scan from Volks WTG Catalog Yotsuba Book vol. 1

✽ image ethics and best practices ✽

every .jpeg you come across was created by someone.
if you want to share something on an account that is visible to the public, you are faced with a moral dilemma. you can either be a steward of information, or you can be a thief. if you truly respect the work that you are reposting, you will acknowledge where it comes from. as ignorance runs rampant and images are degraded through an endless chain of screenshotting, moodboarding, and reposting, i invite you to care about information.

what is it? who made it? who played what role? when did they make it? where did they share it?

archives cannot exist without information.

✽ do not repost anything that you cannot provide credits to, and stop supporting pages that repost without credit. you are not entitled to the work of others. "credit to the owner" is not real credit. "dm for credit/removal" is not real credit. these are copouts.

✽ do not repost anything from a creator who does not want their work reposted. make sure you translate things on their page to see if it's written in another language. if you would still like to share their work, post a link to their page so that people can engage with their work directly.

✽ if you are given special permission to repost from someone who ordinarily does not allow reposting, make sure people know what's up so that everyone knows you have asked for and received permission, but reposting and usage is generally not allowed.

✽ repost with credits in the caption, not the comments. make the credits the first thing people see before you talk about anything else. tag them if they are on the same platform.

✽ do not use peoples' work as your profile picture or other representative image without permission. not everyone is okay with their images being used to represent a person they do not know. always add credit in your bio. exceptions may be if the artist is famous and easily recognized, or if the image is from an old advertisement or well-known piece of media. for instance, you wouldn't need to add credit in your bio if using a van gogh painting, official pokemon art, or the blythe walkman ad. it's still good to do so, but most people can recognize what it is and where it came from. but gina garan's non-commercial work, work by an independent active painter, pokemon fanart, and custom doll work should be credited. never use another person's self-portrait or original character without permission.

you may feel like you are just one person, and that you alone cannot be hurting anyone by reposting images you like. but if everyone does it, and nobody knows where these photos come from, the impact adds up, and a culture of consumption is allowed to persist.