeded out the “bots” and “ghosts” and instead found myself becoming closer with actual people with likeminded interests.

Maybe being hacked wasn’t a bad thing. Maybe it’s exactly what I needed. A fresh start.

So that’s where things stand now on that front. I’ve been focusing more on getting back the small audience I had over there. Some good news that hasn’t changed is I want to announce that I will have an artist table one again at Comicopolis at the White Oak Library in Lockport, IL on July 29th. I wanted to participate in many more conventions, but with being in the first year of a new full time job, I wasn’t able to stay on top of that for this year. I’m happy I was able to at least book this one and then after it I will keep an eye out for others to join for next year. I really enjoyed the convention scene and I want to get back into that soon.

Well if you made it this far, thank you for reading and hearing my troubles lately. My entire art career has been littered with struggles. Those close to me can attest to that. However, I’m learning quickly that no matter what happens you cannot give up when things like this happening. Not when it’s something that is important and you’re passionate about.

The comeback will be far greater than the setback!

Keep Moving Forward

July 8, 2023January 9, 2026 by DStankowicz Categories: Deep Thoughts, UpdatesTags: art, DavidDraws, deep, drawing, illustration, Instagram, keep moving forward, social media, Thoughts

Social media has become a necessity these days, and I’ve decided to quit using two of the biggest names in the game.

We certainly live in an interesting time. Social media has become the driving force behind just about everything we do now. People make livings off of managing social accounts and engaging with others on these platforms. It has almost become required that artists like myself have a presence on these sites to showcase our work. You might even say it is now crucial for artistic growth. I played along and was fairly active on all the major platforms for a while. However, I’ve recently decided to stop using Facebook and Twitter altogether.

I have developed a love-hate relationship with social media over the years. I recognize it’s importance for certain things like advertising artwork and showing it off to the world, but it has also been a source of my anger and frustration. I believe that is because I fell into the social media trap. What exactly is that? Well I see it as becoming too obsessed with the number of “Likes” and “Followers” you receive. That obsession then becomes a deciding factor in ones own self-worth and value. The problem is that it’s a very easy trap to fall into. You post a sketch, illustration, or whatever it is that you create and you see the number of likes start piling up. Those notification pings trigger an endorphin rush and you start feeling excited. Then you see the followers go up and you become elated. You start thinking “Hey! People are taking note of my content and they like what they see/hear/read. I’m doing something right! Awesome!” So then you continue creating similar content because that clearly resonated with others. But the next few pieces of content don’t perform as well. In fact, you hear crickets. Hardly any likes and no new followers. Hell, you might even see a few unfollows. You get confused and devastated. You then ask yourself “Why is this content doing so poorly now? Was the other just a fluke? Why haven’t I taken off yet? Am I just not as good as I thought?” That right there is the trap.

I fell into the social media trap.

Social media should not dictate how you view yourself or the work you make. It is not indicative of the quality you produce. I have met and discovered many artists that are way better than what their numbers may say. For a while I couldn’t see that. I was becoming self-obsessed with my social media stats and felt it consume me. I wanted to create things just to generate more “Likes” and “Follows” because I saw that as validation of my worth as an artist. It was actually a huge reason why I lost my focus, which I talked heavily upon last week. I had to take a step back and really look at how social media was affecting me and why I was using it. It’s simply a tool I use to showcase my artwork on any given platform. Logically, one would then assume that posting on every major platform would just increase the amount of people who could see my work. For years I did just that. But in these last few months, I noticed things that had me rethinking that strategy entirely. Which brings me to Facebook and Twitter. It may seem blasphemous to some, but I have to say it…They are useless to me.

I suppose I should clarify that this is just my opinion and that I recognize that these platforms may provide something useful for other artists out there. Just looking at my experience with these two specifically, I concluded that they offer no benefit to me anymore. I’ll start with Facebook. I found it incredibly difficult to reach anyone outside of my network of family and friends. It was nice that those close to me could see what I was working on, but they weren’t the right audience. I am grateful for their support, but I needed to be able to reach everyone. Facebook made it unnecessarily difficult to reach those people. Which meant that anything I posted would be seen by the same group of people every time, almost exclusively. That meant that any chance of organic growth was nonexistent. Then I just couldn’t get past some of the dumb things people posted. It felt like it became a host for silly memes and videos, which I wasn’t interested in. Now Twitter is a different beast. It offered the ability to reach a much wider audience, but I just could not figure out that damn algorithm. No matter how hard I tried it seemed like everything I posted there was overlooked simply because the stupid algorithm didn’t favor it. What made it worse was that despite my attempts to manipulate the system in my favor, it never worked. Imagine creating the best artwork you’ve ever done, but you get no feedback only because the stupid site’s mathematical algorithm never properly catches it. It makes two hundred followers feel like five because ninety percent of them never even saw what you posted. The effort I put in didn’t justify the results and I grew tired of playing that game. Posting my artwork on Twitter was the equivalent to showing it to a wall; it was pointless and a waste of time.

The final straw was when they began to suppress certain views and thoughts. Censorship isn’t my thing. I don’t get mixed up in politics, but I support the right to think and speak freely. It doesn’t matter what side of the aisle you stand, everyone has the right to speak their mind no matter how stupid or ignorant it may be. That’s all I’ll say about that. I’m not about to continue using platforms that could shut me down simply because someone didn’t like what they saw or read. I understand that these are companies with the ability to create and enforce their own rules and regulations. However, I can also choose not to follow those dumb rules by just not using the site, so I’m not. Simple as that. Since I’ve made that decision, I’ve felt much more liberated and overall happier.

It was pointless and a waste of time.

Despite all this, the only social media site I use almost exclusively now is Instagram. Yeah I know it’s ironic because Facebook owns Instagram, but that platform feels and operates differently for me. Maybe it’s because I can get through their stupid algorithm and connect and converse with others. There isn’t as much of a disconnect for me so I’m able to use it more successfully. It also really helps when you show off artwork and people can ACTUALLY see it. What a concept, huh? That’s not to say that Instagram’s algorithm isn’t stupid every now and then, I just find it to be less of a hinderance then those other two places. I’ve found a good balance there for now, but I’m sure it’s a matter time before the hammer strikes down hard. It’s why I’m using alternative platforms more like my own website as well. There’s no mathematical equation telling you what you’ll see around here. There’s no person or program that controls what I put here. That artistic freedom is very enticing going forward. With the help of Instagram for the time being, I feel like real growth is achievable here on this blog and website. I’ve heard many people say that if you aren’t actively growing you feel dead inside. Since I’ve made these choices, I’ve never felt more alive.