Social Media Announcement

Dear Readers,

Due to an unfortunate situation related to social media which I wish not to disclose at this time, I am going to be changing my relationship to the online environment. On my Instagram page, I will only be posting content related directly to my illustration and author work, when I have something relevant to share. I have also put most of this Substack behind a paywall, as I had been openly intending from the beginning, and now see the need. If you would still like to engage with me in this way, I welcome you to subscribe here at vesperisms.substack.com.

As an artist, my greatest value is my fierce independence, my inner freedom, and my detachment from the influence of parties, causes or movements. I have the right to my own voice and my own mind, and only I choose who gets a vote. But with the right to use my voice comes a responsibility to use it properly.

As anyone who has worked with me or read my work knows, I am not a political or partisan thinker. My primary commitment is to my art. You will also know that, as a historical writer, I am extremely careful with my research. This is not faux online “research,” but deep and wide, scholarly, on-the-ground, first-person and primary source research that undergirds both my work and my commentary. My reputation for this meticulous and responsible approach has preceded me for over 10 years as an author, and almost 30 as an illustrator. I am committed both to historical accuracy beyond ideology, and to storytelling beyond polemic.

Above all, I am committed to my right to make the art I see fit about the times I live in, without regard to outside pressures. This is every artist’s right and responsibility, one of which I believe a number of my colleagues have unfortunately lost sight over the past several years. I have not and will not lose sight of it, even if objective truth does not align neatly with others’ subjective narrative.

As a public-facing person with a body of respected work, I must constantly calculate how I can do the most good while also protecting my right to my own happiness and inspiration. I have a whole life outside of the amalgam you may assemble from what little I reveal online. I have a family and a community who know me, and a set of ethics by which I operate. I have people who I love, people who depend on me, and people who I allow to know me. This circle is purposely small. I believe that we are not meant to think of ourselves globally, but hyper-locally.

Social media has changed our brains in ways we have not properly adapted to, and probably never will. One of these is that many people operate as though they are famous because of their follower count (or because of the follower counts of influencers they follow! 🤦‍♀️). This perception of fame takes an illogical leap to a misperception that they are also informed, and that therefore, they have moral authority. Some people manage their online presence to great good, somehow, and for that, I applaud them. But others use this perceived authority to do damage to strangers without concern for how it will affect that stranger.

I have come to conclude that my relationship to social media has been a net negative. First, most of one’s followers never see one’s content anyway. The majority of those who do already agree with my “views”, and a small number lurk in the shadows until an opportunity presents itself to bite at my ankles. Neither you nor I owe anyone that kind of access.

I believe the time has come in our society to recover and protect a sense of privacy, and with it the beauty of a small and concentrated life, rather than an illusory, atomized “reach”—and to shrewdly recognize where true, tangible “reach” for one’s art comes from. You and I have the right to choose who we allow into our lives and psyches. As artists, this is something to guard ferociously. It is simply not true that an artist needs a huge “platform”, something that simply did not exist before the newish phenomenon of social media. There are plenty of artists—and our numbers are increasing—who recognize that the disruption of an online life is a detriment to their art, and who choose integrity over false “engagement” or shallow applause.

I encourage everyone in 2025 to carefully assess what these platforms have done to us, as human beings, as creators, to our relationships, and to the cause of peace and flourishing in our world—and whether it is truly worth being on social media at all. For some, it may be. For myself, I choose to begin a gradual reorientation.

Regardless, I encourage you all to spend the majority of your time surrounding yourself—in real life, because online cannot give this to you—with people of courage and love, so you can learn how to be like them. No one else need apply. ✌️