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i often think of the question "if you could tell something to your younger self, what would it be?" i don't exactly like thinking of the past in terms like this, because i prefer to move on rather than to wallow. however, there are many people who are younger than me now who are at the same place that i was at their age, or just new at art in general and finding their place within the sea of other artists. i'm not a seasoned veteran by any means, but i do have 10+ years of experience of being an active user of social media, specifically within multiple social media-based art communities. my main takeaway from each and every one is that primarily engaging with your passion through social media is not a good idea.
i know, it's also boomer-y to say things like "social media bad", but that's not what i'm saying here. i'm saying that, if you truly want to have a career in animation, illustration, concept design, or what have you, primarily engaging with your craft in the context of big corpo social media communities - tiktok, twitter, instagram - is bad for your mental health and motivation in doing what you love. i'm also not saying not to use it at all - whether you want to use it or not is your choice - but don't get all your art knowledge, communication with other artists, or opinions on art from there. and definitely don't let whatever art you may post on there be indicative of your worth.
i'm sure that, if you're using spacehey, you probably have some sort of knowledge about spyware and trackers, so i'll put those reasons aside, though they're equally as important.
social media doesn't tell the whole truth, leading to insecurity
this is a fact that many people know already, but is easy to forget. the things people are posting on social media are their best work. you don't know how long it took them to make that, how they made that, or whether or not they had it ready beforehand. even if they're just doodles, you don't know how long they've trained for, whether or not they went to an art school at a young age, what they did to train, whether or not they traced that, whether or not they struggled with it, whether or not they looked at tutorials...the list goes on.
one's "art account" is an advertisement - a representation of their best self. even if art is one's passion, the purpose of an art account is, ultimately, to attain a following of some sort. why join social media to post art if it's not for other people to see it? people, in turn, are more likely to follow you if you post your best, rather than your worst works, as people usually prefer "beautiful" over "ugly" or shoddily-done art.
but when you see people on social media only posting things they've carefully curated for that sake, the context in which they created them isn't present to you. if you see a 13 year old making michaelangelo-tier masterworks, you can't tell whether they picked up a pencil only last year, had their parents force them into hours upon hours of rigorous practice, or have a high enough family income to hire the best tutors and attend the most prestigious art schools. all you see is that a 13 year old is making michaelangelo-tier masterworks.
social media sites don't just show you posts from people you follow as they chronologically come up. they take what posts you liked/reposted, who you follow, and even things you do on other websites into account. (if you don't like that latter one, protect yourself!) in addition, they tend to push posts from accounts with larger followings, and posts that fall into specific criteria to fit a niche. this means that you're more likely to see posts if they have more likes, and if they fit a certain trendy topic. this means that, if they're following a certain trendy topic, you're more likely to see the art of the 13 year old who creates michaelangelo-tier masterworks, than that of their peers who are less experienced, or who draw things that aren't trendy.
a note on age here: DRAWING ISN'T ACTING OR MODELING. THERE IS NO AGE LIMIT! there's a stupid myth in some art communities that if you don't "get good" by your teens or early 20s, you need to give up already, or that artists in their early 20s are "older artists". (we're in the gen z bracket, for crying out loud!!) the truth is that many going to the top art colleges, like calarts or sheridan, are in their mid-late 20s to early 30s, and many getting their first jobs in the industry are around that age as well. the reason why so many artists on social media seem to be young with career-ready art is because of not only the algorithm-based reasons i mentioned earlier, but also because social media art communities generally skew younger, meaning that a skilled 14 year old is far more likely to want to share their work on tiktok than a skilled 64 year old. if anything, the only aspect of "age" that truly matters in obtaining an entertainment art (animation, games, concept design, illustration, etc) job is that many companies go for hiring single young people because they have more energy and are therefore more easy to exploit for longer hours, but such a thing should not be a factor in whether or not you want to draw. and neither should the ages of accounts with lots of followers on social media.
age-specific concerns aside, no matter what, you will see an artist who is "better" than you, who has some skill you may desire, who can draw something in 2 minutes that takes you 2 weeks, no matter how hard you try not to. as we're predisposed to compare ourselves to out peers in order to better understand ourselves, and our brains can't differentiate between social and parasocial relationships without conscious reflection, you will ultimately compare yourself to one of these artists, even if you don't personally know them, as they possess something that you would like to have. whether or not this consistent comparison is motivating to you or not is not for me to say, but, especially if you've never talked to them before, it is ultimately an unfair one.
like i said before, there are many things that may have made those artists who they are that you couldn't possibly know about, and many other problems they could be having that you do not. therefore, your only choice as to what you compare yourself again is based on any conclusions you can draw from their social media profile. if all you see is amazing artwork and loads of followers, and you desire these things as well, you do not think of how and why they have those followers. they could've been on the platform for a long time, draw solely for the purpose of gaining followers, had their artwork featured somewhere, work on a famous show, made a famous meme comic. and their skill? like i said - rich parents, drawn since the age of 3, nothing detrimental to their learning in their life. art is a journey, and the presentation of one's social media account is only a part of it. how could you possibly know all of that from so few details?
worse yet is that many people on social media tend not to understand all of these facets. of course, harassing people who you feel are better than you is not a good way to take out your feelings, especially if those people are kids, but why place yourself in an environment where speaking out about insecurities (even if the given example isn't in the best way) and having empathy for people who are emotionally affected by the outcome of algorithms is discouraged? why would you want to be a part of a community that is so unaware of itself?
what i'm saying here is that what you see on social media isn't real life. if algorithms consistently feeding you amazing artists don't make you insecure in your abilities, good for you. but even if it doesn't, remember that you can't know someone's story entirely from their art account, so assuming things about them or comparing yourself to them is parasocial and ultimately detrimental to what you want most - to keep drawing.
the "content creator" phenomenon
throughout the last decade, popular social media has began to operate on the basis of what i call the "content creator phenomenon". the phrase "content creator" usually connotes a person online who creates "content" - a general term meaning any sort of media one is exposed to on the internet - for other people to see it. a plethora of artists, writers, editors, essayists, and other people with all sorts of skills, trades, and traits who share their works on social media have all been reduced to the moniker of "content creator", and their work as "content". anyone can be a "content creator", from someone who posts paintings to someone who reposts memes.
social media and the internet in general used to be seen as merely a stepping stone for a larger "traditional" career. this is why youtubers back in the late 00s to early 10s moved en masse to los angeles. nowadays, and especially during the pandemic, posting online has become an option for a stable career, hence the plethora of "content creators" big and small. more and more people are enticed by the idea of producing "content" and gaining a following from it - not unlike the boom of hollywood movies more than 100 years ago - and are creating "content" to post online for that purpose. there's even videos, bootcamps, and mentors now dedicated on how to accrue large online followings. "content creator" is now, in addition to something that exists for the sole act of sharing or directing attention, a career path.
the particular usage of the word "content" matters here. the reduction of all of these different varieties of images, words, or videos to "content", even if the word is not used explicitly, puts them all on the same qualitative level, despite their the varying levels of work and time put into them, turning them into something that exists solely to bide the time of others. something existing solely to bide the time of others isn't a bad thing in its essence - there's nothing wrong with memes or cute videos of cats. but for social media artist communities, the "content creator" mindset goes against the concept of improving as an artist.
the sake of posting your art on social media is, inherently, to have people see it. not wanting anyone see art you posted ultimately defeats the purpose of posting it on a medium inherently designed for others to look at posts. no matter why in particular you may want a social media account, the ultimate goal is visibility. you can gain visibility through views and likes, but followers are the most stable way of ensuring repeated visibility. like the concept of brand loyalty, people who follow you are committing to seeing your art whenever you post it.
what determines how successful a "content creator" is? the amount of followers and views their "content" gets. how do you get more followers and views? you get your posts seen. how do you get your posts seen? you get liked, commented on, and/or reposted a lot. how does that happen? you get picked up by the algorithm. how do you get picked up by the algorithm? by posting a lot, and by tailoring what you post to the tastes of your niche. check out your five favorite social media artists, note how many followers they have, and note some of the visual qualities of their works. do you see anything in common?
the splintering of internet subcultures and the existence of multiple niches means that there's usually more than one "algorithm", rather than one overarching entity, tailoring to the interests of a website's diverse userbase in order to get them to stay on for longer. based on someone's likes, someone will get placed into a "category" of posts that will be recommended to them. you likely have a category of post that's recommended to you. for people interested in looking at art on social media, this turns into a certain category of artist.
but taste isn't the only thing that matters here - engagement matters, too. and whether or not you get engagement can be predicted by the number of followers you have, but it's usually a lottery of sorts. you're not going to get engagement just because you draw the right art, are technically skilled, and have lots of followers. usually, what matters most is posting consistently, but even that isn't a guarantee that you'll get picked up. it's like attempting to get a jackpot in a slot machine - the promise of winning, being "picked up", is a fantasy of sorts, but something that, even if you take all the right precautions, is mostly a matter of chance.
as an artist, you are not inherently going to produce a product you envision in your head immediately. it will require time, effort, and practice. but those key aspects of gaining a following on social media, along with the blinding promise of "engagement" with your "content", require that you consistently catch people's attention. it may be that your artistic style fits in perfectly with the parameters of what any potential audiences may like, but for the vast majority, finding your artistic voice isn't as neat as fitting yourself into a category. you may want to experiment, practice, take time off, focus on other things, but doing this risks losing followers, as they're here not for you, but for your "content". and as a "content creator", losing followers spells your downfall. through this model, your autonomy as an artist and as a person is reduced to your ability to "create content". for the big "creator", you're reliant on the opinions of a mass, and the potential downfall is greater. for the small "creator", you don't even get a chance to begin. you will never be "good enough". but you don't have to be.
the truth is that you, as an artist, are not a "content creator". even if drawing is your job, you are not a machine made solely for the sake of drawing, like how fast food clerks aren't made solely for the sake of serving fast food. art has to be something that you want, that you would be willing to do even if you didn't have "engagement". can you enjoy drawing on your own, or do you have to post drawings? when you draw, are you worried about how a potential audience may receive it? are you tailoring yourself to other people, or are you drawing for your own sake? when you're caught in the whirlwind of social media "content creation", you have no choice but to worry about how something you make may be received, unless you're a "big name", which most of us are not. you are not a cog in other people's machines, even if you feel like you have to be.
getting advice from social media
in addition to posting art, "art community" activities on social media comprise of engaging with other artists. a lot of this is advice on how to draw, what to draw, where to draw, and when to draw it. there's "style discourse", "tracing discourse", "stealing discourse", and all sorts of other asinine discourses. think of them this way - what are people ultimately trying to achieve by ranting and raving about this? do they want to change the art community as a whole? is arguing, in these cases, a positive thing? whether the array of positions taken on these "discourses" are right or wrong ultimately don't matter if the people participating do not have an intention aside from "convincing" some form of strawman. "discourses" are really, really, really not that big of a deal. and if they are, arguing about them online is like trying to convince your friend with no taste that thin crust pizza is better than thick crust. feel free to make up your own mind, and call people out on things that actually pose some sort of physical, mental, emotional, legal, or some other risk, but the "right" way to draw cannot be determined solely by the whims of those with 5k+ followers. that's andrew loomis's job.
like i've said before, people on social media tend not to be self-aware about the effects social media has on them. perception on social media largely derives from what one is exposed to based on their own personalized feed. posts, especially when verbal comments have to be reduced to short form, are usually vague, and the intent of the poster is not taken into account, in favor of the reader's interpretation. people easily forget the person on the other side of the screen. even if you want to "support other artists", it's hard when you're not only in competition for viewer's attention with them, but if you have a way to separate yourself from them which puts you on top.
in addition, the social structure of social media discourages the giving of advice. much like the concepts of copyright and patent, if one person has a technique or brush that assists them greatly, their incentive to share advice with others largely depends on their own whims. they can be as generously helpful or as vague as they want to be, for any reason. there are more reliable "resources" than people who have other agendas in mind. algorithms also curate your timeline to show you only specific kinds of art, limiting your exposure to art in general. the social media art world is, at the end of the day, extremely limiting. there's so much advice, so many resources, so much in general outside of this realm. why on earth would you want to confine yourself to it?
what do i do instead?
i'm not entirely knocking social media usage for art. it's useful in getting hired for a job, some schools require some sort of social media art site on their applications, and it's useful for general exposure, as most people don't know the internet outside of a few websites. if you want one, get one. but social media isn't a great place to develop as an artist, let alone a great place to foster an actual community. if you're still looking for an artist community on the internet, here's some alternatives:
- try out forum sites with art communities. forums, image boards, or social media sites without followers (like spacehey!) can be great places to get advice, share art, and learn new things, as they place all their users on an equal standing, rather than using followers, likes, or engagement to divide them.
- chat clients and social media with separate rather than one big instance (like fediverse instances) can serve this purpose as well. (yes, fediverse instances have followers, but its structure means that it's less reliant on "engagement".)
- if you want any big social media site, try tumblr or pinterest. yes, they have followers, but minimal commenting and a focus on curating images rather than creating posts with engagement can be a great place for you to gather tutorials and inspiration without feeling bogged down by extraneous circumstances.
- make your own website! self-host or use a shared hosting service like neocities or tilde.club to create a website on which to post your art. the "community engagement" in doing this works a little differently than what you're used to (comments on neocities, stuff like webrings, etc) but if you primarily want to share your work, making a site is a great and more customizable option.
if you're sticking on social media, remember that the "community" it provides is a skewed perception of reality, and doesn't reflect life, let alone your own life and worth as an artist. you can absolutely practice, create, and work outside of the confines of "content creation". i promise, you won't be missing out on anything if you do, and your mental health will be all the better for it.
Comments
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gin
theres a huge amount of art floating around, and no amount of quality can guarantee any sort of attention. social media really ruined my self confidence when it came to making music, which i understand wasn't the intention of this post but i did resonate with what was said. honestly, its good to hear someone be so reassuring considering how scared i can be while creating. ive spent about two years working on upcoming releases, and the months leading up to the release i find myself changing everything i had done and realizing how i let social media influence how i make my music. once i let peoples "engagement" influence me, i had lost myself. thanks for the post, kudos
Helios (he)
Social media is a tool, and it's all about how you use it.
exactly. with the pandemic, more people are "more online", so it can be hard to remember. social media doesn't create, you do.
by nights :); ; Report
Thegoodolddays
100% agree! While picked up on a few good art tips from socials, I'm mostly self-taught. People ask what courses I took or how I learned, and they look at me like I have three heads when I say "uh... I don't really know, I just *did*."
And ditto on the algorithm points; I've been trying to make content on TikTok for almost 3 years now, and my views on each video typically stay stagnant around 200, with no likes or comments. I'm convinced that at this point the algorithm is just giving me bot views to get me to believe anyone is watching. Meanwhile the eight-year-old who drew a stick figure is on my FYP with over several thousand likes, and three times that many views. It gets insanely frustrating, especially when I see other talented artists not getting the recognition they deserve too.
look at the reply to the comment under yours - it's not always 1:1 with skill:followers. an 8 year old drawing stick figures appeals to people's need to be nice, i don't think anyone's under the impression that they're michaelangelo. followers are /not/ a marker of your skill or worth - there's so much more to art than that. (and it's not content!!)
by nights :); ; Report