I got beef with Instagram
Instagram sure is nice for fidgeting, shitposting, and checking what your favourite dog celebrity is up to these days. But I’ve come to realize that I have a huge beef with it.
The year was 2018. After indulging in a several-month avoidance period, I’ve finally decided to create an art account and share my first illustrations. I figured posting them online would motivate me to do them more often, and it did. To this day, I still use it as an accountability tool and as a means to promote my artwork.
Starting to post on Instagram has been a pivotal step towards becoming an illustrator. It has helped me to find work, discover other artists I could learn from, and grow myself as an artist. I’m incredibly grateful for it and will keep using it for the time being.
That being said, Instagram also sucks butt.
Not quite the algorithm-pleaser
Even though I have never completely stopped posting on Instagram since I’ve started, I’m not what you would call a steady poster. It just doesn’t work for me. Sometimes work takes longer to produce. Others, my all-too-emotional self is just not in the right headspace to even pick up the pen. I bounce from posting once or twice a week to posting only once a month.
If you go through my page, you’ll see that the posts are far from cohesive. I’d rather document the evolution of my work than following a specific, consistent style. Plus, I’d rather talk about butts, climate change, periods, and chickens than pick one of those topics and stick to it.
I also don’t love the whole hashtag thing. I still use them but I’m pretty sure I’m not doing it right — and I secretly don’t want to take the time to figure it out. Not a fan of posting at a certain time of day, either. When I finish an illustration I’m too excited to wait, so I just post it right away. I usually only interact with content I truly love and feel connected to; I don’t do it sake of people reciprocating the interaction.
As you can tell by now, the way I use Instagram is not very algorithm-friendly. It works for me personally, of course, but it scores low on metrics such as frequency, consistency, and engagement. This pretty much means that my page doesn’t attract enough attention to be worth promoting. In other words, it doesn’t make them enough money.
There’s more to this, of course. There are many issues I’ve never dealt with personally who affect plenty of other people. For instance, Instagram has the adorable habit of censoring female nipples (as if nipples have gender or sex), and genitals, either photographed or drawn. What is it about them that is so offensive and ungodly? Please stop. A lot of — if not most — artists need to have an online presence in order to thrive, so don’t censor them.
Underground artist cred
After two years on Instagram, I have a little over 600 followers and I can’t help but feeling a little disappointed. I hate that even I care about it, but I do. In my head, I’d have dream clients begging me to work with them if only I reached the four-digits.
People with thousands of followers might feel just as invisible. Do I want to punch them? Yes, but at the same time I know people will always have a higher yardstick to measure themselves against, so it’s normal to feel inadequate.
Will having more followers make me successful on my own terms? I don’t know. Probably not. Among artists with a large following, some may be exposed to plenty of work opportunities while others are still struggling.
For plenty of people, myself included, having a larger number of followers has become an end in and of itself. For that reason, we need to reflect on this idea of visibility. What does it mean to you? What exactly is the pursuit of “visibility” helping you achieve?
Where should we go, then?
Whether you’re an artist who manages to be popular on Instagram or not, you deserve to be heard. Every voice is valuable, even if it’s not palatable or profitable enough. While this is true, we can’t possibly expect a profit-driven corporation such as Instagram to cater to our needs.
We need a new platform. A place where artists are completely free to experiment, have fun, make progress, or do none of the former. A place that promotes genuine engagement instead of comparison, one that allows us to find other artists regardless of their popularity. A place with no pointless vanity metrics.
Does it exist? I have no idea. I’m thinking of an Instagram-dribbble-Pinterest hybrid. Go ahead and develop it, I won’t sue you.
