WP2: My Thoughts and Common Ground
Personally, I have a lot of creative interests and impulses that I follow and participate in, but don’t really match up to what the online space deems trending or relevant at the time. Even when there are certain tight knit communities for these specific interests, it’s unrealistic to dedicate yourself to one of these, for me, at least. I always find myself caught between posting what I want to post and posting what I think will get me the glorious gratification of online happy points like likes and views.
In an ever-changing online world, it’s hard to keep up and not be tempted to give up, but the way that the programs are curated makes the urge to claw your way to thousands of likes and followers is almost always higher than the urge to be genuine to yourself.
For me, I partake in a lot of different fandoms and make art for various shows or games I like, but not often enough to commit myself to it as to make my entire audience made up of one community. I also like to draw digitally, but make lots of handmade dolls as well which doesn’t do as well on a primarily digital page. In this space, it’s harder and harder to mix and match and to fully represent you as a complex person rather than just a content machine. I don’t even have that many followers, yet these impulses and ideas still spread to my art making process like venom.
The worst part is that my biggest fears of content creation almost always come true. In every effort to gain traction on my art, adhering to the algorithms or trends almost always results in a euphoric 15 seconds of fame with little real growth.
As Instagram rolled out their “business” view to which you can look into your statistics on each individual post, I quickly became obsessed. I mean, who wouldn’t want to see which posts got sent out more and exactly how many accounts looked at my post but didn’t bother to interact with it?
Here are a few examples of my own analytics from the past few weeks. First, we have a screenshot of a post that I really enjoyed creating. It was a personal piece I fit in between my school assignments as a de-stresser for the sole purpose of catering to myself and my own interests. On a whim, I decided to post it to my Instagram account.
It did alright, but not amazing. Next is a drawing of Monster High characters I made upon the release of their “Haunt Couture” doll line. As a fan, I made a piece of fanart for the purpose of sharing it online. Here are the stats for this post instead.
Finally, I made a post for this project to observe the intersection between the two posts I looked at. Upon the rise of TikTok, Instagram implemented a new type of post called “reels”, which is essentially a different way of saying “reposted TikToks but on our platform”. The algorithm, as observed by many artists I’ve seen on Instagram as well as myself, heavily favors reels on the explore page and when recommending new posts to users. I tried my hand at one of these reels, using a fairly popular audio track that was circulating the character art community which I follow closely. Here is the video and its stats.
Ok, so, clearly there’s a discrepancy here. My personal post, while I loved making it, was kind of a flop in terms of my usual posts. For reference, I usually get around 85–100 likes per post. When I posted fanart I liked making, but focused its creation on getting likes on Instagram, I was rewarded. Finally, the reel got less likes, but a crazy amount of accounts reached for my standards.
The platform constantly cycles through a circle jerk of the same content and casts aside more personalized posts. For example, in a fandom, it’s the same three most popular characters that generate the most likes. In animation, it’s the shorter form, comedy based shorts that generate the most views. It makes logical sense when you’re thinking from a social media executive corporate point of view, but not when you are the actual person behind a constant flow of the same posts with real emotional responses.
In my interviews, I saw a lot of similar discouraged sentiments about this way of posting. Matt brought this up while he spoke on his experience as a full time content creator; there was a constant pressure to make certain types of art despite being fully in control of what he was posting. The invisible hand of the algorithm still guided his every move as his whole attitude toward art changed.
While social media corporations pivot toward supporting content creators as a career path, they still lack the essential empathic link to the real life person behind the content. It’s a lot different when your boss is a string of code instead of a human and requires more thought and fine tuning than anyone expected.
Some of this nuance when posting online includes the idea of using different platforms for different purposes. The thought is that if you want a more personal or closer tie to your fanbase, it was easier to obtain on Twitter or Instagram while YouTube and TikTok were almost purely for growth.
Jules mentioned in our conversation how she hacks the way certain platforms are bigger than others to grow her main account. Both her and Matt have used TikTok to funnel their desired audience to their Instagram to have a more intimate online experience with their followers. Again, according to Matt, “none of this would have happened if it weren’t for TikTok.”
But even that isn’t entirely holy to the major corps who control the Internet’s socialization sites. The techniques to work the system that content creators have been using is already started to become obsolete. These platforms have begun to favor different types of content, as they all want to be the primary place for this booming content creation ring.
For example, I wanted to bring up the shopping tab on Instagram. Its alleged purpose was to boost small businesses and those trying to monetize their Instagram following. I’m all for small businesses thriving, especially with how essential the online space is for their growth, but it creates an awkward atmosphere when those creators are taking up the same space as casual social interactions. Anyone can see its Instagram’s way of trying to make itself the number one spot for content creation, when that wasn’t its original purpose to begin with.
Jules talks about how strange this new change has felt: “I think that’s just like a big thing that’s just like a bigger thing about social media in general, where it’s like, I don’t think anybody expected it to do what it did. But now everything takes shape, takes form like, OK, we should make this kind of like the same thing for everybody. But I personally find it kind of sad that it’s kind of, like, how do I describe it? It’s like the individual-ness of, like, each platform is kind of, like, going away because of that.”
When you force a status quo change into an already delicate ecosystem, it forces some organisms out.
“It’s like it’s harder for people who make content. If they were to stay more individualized. But it’s also like, I don’t know, it feels just like I just wish it was easy to like, cater your social media experiences like differently, but it’s hard.”
However, as a creator largely in the fandom space, Jules has created unique ways to manipulate the expectation of the social media entity. In her own words, “usually what happens when I start phasing out of a fandom is I start like, I take characters that I like from that fandom and just kind of like, turn them into original characters.”
She combines with what she knows about the platform and turns it on its head as to turn her fandom based audience into her own. Many other users have gotten creative with the rather restrictive tools given to them online just like her.
On the other hand, when observing Amali’s experience in comparison, we can see how it can backfire, as she found herself the center of unwanted attention and identity issues when using these so-called hacks to grow her following. It requires a balance of personal boundaries and use of the algorithm to get the perfect ideal of real connections and a large following, if it even really exists.
The thing is, most users aim for a reality that is simply unattainable. Users at any level of following struggle with themselves and their work. It leads me to believe that there isn’t any perfect situation online.
But, then, how do you achieve at least a good or fun experience online? What is the ultimate goal of posting art online? Is the only reason to be posting work to get likes and views?
From my interviews, I can confidently say that it isn’t, at least, not for everyone. Amali, Jules and Matt all valued the connections they’ve made through the Internet, finding little satisfaction in the overwhelming numbers and statistics. They all got the most giddy when talking about the bonds and friendships they’ve made in the online space.
There is value in gaining traction, especially in a more business focused lens, but posting your art online doesn’t always have to be such a sterile, uninvolved experience.
Sources:
Morgan, Amali. Personal Interview. 2 March 2022.
Pincus, Jules. Personal Interview. 4 March 2022.
Sorgie, Matthew. Personal Interview. 4 March 2022.