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and with that amazing showing of friendship and community friendship along with some oontz/doof, #RFFF25 has come to a close.
What a hecking action packed month of celebrating and supporting the diverse and amazing creative cousins right here in the digital neighbourhood.
I want to thank every single one of you that showed up for any of the fest, and especially to the absolute legend regulars and artist colleagues for mutually motivating one another so fabulously.
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I want to further thank anyone that took the time to drop a kind word to an artist, check out their catalogues, and drop some material support as directly as possible if you have the means,
As well as all the mutual support between and among attendees in the chats and in the feeds.
It's no joke when we say this is what community sounds like.
The world is grim but anything small we can do to not silence and extinguish creative voices is the way.
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I however will not miss the 05.45 alarms to monitor the server with half an eye open in bed.
Massive shout out the the artist colleagues that were there to keep chat modded and friendly when I only had half an eye and even less energy.
And with that I will say that this was the absolute last effort under the banner of RFF. I dunno if hamsters have nine lives like cats but I'm fresh out of reboots.
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The fedi is also a little bit shit for artists and I have empirical data and experiential from the uncomfortable position of community conduit and seeing ALL the frustration and burnout of creatives and the infinite challenges of performative social media plus obscenely shifting platform goal posts.
And the world is even shitter so it felt important to come back for a month of comfy channel pop-up and the month long artists streaming series fest to rally the artists.
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I'm gonna need you to try and keep the artist advocacy torch burning.
Lift each other up. Celebrate diversity. Demand tools we need as organic communities, not platforms that make us work even more unpaid jobs and harass/exhaust/silence us or extinguish out creative spark.
Push for consent and agency and collaboration. And as direct as possible support in whatever ways we can be amiable with and that artists can manage to navigate!
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It really is as simple as checking in on a friend.
Or taking that one minute to drop one kind word to a creative. That is rocket fuel. It may be the difference that helps to keep putting more art and creativity into the world.
Making spaces of consent and agency outside the corporate silos is not technically hard, but being relentlessly positive and organic and artist and community focused IS!
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It's also not sustainable given the sad state of where resource and focus go in this day and age of number goes up, ignoring consent, and clout hounding.
I'm proud to have shown a tiny bit of a different path and resistance.
So to everyone that had some resonance or joy or spark from RFF, contributed to the community vibes, showed up for events, discovered and supported artists, made new friends and creative connections, thank you.
This is what community sounds like.
Carry on.
❤️
🐹 out
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