STEVEN. AHHHR. ADDLESEE.

[Lazarian]

Most people join art sites like FurAffinity to enjoy art and be part of the furry art community in some way. For most artists, having some exposure in the community is rewarding in itself, and being watched by others on FA is generally considered a compliment. Knowing that your art has been noticed, and that someone considered it noteworthy enough to continue keeping an eye on you, well, pretty much anyone could only construe that as being an uplifting little gesture.

Except for Mr. Steven. R. Addlesee.

You see, Mr. Addlesee has no use for casual watchers. Folks who merely watch him on FA are merely parasitic hangers-on. What Mr. Addlesee wishes for is devoted fans. He makes perfectly clear his contempt for anyone who isn't willing to be a rabid fanboy...

"Now......for the remainder: I have NO idea why I've over 150 "inactive" watchers who can't be bothered to view, fave or comment on what I purp out in my journal or gallery. There's 20-25 who do watch and do view, fave or comment. I'm NOT here to "pad" my watchlist with people who can't be bothered to even look in my general direction. Those individuals NEED to unwatch me. I've no need, regard, respect or use for such. I'd rather associate with the few who want to associate with me."

He couldn't resist a back-biting comment even as someone chose not to be insulted and leave...

"Dragon359 was the first to hit the silk. WTG!"

After this, he put up to a vote what his adoring, fawning fanboys could call themselves, having a choice between "Steveadores", and "One Percenters". You'd think anyone with any dignity in the face of such an insufferable prick would just tell him to go fuck himself and wipe him off their watch list, but, either out of pity or just stupidity they settled on "Steveadors". A little later, he ponders that there are no new Steveadores coming around to adore him.

Another gem: Addlesee shows up on a Steveadores page to comment on a commission for a guy called Train, and while chatting (actually more just going on about his own character than anything else), Addlesee baits the guy on the prospect of a collaborative pic. Being honestly receptive to the idea, Train offers to try and collab, and whammo! Addlesee throws his offer back in his face, citing butthurt over "you never really wanted to get to know me at all" and shit.

Why did this guy ever bother joining an art community like FA in the first place? The guy is openly antagonistic to anyone who doesn't get down on their knees to suck his e-penis everytime he posts his art. God forbid someone ever gave him an honest critique on his work or a minor feedback: he'd probably shit himself and fly into a seething, indignant rage. Really, he's a 51 year old guy in a forum mostly populated by teenagers. You'd think that having watches from a younger generation would cheer him up and make him feel relevant amongst a sea of over 27000 people. And indeed, a percentage of FA are just as accomplished artists, if not more so, than him. He comes across as a guy that deep inside he just doesn't want to admit his talent has plateaued out, and set aside anyone else it just ends up being lackluster 90's b&w filler.

Maybe all he wants is a hugbox, with him safely cocooned in the embrace of a bunch of Steveadores. But he sure picked a lousy place to do it.





 

[ProvincialTwit]

Wow.  Just...wow.  Any other subculture or community and you'd swear it was all fake, or 'ironic', or what have you.  This is truly one of those 'only in furry' sorts of comedy gems.

Quick, everybody add him to your watch list but don't ever fav his stuff.

[LordNagetiere]

I'm not surprised someone with an ego like this is buddy buddy with Karno. This begs the question though, why are all these egomaniacs drawing in the same droll 70s cartoon style?

Quick, everybody add him to your watch list but don't ever fav his stuff.

Already done.

[ProvincialTwit]

I'm not surprised someone with an ego like this is buddy buddy with Karno. This begs the question though, why are all these egomaniacs drawing in the same droll 70s cartoon style?

Probably the same reason (in)famous egomaniac Jeff K. rants and raves that all animation post-Tex-Avery is terrible and only he understands what makes a good cartoon, etc.

[rodox_video]

And John K. hates the furries with a passion that's burned for nearly 20 years.

In other words, they're absolutely perfect for each other.

[sompret]

There's been some rumors that Addlesee's been acting this way ever since his friend Rusty Haller died from diabetes IIRC. Whether or not that's true, the way Addlesee's mind works still boggles my mind. There's always attention whores out there, but how can anyone be this picky about attention? It's like seeing someone in McD's have their cheeseburgers served with just the bun and the cheese.

Then there's his absolutely outdated drawing style and this admission he made:

My art style, I cannot help. I'm not an anime artist. I don't draw in a style similar to Terrie Smith, Michele Light, DC Rabbit, Jay Naylor, Shawntae Howard, Jeremy Bernal, Steve Martin, Max Blackrabbit or Michael Higgs. I'm Steven R. Addlesee. One of the biggest insults I ever received was at ConFURence when someone marched up with their sketchbook, requested an illustration of Shanda, but wanted me to draw her in Michele Light's style. I replied "Y'want me t'sign it as Michele too?" and he replied "Can you do that? That'd be great." I returned his sketchbook.

[Sechs]

Then there's his absolutely outdated drawing style and this admission he made:

My art style, I cannot help. I'm not an anime artist. I don't draw in a style similar to Terrie Smith, Michele Light, DC Rabbit, Jay Naylor, Shawntae Howard, Jeremy Bernal, Steve Martin, Max Blackrabbit or Michael Higgs. I'm Steven R. Addlesee. One of the biggest insults I ever received was at ConFURence when someone marched up with their sketchbook, requested an illustration of Shanda, but wanted me to draw her in Michele Light's style. I replied "Y'want me t'sign it as Michele too?" and he replied "Can you do that? That'd be great." I returned his sketchbook.

I too find it exceptionally annoying when strawmen come up to me and do strawmannish things. It's like "Hey, I didn't create you out of thin air just to annoy me! Well, I did, but stop it now!"

What I'm saying is... yeaaaah, I find that story a bit difficult to believe. Especially with the bit at the end that reeks of faux-"dignity in the face of fools". One can just imagine him picturing himself as the epitome of long-suffering grace and stalwart nobility in the face of great insult, his voice echoing with the solemnity of great kings as he pronounced, "No, sir, no I shall not draw you your animal people porn under any name but mine!" It reads like several different "tales of famous people being bothered by the masses" dropped in the blender and run through a filter of unwarranted self-importance and butthurt.

If, IF it did happen, it says a lot more about him than I think he realizes. It says that he's so insignificant, unnoticed, and undesired as an artist that the only value someone could see in him was as a "substitute" for the artist they actually wanted art from.

And if it didn't happen (gee, I dunno, do you think I suspect this as the more likely?), I'm betting he's convinced himself that it did. He was probably sitting there at that convention, watching people glance at his stuff and pass him on by, watching them gravitate to other artists, and he thought to himself "What if someone came to me right now and asked me to draw in someone else's style?" And he played it over and over in his head through the rest of the day, and after the con, and eventually he had run it around in his mind so often that obviously that was what had happened and he had triumphed and overcome such base insults from the plebes because he is STEVEN. AHHHR. ADDLESEE.

[Freehaven]

The really stupid thing about all of this?  He already had his hugbox, in that he has a Yahoo! Group that (to the best of my knowledge) he still updates regularly and has followers who also post there.

And he bitches about FA not giving him the attention he "deserves", despite his "accomplishments".

He really just needs to go back to his Yahoo! Group and stay there.

[sharki]

Wow!  There is ego, and then there is ego!  I kind of understand his frustration.  We all have talent we feel is being ignored.  We've all had promises broken.  We've all had friends who turned out not to be.  But dude, you don't treat people like this, least of all would be fans.  Steve strikes me as the kind of person who just can't let go of the past.  There was probably a time, early in his career, when there was tremendous praise heaped on his work.  People told him he was the next big furry art superstar.  He would be bigger than Eastman and Lard, bigger than Richard Saki.  The comic world would bow down before him and the rest of his life would be filled with hookers and blow.  But, as inevitably happens, the world moved on.  Instead of taking it in stride or learning to use color, Steve decided "No, I'm great, it's the rest of the world that has a problem".  If this was the DC or Marvel universe he would donned a cape, fashioned a funny looking helmet and become a super villain.  But, this being the real world, the best he could do is get on FA, hit the ban button and bitch about how so few people appreciate his genius and how no one ever wants to be his friend.  Gee Steve, I wonder why that is.

[Heimdal]

What a douche!

He's basically telling his fans to pull their weight. Dood needs to get over himself. Every artist wants fans, but it should never be about having fans. I could never respect an artist like that, because he, and his artistic talent, are never going to develop into something better.. he'll probably always keep thinking it's my fault for not liking him.

I'm not going to put him on my watch list. I'm just going to let him wallow in the reduced exposure he's ruining himself with.

[Lazarian]

Funny thing is, he's been acting like this forever. Even back in the days of alt. fan.furry he'd complain about not ever getting any recognition for his contributions to the fandom. And then he'd hint at incidents where people made him uncomfortable or unwelcome, and when asked to clarify on any of that, he'd clam up or say he didn't want to "cause drama". And then bring the same shit up again, never elaborating on who or why. It was never this person did this to me, it was always THE FANDOOOOOM!!! OOOHHHHoooooohhhh! I was pissed that somehow me being a furry, I was by default part of some concerted effort to make his life miserable in the fandom, yet he just kept going on about the nasty furries (present company excluded, of course). I eventually proved him right by calling him a troll. Yay me.

He even showed up on CYD for a bit as "The Outsider", his number one fan in tow, "Duntov475", then "Big Evil Ogre". He always had this thing about referring to himself as "The Outsider", as if somehow that gives him an air of being discriminated against and victimized, while being useful as a shield against any criticism: say anything untoward about poor Stevie, well you're just treating him like all the others did! For Shame! I don't think anyone bought his routine there either.

[ProvincialTwit]

Now I'm somewhat morbidly curious what sorts of "contributions to the fandom" he feels he deserves recognition for, especially as far back as the a.f.f. days.

[Lazarian]

Instead of quoting the huge wall of text of his bio on his FA page (hilariously written in third-person narrative), here's the relevant bit...

"Most of Steven's published credits were from Shanda Fantasy Arts. He was the inker of Shanda the Panda, Extinctioners, Atomic Mouse, SFA Spotlight, and other SFA titles. He's the creator and artist of the 'Fawn' feature in the New Horizons series and Shanda the Panda #42."

That and his magnum opus, his Carc & Slide comic.

(and he stays crunchy in milk,too)

[Sechs]

Instead of quoting the huge wall of text of his bio on his FA page (hilariously written in third-person narrative)

Oh Jesus. Don't you bet he's spent more time working on that text than most people spend on their resumes? Probably tried to make himself a Wikipedia article with it or something.

[Lazarian]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh God! Allan/LupineAssassin is on Stevie's DA watch list. Nothing but the cream of the crop for his watch list! Allan posted...

"There are some people who are getting too fake on dA. They only want posts, comments, or to see how many friends they can get. So let's see who will actually re-post this. This is a test to see who's paying attention. This is a test to see how many people in my friends list actually pay attention to me. Copy and re-post in your own bulletin. Lets see who the true friends are and I think I know who you are... Re-post this if you are a friend... reply...and just copy and paste this in a new bulletin as "Fake Friends'"

why are these people doing that you tell me."

In reply, Steve (lone-wolverine) wrote...

"You should see my friends list in Facebook, just 53 and out of that 53, only a half-dozen are friends, a half-dozen are associates, so that leaves me 41 acquaintances. If I had my druthers, I'd dump the 41 and run with the dozen, but I'd have to have Captain America's shield handy to dodge the brickbats."

Strangely enough, Addlesee never did repost that little test thing. I guess Mr. Addlesee's philosophy of reciprocy only applies to anyone else but him. But then, given who was on the other end...

Hahaha. They deserve each other.
 

[Freehaven]

"You should see my friends list in Facebook, just 53 and out of that 53, only a half-dozen are friends, a half-dozen are associates, so that leaves me 41 acquaintances. If I had my druthers, I'd dump the 41 and run with the dozen, but I'd have to have Captain America's shield handy to dodge the brickbats."

Well, shit, what's stopping him?  If he doesn't want to have "non-friends" on his goddamn Facebook, then he can just clear 'em out.  It's not really that hard, damn.

[Sechs]

"You should see my friends list in Facebook, just 53 and out of that 53, only a half-dozen are friends, a half-dozen are associates, so that leaves me 41 acquaintances. If I had my druthers, I'd dump the 41 and run with the dozen, but I'd have to have Captain America's shield handy to dodge the brickbats."

Well, shit, what's stopping him?  If he doesn't want to have "non-friends" on his goddamn Facebook, then he can just clear 'em out.  It's not really that hard, damn.

Because then he couldn't brag about how he's being followed by peons he couldn't care less about, obviously!

[Freehaven]

Because then he couldn't brag about how he's being followed by peons he couldn't care less about, obviously!

To wit: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1343861/

[LordNagetiere]

I wish I had more accounts to watch him with just to further annoy him, or better still some way to hack a script into FA so it appeared EVERYONE was watching him but faving or commenting on his work 404'd someone. He'd be driven nuts (well, nuttier).

[Heimdal]

Linked from Freehaven, I read a bunch of his comments and whatnot. I was entirely compelled to respond, as his wussy ideas are an affront to my artistic sensibilities.
Again: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1343861/

He says he wants "loyal and dedicated" fans, because he doesn't like insincerity and treachery of the average fan. However, he can't take a valid critique. In conclusion, he really just wants fans who will kiss his ass and fake sincerity, because truly honest people would rip his art apart. We all knew this, I'm just surprised at the absolute extent of it.

Given his immense ego, and attitude that his art is fine just the way it is, I would have assumed that he could at least back that attitude up a little bit. Now, I'm proud of my own art, but I'm not cocky... Nevertheless, my stuff destroys his. His art is stale and hideous, so it doesn't take much. Realizing that, you'd think he'd listen to anyone who gives him advice... or at least try to improve on his own. Nah, he's right where he wants his art to be, and he intends to stay right there. That is what we call in the artist world, "Being a fucking idiot." I tried to explain it to him more diplomatically and logically, but harsh realities threaten the delusion of grandeur he has erected, therefore making me the enemy.

I love all the self-proclaimed titles and ideas he has, though. Calling himself "The Outsider" (despite being just like every other self-absorbed drama-whore in the fandom); I wonder if anybody else has ever called him that? He's also wise, accurate, and insightful.. I just haven't seen proof of these beyond him stating that he is.

EDIT--
He deleted that latest journal, so the link's broken. I feel almost bad now.. between me and a few others, true statements were just too much for him to handle. I did tell him to "suck it up", so I guess deleting all of it was his act of defiance. But on the other hand, he's a wussss! Art's not kindergarten, mama's boy!