I have an ego.
Professionally, this is a fact that I try to downplay, because the very presence of ego is popularly believed to be the antithesis of teamwork, and teamwork is a concept that is extremely looked highly upon in the working world. Never mind the fact that there are jobs and projects out there, where the optimal working condition does call for individuals to do individual work, when the day is over, egos are often perceived as negative, detrimental things, and that we should not have them at all, so all can remain harmonious and cohesive, in absofuckinglutely everything.
Yet we all do. Anyone who says they do not, is delusional and lying.
Now the size of said egos are up for debate, and are certainly on a case-by-case basis, but when the day is over, we all have them.
I have an ego. I don’t think it’s a particularly large ego by any stretch of the imagination, but I still have one.
It pleases me when I feel like I have pleased others with something I have done. Beating the snot out of a deadline at work, and expediting the progress of an entire project on the strength of my working speed and accuracy. Seeing a total stranger come across my guide on how to break Final Fantasy Tactics and sharing it with their audience. Generating conversation and seeing some funny responses from a random inquiry.
Or when people are pleased to see when I post pictures from something like Dragon*con, that they want to share them with everyone they know.
I don’t think I ask a lot in return from people when it comes to sharing the pictures I take:
- no direct linking to my pictures
- if you use any of my pictures please don’t crop off my watermark
- if you use any of my pictures on Facebook, please tag me, for I like to see when people share my stuff
I’m not asking for first-borns, or any sort of monetary payment. All I’m asking for essentially, is to put my name out there, if you use my pictures, or anything of mine that may possibly be getting shared. That’s really all I’m asking for, because putting my name out there, is giving my ego some acknowledgment.
It’s been several days since I put the word out on Facebook that my pictures were all up in their entirety. Rarely, do I have to worry about people direct linking anymore, because people have learned to be concerned to fear the dreaded broken link, which can actually happen with my site like when Comcast decides to utterly EMP Louisiana.
I’ve received a few tags, which have made me smile, however I’ve already found one instance where someone has cropped off my already-minimalistic watermark, and applied a shitty Instagram filter on it, and quite a few more where people will reference my URL, but not me, not my name.
That makes me unhappy.
It’s like it makes me feel like people don’t want to associate with me, or possibly give credit to an individual person, but to give it to a site, as if it’s its own sentient entity, or that it’s part of a collaboration of contributors. But really, given the fact that several of these infractions are coming from people that I know, it just makes me stop and think “what the fuck?” and that they are deliberately trying to not use my name and allow me the opportunity to put my name out there.
I love the fact that I have totfc.net, a URL I really wanted back in the day, and one that I’m happy that I still have the reigns to. I don’t hide the fact that I’m tremendously prideful of my endless commitment to the personal website and the determination to continue to generate content on a regular basis. But when the day is over, the URL is of the utmost secondary importance compared to me, my ego and my name.
My name is not totfc.net. My name is Danny Hong.
And I kindly ask any and all people using anything I’ve done please credit me appropriately, because URLs are not forever, and I have no intention of changing my name any time soon.
And for god’s sake, don’t crop off my watermark, because I will forever think of you who do as real shitheads.
