I Want To Be An Artist, Not A Content Creator

Do Artists Need Social Media?

I don't know about you but I have noticed a sharp deterioration of my attention span over the last few years.

I was born in 1976, which means that I had no access to the internet to speak of until my early 20's, and back then it was dial-up, not broadband, which as those of you who are familiar will remember, was sloth-like. Life in general felt slower then, I often watch movies that are set pre-internet/mobile phones and long for them again, sadly I don't think it would be possible currently for me to ditch my smartphone... not yet anyway. These days if a browser page doesn't come up within 2 seconds I get impatient! I didn't even own a mobile phone till I was around 21, and it was very basic... just texts and calls (although I never used it to text back then). Type in 'Nokia 1997' to google and you'll get the idea. Now we hold super-computers at our fingertips.

This is me demonstrating the blistering speeds of early internet dial-up

TheEvolution Of Social Media

I have been watching a lot of artists on Youtube talking about deleting their Instagram accounts, one of the creators said something that really resonated with me which inspired this blog post, 'I want to be an artist, not a content creator'.

Being self employed means that there are already dozens of things you have to do AS WELL as making art, but social media now feels like it is stealing too much of my time. Social media makes art disposable and fast and isn't appreciated because of it. Someone will look at an image that took me a week to create and maybe only spend a couple of seconds looking at it before scrolling on. It's no wonder that people often expect to be able to commission an artist to paint a picture for them for $50 when they are so used to this type of interaction with it. They're not seeing the hard work.

Social media is an amazing tool and a gift for those of us trying to get eyes on our work, especially if one is in a niche which isn't something you could sell easily in a local gallery (unlike landscapes, nudes and wildlife art which are still some of the most popular genres sold in galleries). We have created our own little worlds and followings in this intangible online space and at first, it was great, it was chronological (I'm looking at you, Instagram) and the algorithms didn't seem to hamper one's reach at all. It is designed to keep you hooked and stay on the platform for as long as possible (all social media is this way of course) AND if you're a creator, they want you to make content using ALL the tools they have on their platform or you don't get views. I would be happy to pay a small monthly fee to use Instagram if it meant that my reach wasn't stifled and Instagram would still be able to make piles of cash!

Now you have to be an expert editor and videographer!

Instagram announced last year that they are no longer a 'photo sharing platform' but have been pushing 'reels' (copied from TikTok's short video style) instead. If you don't play their game and make lots of short videos, (60 seconds, you'd better make it interesting!), then your photos hardly ever get seen, at least mine don't. I have approximately 23,000 followers on Instagram but the average number of people who see a post is around 300-400! I have to pay now if I want to be able to reach the people who are already following me. Even TikTok financially incentivises its creators but Instagram does no such thing. Social media moves too fast to keep up - each time it changes, it adds yet another thing you need to get good at or learn in order to be visible. It's exhausting and unsustainable.

Making videos is very time consuming, it's also distracting to have to set up a camera or phone to film yourself painting when all you want to do is just paint without having to pause the video, change the angle of the camera etc. This doesn't even take into account the time that is then necessary to edit and upload said video. So when this video is going to be consumed in a matter of seconds, is it worth it? I don't think so. For a long video it's a different matter.

'Social media moves too fast to keep up - each time it changes, it adds yet another thing you need to get good at or learn in order to be visible. It's exhausting and unsustainable.'

I've been building my Instagram since around 2013 but it now feels like a Sisyphean task to make 'content' for it (the sort that they want - video). I used to post regularly (every day pretty much) using tailwindapp.com which allowed me to schedule posts in advance. I'd get two weeks scheduled in a couple of hours and then forget about it (other than replying to comments when they were posted). I am no longer going to do this, I won't be deleting my account but I will post occasionally instead of trying to beat algorithms with everyday posts.

Quality Not Quantity& Conscious Consumption

It's time for me to slow down and try a new (or old school) tactic! First of all I will make more long form content like this in blog form, very old school. I love writing and putting my thoughts down in written form and my blog is a great way to do it. I will also be trying to make more effort with YouTube. If I'm going to spend time making a video I don't want it to be on a platform where people can't search for it - plus once I reach 1000 followers there I can then monetise my video content. People find and watch videos that have been on YouTube for years - this makes much more sense than putting it somewhere which will be forgotten about tomorrow. I will also continue to use Twitter, despite it being a steaming cesspool of lunatics, it does get quite good reach occasionally!

Overall I want to try and stop consuming social media so unconsciously, in that I can lose a lot of time just scrolling and interacting (especially feeling the need to reply to ANY comment on a post I make) and I think of all the time I could have been making art, sewing a new pair of fancy pants, or gardening! Since deleting tiktok a week or so ago now I have noticed a big difference already.

So DO artists need social media? Can we have success without it?

Yes and no. I think all artists should have a website of some kind to showcase their work - especially if they are looking for client work or trying to sell their own work, it's useful to have a base. Fortunately this is very easy to set up now with many sites making it super easy even for the tech-awkward. I think if you're wanting art industry jobs and illustrating for clients then other than your website I don't know that it would be really necessary to have a social media presence if you didn't want one since when looking for work it is very unusual to just be found randomly, you're more likely to have success from contacting the companies you want to work for directly with your portfolio. Feel free to correct me in the comments below if you don't agree! (After all I am not seeking client work anymore so am out of the loop!).

If you're like me and you've got your own IP and you want people to find it, then I think having some presence online is essential but try not to stress over the numbers. It's always better to have 100 super fans than to have 100,000 followers who just scroll past. It's definitely worth building a newsletter however, a great way to reach people who are actively interested in what you do. In future I hope to go back to doing some in-person events but I need to seek out the right ones for my work.

What do you think?

What are your thoughts? Are you an artist who is sick of social media or is it working well for you? Let me know below!