Social Media and Art

Back in 2014 I decided to try and go out on my own to start a "creative business". Now I was excited by the idea that I could follow in the footsteps of some of my favorite artists and designers and build a creative business that would support my family and give me a sense of fulfillment.

Enter Social Media.

I had absolutely no idea how to start and run a business. The internet offered a vast wealth of knowledge on the subject for free (or so I thought) and so at first I read blogs (many of which were helpful), and began to accumulate as much knowledge about business as I could. Part of my problem was I would not act on that knowledge for fear of getting something wrong. Things started to go downhill from there when I started to turn to YouTube and Instagram for tips on solving problems I wasn't even having yet.

In my mind I was getting things done because I was researching and being diligent, but in reality I was addicted to obtaining information rather than actually doing the thing I had orginally set out to do. On top of that, social media platforms were getting smarter and algorithms were getting very sophisticated to the point where not only was I addicted to informational content, but I was also getting addicted to entertainment content.

The entertainment helped me temporarily forget the fact that I wasn't successful (whatever that means), but then after wasting away hours I would feel even worse. Unfortunately like a drug, I would turn to social media (YouTube in particular) and try to drown out my thoughts and feelings that were ultimately caused by the very platforms I was turning to.

I definitely don't want to complain here.

I often describe my relationship with social media as a love-hate relationship. On one hand it offers an incredible opportunity to connect with people all over the world at scale. THAT is most definitely a blessing for artists and makers as they don't have to be tied to a geographic location in order to have their work seen, appreciated, or bought.

But even with this incredible opportunity coupled with my personal experiences and struggles in overconsumption on these platforms I have a hard time reconciling the idea of building my business and connecting with people who love my work while also feeding the monster machine of social media.

I don't have an answer yet.

I still struggle to get things done. I have often gotten sucked in to the endless scroll of social media and regretted it. My time is very precious and finite. I want to spend more time creating than consuming (and no I don't really mean creating more content...bleh).

Of course content is how an artist like me gets discovered, but I want to focus more on slower, more meaningful content, not just the quick hit of a 10 second reel on IG. For now...that means I will be focusing more on this blog and my newsletter. For now that is my answer to my problem. I still want to have a YouTube channel and post on social media, but more as a way to share this blog and go deeper into my work and find people who connect with that work.

Final thoughts...

I was very tempted to delete all of my social media recently. I couldn't bring myself to do it because I believe that I can help make these platforms better by interacting with the community. However, I had to make some changes to the way I personally interact with these platforms. Here are some solutions I came up with: