I 100% agree that instagram is dead for artists. So about 6 months ago I decided to unfollow every celebrity, movie studio, tv show etc I was following on instagram. Not even sure why I was following half of them to begin with to be honest, but they were just drowning everything else out to the point where they were all annoying me. All that was left of my follows was my friends and the artists, I thought this would fix my feed. But I still get more ads and recommended posts then I do content from people I know or the artists I follow. Instagram just does not want to show me art no matter how much I engage with it on the platform.
everyday i hide non-art posts from my art ig feed (from people i don't follow) but they still somehow manage to show up again in a different variation the next day.
Going to Instagram to feel like you're being sold something? Going to Tiktok for zombie entertainment? Yes. That's exactly how it feels 😅I miss the days of posting my little drawings to Deviantart or Tumblr and getting a little love over there. Now it just feels like screaming into the same void everyone else is screaming into. 😅
Yeah I miss when I first joined it around like 2013 I think o.o I was just learning to draw and DeviantArt was just more active and social not just for posting to "fans" or followers stuff you are selling
@@allcapsoff I’ve been loving the discord groups I’m in. Some are small and others larger but it just feels really nice, like an actual community again instead of whatever social media has become.
man, the internet went from being very introvert friendly to becoming a nightmare with having to be all of these different things from RU-vidr, tiktoker, personal brand advocate (in a very colourful way), podcaster, etc etc.
I just want a platform with equal discovery for everyone. I am so tired of cryptic algorithms that have built in biases that we just have to guess and hope puts our stuff in front of people.
Those platforms do exist but folks do not want to budge from the more popular sites. I personally adore the Inkblot community, the founder is really cool and it has a lot of potential but people are impatient. The indie groups that run sites like Inkblot or Artfol or Itaku have small dev teams and have only existed for a handful of years. People sign up and complain because “it’s not IG or twt” or “they aren’t getting as much engagement as they hoped” so they abandon it or worse they make vile comments about the devs… people want better but they don’t want to be patient with folks who can actually deliver a better experience without algorithms and all the other bs 😔
@@hellodelightfulrando that's so true! I've seen so many people complain on Artfol about how only 3 people liked their post and their engagement is horrible. But the point of Artfol is to make friends with other artists and be part of a community. If people aren't willing to participate in the community and support other artists, comment on other artists' work etc, then they won't get anything back out of it because nobody will find their work, and it's frustrating to see people complain when all they have to do to get people to see their art is to actively engage with the community, which is supposed to be the fun part of sharing stuff online.
@@arkthul8872 If you use Mastodon, note that is Web3 which equals AI, NFTs and Crypto. I don't think artists would want that unless you do then go on ahead. Though seriously, don't believe the hype train, the intentions may seem noble but it's deceptive.
This is why people should never rely only on social media to sustain their business; it's a fantastic tool, but if it were to disappear what then? Ive found the best solution is in person events, your own website, and newsletters. I know that sounds a bit counter intuitive, but at least then you know you aren't competing with algorithms or a stale platform you've invested all your time into.
Diversifying is always the safest route. I think people were so worried about shows not beings a thing during the pandemic, they put all there energy online and now we are seeing the result of that.
I think too investing that energy into something like RU-vid too is worth it because it stays on here and can be found again, but yes your own website and in person stuff are the best. Social media will always change and we shouldn’t rely on it fully. It’s just a tool.
That's true, but that's only really viable if you fulfill a pretty large set of requirements; you live in a region with a thriving (or potential) art community, you work on art thatreverberates with the local scene, you can finance your presence on such events, etc etc etc. I, for instance, live on a relatively large but very conservative port town, with a rich old money sort of demographic. There certainly is an art scene, but I ain't the one they're looking for -- still, personally, there's still a lot i could do, and that's before just moving. I can't imagine someone from the brazilian countryside, on a conservative rural village finding an art scene idk
The biggest issue for me with tags being replaced by algorithms is that I'm not shown what I want to see. When I subscribe to artists on ex-twitter or IG I expect to see posts from them, but instead the feed is all random sponsored / algorithm boosted posts form people I'm not interested in. Forget the engagement, I have to google artist's name and go to their landing page to see what's new these days.
Don't know if you've tried this but if you click the "instagram" word in the top left corner of the app, you can select to scroll a feed that is just from those you follow.
This helps me feel a lot better. I’m a 31yo artist who started late rather than a new artist. The few comments I get are “wow you’re so underrated” but it doesn’t matter if I can’t get any eyeballs on my work. My biggest regret was not starting this journey earlier when art in the online world was popular.
I had kind've the opposite experience. When I first started art I was 11. And it was around the time art online was blowing up. But at this point I was just kid. My skillset was awful. Now that I'm proud of what I make, I can't build a community around it, like I dreamed of for so long after watching so many others.
I find it horrible that social media are cutting down the engagement if you use more than two hashtags on your post or if you constantly use the same hashtags (it's true for twitter bc it is in its code and I've heard that insta does this too). I know it's intended to combat spam but it really fucks over new artists trying to get their work out there.
I didn't know putting the same hashtags would cut down the engagement. It's so hard to follow the algorithm changes nowadays and if you do it gives less time to draw unfortunately
They fail so badly in controlling the absolute pest that bots are, that they even contradict themselves with the features they add. Tags are *meant* to help people gain engagement and for othes to find stuff easily, but they cut it if you dare use in a way that's not the oddly specific way they want you to??, I hate algorithms
What?! If you use more than two tags Instagram lowers your engagement? 😢 I never knew that. I wondered what I was doing wrong since my art was getting fewer likes than they use to.
God I needed to hear this. Back in the day I engaged with artists on instagram like crazy and people would always say how posting art had a such a huge community and it was so much fun to engage with. Fast forward to now and when I finally started posting art, it felt alienating. It was so bad the only joy I felt engaging in art was the yearly artfight game, which I absolutely enjoy. And when I head over to insta it feels awful. I'm not sure when art will make a resurgence and I doubt it will be anytime soon. I hope all artists that make it a living can pull through this and make it enjoyable again.
The most invigorated I've felt as an artist in years has been making a youtube channel and just talking to void about art stuff and whatever I want. Everything else has just been isolating feeling.
@@Hello-hello-hello456honestly I’m all for more videos of artists and creatives let’s clutter the site and drown out the misinformation and rabbit hole scams with our skills and creativity 😊
I think it's easy for people to talk about going to art events as an alternative without considering how inaccessible these events still are, especially for artists with disabilities. Also if the community you live in dosen't have a large art community/market along with transportation to the location.
@beths5261 It's just not a "solve all" solution to "just go to events in person" and have it casually be something we all conclude to. Just realistic. It's an "if you can" scenario.
It also ignores the fact that those events are almost always geared towards traditional/ crafty artists, like things that you'd put in the living room. Cartoons stick out like a sore thumb, and animation isn't even possible. I make stories, not Avant Garde sculptures or realistic landscape paintings. Cons are where its at for that stuff, but most people don't live near a con heavy place, and it's a lot harder to get a table at a con than a local community market thing
Yep. Location is a big difference. You are never going to get the same traffic in a large, well endowed city compared to smaller, out of the way country places that barely have a sustainable community. It's not at all realistic. Online helps, but it's absolutely obscure unless you're lucky enough to generate some momentum. If you're relying on in person it's still best to be near/in a major city that would have enough people generating sustainable income. If living in said location is a concern (because costs are significantly more), you need to be okay with traveling to and from events which sounds fine and dandy, but can wear you out fast if keeping consistent loses it's luster. It's a challenge, so you have to ask yourself what you're willing to go through realistically to achieve your goals, as well as ask yourself if once you achieve it if it's still worth the effort.
I absolutely gave up on social media for art, it went nowhere and made me hate art….except for my personal fb to friends. I’m now focusing on local irl shows and shops, kinda like how it was pre-social media lol
Likewise, I just keep to myself mostly now. Just as they said, it's soul crushing to see an illustration you worked hard on, get only 10 likes and 0 comments.
I'm soooo desperate for a new fresh site for art that would unite all artists, and ban all ai art. I hate Instagram because you don't really have a search ability there. Like if I look up something I can't see something nice it's all a mess. And when you tag your art, often it doesn't even show up in the tag. Also I really enjoy liking posts, but Instagram hates that and thinks I'm spam, then bans me because I liked 100 photos in 1h....
Artfol is an art platform that's been around for around two years and bans AI art! It doesn't have an algorithm (with the exception of the trending page), and you can host challenges for other artists to participate in and you can even pick winners and a deadline. Old deviantart-like groups are also on the development roadmap. It's a quiet place with a smaller active user base, but I think it's really nice to use, and might be what you're looking for?
Inkblot and Artfol and Itaku are good choices. I personally am more active in the Inkblot community but please be mindful that a lot of these sites have very small dev teams and are community founded so slow updates and bugs are a reality. I can only speak for Inkblot personally but these devs really do try their hardest to do right by the art community but often get shot down for not being “as good” as the more established social media sites who have larger budgets and more staff but care nothing about the user base
I'm one of the bigger accounts on Instagram (200k - at my best 214K but now 199K) that has gone from great engagement to being invisible. I don't think going "relatable" "happy" and "approachable" is a good path for any artist. Because it's just going to be another generic happy relatable art thing. UNLESS this is something you want to do/are already doing of course. But if not it's just going to devalue art as a whole and make it less diverse, which is honestly a tragedy. But this is my perspective as a fine art artist working with galleries and doing original art is still what gets me money.
Agreed. I won't be changing anything myself either as I don't connect to wanting to create that type of work, it's just a trend I've been noticing lately!
I agree with you. I’m a designer for film/ games but last year I started a mural business because I saw AI eating into our studios business & I enjoy painting large. Tbh I have more mural engagements than I can even do - by far. I paint fine art murals of any subject
So, on insta, 75% to 85% of the people I follow are artists or motivational posters and yet I only see memes, ads, and sex. Like.... It feels pointless to open the app sometimes because I have to manually find who I want to see. I've spent so many years following so many amazing artists and I unfortunately cannot remember the all, but I do want to be pleasantly surprised scrolling by the beautiful things they post. RU-vid keeps up well, but the moment I spend a day focusing on the news or video essays, it takes a week or so to get it back to suggesting art again.
I had a personal ig page for over 10 years and assumed that all the different types of content creators I followed over the years (over2k) to suit my changing personality was responsible for the insane recommended posts to my feed. Art has always been a constant in my life so I made an account just for that so my feed was more streamlined and I only follow artists on that page, only like art, only search art, and I constantly got unrelated posts in my feed and even noticed there were people I was following I never actually added myself (my followingcount never went up (only 180) but I know exactly who I’m following and who I’m not so something wasn’t adding up, I call it ‘ghost following’. I dropped IG over a year ago and just haven’t shared my art anywhere because social media nowadays is crushing.
On Etsy, I was covering all my bills with extra leftover to easily buy what I needed for new inventory. This was also a year and a half ago. I wasn't doing 6k a month, but I was making enough, and my second job as a commission artist covered the rest. I was so proud of myself and it was great feeling unworried about paying bills. Now I'm barely scraping by and it's devastating. I've known that everyone is hurting, but I'm watching my savings dwindle after growing it for the last 4 years. And it's scary.
@@uenostation5445 I'm 2 years into etsy.. but nah unfortunatel;y it has become more corporate/ owners don't care about rampant drop shippers+ print on demand opportunist and now.... ai art grifters. 7 years ago etsy had 1 million stores.. but its so oversaturated now with 9 million. You can try, but definitely figure out what niche you want to capitalize on, and do deep research on which ones are oversaturated.
@@uenostation5445In my experience, Etsy takes such a chunk out of what you earn… I recommend just opening your own online store/website if you already have folks buying from you - that way you make the full profit. 💙
An issue I've always seen from the beginning is that social medias are not really geared towards artists either. Minimal protections and the algorithms are not consistent for art posting. The few online places for art specifically are also very old too and they are kinda outdated in many spots.
We need a new community based GALLERY. With an engaging home page like DA used to have. A main page HUB of daily bests, journals, news, polls and contests that's digestable in one scroll. Things now are hard to find, there's TOO MUCH at once and definitely oversaturated with bunch of fluff, or questionable stuff, and like you said with insta and similar platforms, bunch of ads and non art stuff. Ever since eclipse was rolled out the page is a waste of space with huge fonts, to the point even profile page needs bunch of scrolling. BUT, as of yet none of the new social media seem to have close to any success old DA had. To be fair a lot of them are still being finished. All the betas that may or may not fail eventually. BUT at least with a gallery it's easy to keep track of people's art rather than the endless scrolling of standard social media.
It's crazy; there's art I posted on Tumblr about 10 years ago and out of the blue people started liking/reblogging it recently. It's kind of funny but neat that folks still see it.
I was on the deviantart advisory board for a while when they were planning eclipse and I warned them that the update would ruin the site from a user experience perspective, as a UX designer it just seemed like a massive downgrade from the existing site and everything was very bloated and required more scrolling (lots of scrolling is terrible for UX). Other advisory board members disagreed and my advice was ignored time and time again, which led me to leave the advisory board. After the update was properly introduced, myself and many other artists left the site as it became too cumbersome to use. I haven't found an art site as good as pre-Eclipse deviantart since then. If they had kept the old layout but gave it a fresh coat of paint instead, I suspect dA would still have declined somewhat but not to the extent it did after the introduction of Eclipse.
oh god, it's 3 years now and it's still broken🙈 we are as users left our feedback, but they clearly didn't care that the new version is worse, not working well and have a lot of bugs and groups (also forum) are still working with the old templates (why??), but if I want to check group notifications, it's redirecting me to the new notification system. did they gave up on groups?? the main source of showing our work to people outside our following?
Scrolling is also terrible for vertigo. I wish more designers would consider this in terms of accessibility. I've studied design and UX and it was never discussed when we covered accessibility. Since I started getting vertigo over the past two years, I have realised just how many people suffer from it. Every second person I mention it to is like "oh yeah, me too!"
This is SUCH a relief. I'm an 18 y/o artist. My drawings on instagram get 10 likes, tops. I left twitter cuz everytime I log in the website makes me lose hope in life and humanity. I'm also on tumblr (also get no attention) and now threads, I was just thinking "is it even possible to be a content creator without a youtube channel?" Ya boi is gonna starve 😂
Fr I’m planning on focusing on RU-vid in the future when my art is good enough and I’m consistent lol I gave on ig , Twitter and Tiktok are trash , tumble and DA are semi dead Only in RU-vid you can get an audience and money also you can take your community from yt to follow you in any social medias and patreon
@@UnderTheMoon3me and you are in the same boat. I’m on twitter, but it’s like every once in a while I’ll get a few likes on my art, maybe even some retweet’s, and that’s it. I’m definitely gonna make a RU-vid channel once my art gets good enough.
@@MellaJuice I used to get 2-4K likes per post and 200+ comments but now I can barely hit 150 likes and like 10 comments idk what happened I did improve and use more art supplies but I just don’t draw a masterpiece everyday , you have to do that in ig standards or just draw hot dudes and girls but I’m not that type of artist lol
Since the pandemic people are prioritizing more socializing experiences either in person or online. Discord and Twitch add some level of discourse that is more interpersonal than just viewing work online. That’s kind of what I’m seeing. Lots of artists are hitting conventions and local fair shows. At least in the communities I’m apart of.
Same the cons I’ve been to many, many artists have sold out signs even at smaller events. I think twitch is good too I used to stream years ago, wish I didn’t give up on it, but I might get back into it, just hard with my full time job.
Sucks that living in Melbourne I can’t find crap + afab and can’t pass as male yet, don’t feel safe out there. Online info is extremely us centric and its infuriating for me to even find where to start
I deleted Instagram a few months ago due to my mental health declining and my motivation falling. It got to the point where I hated seeing other artists on my feed because I just got so sick of it all. I was actually following you on there and you are one of my top favorite artists who I can’t get sick of!! I was excited anytime you posted and I looooove your art. You can imagine my excitement when I realized that I accidentally found your YT channel!!
I’ve been going through the same thing but with Twitter. It’s almost exhausting in a way, like seeing a bunch of popular artists complaining or posting new art just made me miserable. I’ve been seriously considering deleting my account partly because of that but also because growing a following on Twitter now is near to impossible unless you crank out art like a machine
@@hellodelightfulrando after I deleted IG, I tried twitter. I lasted for a month and loved the art there way more than on IG. The art there was something I was more interested in and wasn’t just Instagram cute girl art. I left because of the sheer stupidity of the other things on there. I was semi trying to grow my account but there was not a single dent. Non. Now I don’t have any social media except YT
I think the worst on Twitter is seeing someone with a fairly new account post similar art and do a post ”Thanks for 10k followers wow it’s only been 2 months” yet my dead art account I’ve been grinding at with over a hundred pieces has less than 200 followers after a year and I typically lose instead of gaining followers with each new post. Seems like the algorithm randomly picks whether or not it will allow you any level of engagement.
Is funny, artfol has surfaced in an attempt to fix this for artist... but their goal was too set on artist, rather than focusing on average people. Because artists need regular people in order to grow
These are fantastic insight on the enshitification of being on social media as an artist. I myself had been jaded over most social media drawing trends. I participated twice in Inktober before realizing I could spend the time better inking the comic that I was procrastinating on. I grew cynical, believing that most art challenges and hashtag are for artists who have no clue what they actually want to draw. In the past, I also burned myself out making fan art for media I was indifferent to for clout. I had the thought that people were liking my posts not for my art but for the character of the month or because they were some hot chick and nothing that I was genuinely interested in drawing. After another few years of being frustrated over my social media, I've been taking more steps away from the approval of strangers online and more the approval of a regular group of recurring people who like the work that I like drawing. It's still a tiny niche of internet friends and it's nothing I can ever monotize anytime soon to make art full time, but stepping away from all the internet clout chasing has got me to not stress about the garbage of having social accounts. I still use them for promotion stuff but I now see it as a means to find local artist events that I can show and sell my work in person.
It’s hard bc the rise of AI, this social media mess/exhaustion, and everyone having less money to spend is like = the “perfect storm” for what we have now
The amount of head nods, & "yes, exactly!" I had to this video. I started pushing my art into social media earlier this year and it is so so much video editing. Now I post on Instagram, Tiktok, AND RU-vid. It's hard to find a balance between finding the time for actual art, editing & posting, and especially family life as a mom.
I really enjoyed this. I think it’s just people are overwhelmed by social media because it’s become too much and many at younger and younger ages are getting addicted to it and there’s been a movement of people turning away from it not just because it’s not fun, but because it’s not healthy for us. The only think I really actively use is RU-vid and I schedule stuff to my tiktok and IG, but it feels like what’s the point if someone doesn’t see it right away? I think too the people who grew up using fb and IG like myself are older now and just don’t have spare time or a need to be on it constantly and I think that’s what’s making tiktok pop off. I was excited about threads too, but idk if I should put my energy there either. It’s hard and at this point I’m gunna just try to focus on making a RU-vid channel. I feel that’s how you grow a real community or by streaming.
Yeah I would say that at the point that Instagram added reels it went downhill. I feel exhausted after opening Instagram, because there is just too much stuff to see and it's constantly refreshing. Even your own following page isn't chronological. If it just adds brain fog, why even use it 😔
I hate the idea of working hard on a platform just to turn around and start over on another one, because this one is different from that one or this one died out for whatever reason. It’s gotten to a point where not only I don’t post my art but I also no longer get on these apps like I used to.
As someone who cares a lot about online privacy and data collection, I took one look at the list of things Threads collects from you and backed away. Tiktok is the same situation. Tumblr is really the only site that doesn't collect personal data anymore, and theyre struggling right now to get their moderation right. I'm not sure I have a chance at all in this environment.
@darkflamesquirrel I don't even want a following as much as I just want to use my creative skills to support myself. But the options of how you go about doing that are getting very slim. And there's also a huge difference between being able to control what your audience knows about you, versus the huge chunk of private information that companies are allowed to keep on you, without pushback. Just because people see it as standard doesn't make it okay.
For someone like me who started their professional career last year as an illustrator and is starting to get in contact with the real market with art directors, producers and so on, seeing the way social medias are heading nowdays I feel more relief than regret for not having spent much time or investing big lots of money on ig, twitter and so on back then. Don't get me wrong, I still have my accounts and post there, but I see them more as a support like a personal diary where I post my journey as an artist and what are my projects and little stuffs than a business account. Even because, social medias are not portfolios, they can be good galleries, but they do not substitute a good and well made portfolio or a well written e-mail for a art director that can hire you for a project that will pay well, open new possibilities of work and to know other professionals. So yeah, I'm happier now without having to post to attend the will of a stupid algorithm of a big company that sees me just as a number, and I'm more satisfied with my art and style since it just need to be good for me and for who I work, and not for unknown users that will see my post that took days or weeks in a second or two.
I've been building up my Instagram account since late 2018, uploading about 300-350 original works with at least a few hours in them, and I did delete bot accounts, so my number is lower but right now I'm standing at 54 followers, and I have about 10 people who I know care about (or at least pretend to care) my art and at this point I'm just afraid of losing them as well. I don't even care about growing anymore, I just want people to see my works, but I struggle to believe that people will want my art even for free for much longer. My mental state is on a decline for various reasons and I've been only making images of crying or grieving people for the most part in the past few months which also makes it less likely for people to engage, but I couldn't even make anything else because of the way I am right now. I can't even post many of them anywhere due to overwhelming anxiety. I just feel like that guy in Titanic who just started playing his violin while waiting for death.
The last part about feeling so good about an artwork and loving it and then the crushing feeling of it not doing well on socials, holy crap I felt that, so hard. For that I've been having to learn that it's okay, that art wasn't made for everyone but it certainly was made FOR ME and that I can still love it, appreciate it and value it even if social media and the algorithm fucked it into oblivion, but man it does knock on the artist soul door still, and it's taken me years to come to the point that I am now when this happens, I can't imagine artists who are starting out who would have this happen, how they would feel and how many of them take it so much to heart that they just don't do art anymore. There are so many layers of problems with social media right now, that I'm sure we'd all be talking endlessly about it.
Oh man. I started working as an independent artist in 2020, and this all has totally been my experience. It's just EXHAUSTING trying to post everywhere and focus on marketing when I'd much rather be making art. Making RU-vid videos is a lot of fun (started that in 2022), but it's also a big time commitment. Discord has really been the place to interact with a community of people that like my work, but how do you get people to join a Discord without them knowing about it? You've got to be on some sort of public platform so that people can find the discord. But thanks for this. This video really made me feel better about how I've been feeling about social media lately. Have fun! I'm off to go get photos posted across 4 sites XD.
@jjgraham5429 nah, it's never too late. I though the same thing when I started making dice in 2020 (and in 2022 when I started my RU-vid channel), but I've since found that it's only too late if you don't do it at all. So hang in there and just keep moving forward! :)
I'm an indie game dev and I've been finding a surprising amount of success on tumblr! My posts from months ago still get reblogs and likes seemingly out of nowhere because it seems like the one site where people actually go look at hashtags. It's great for devlogs when you have multiple types of media to share in one post. I typically start with a video and then post some images or text
It blows my mind to think about how much better I could be with my craft if I had invested the same time and money into developing it as I did with learning social media to promote what I make 😖 this video was reassuring that it's not just me
I assisted my friend, an artist, with setting up her booth at art fairs for years. It cost her as much to do this as what she earned. She had an IG and FB and a website. She got diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and was dead in less than a month. We talked a lot in the hospital. She regretted all the time spent on social media that could have been spent on creating art. Because at the end she was giving away all those pieces to friends , relatives and nurses.
@LilyGazou I'm so sorry to hear that! My prayers go out to you and your friend. I have been thinking about it a lot lately...it seems to make more sense to spend my time on the things that I can do best such as my art instead of wasting it on social media. In the end, I don't really know if all of my social media posts even matter since I mainly did it to promote my items and make sales, but that's not really happening anymore with the poor social media reach
Personally, I use Instagram as an art gallery and discord as a place to reach out to people in a community. Although over the years, I've just accepted that I won't grow on those platforms. I use it as a way to get my name out there when I meet professionals or other art friends in person.
I stopped posting in IG because of this ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VhSX7IzHkrE.htmlsi=3v-pFYPOB4zxuTGY and also because I didn’t want to continue with the rat race. I know that IG would probably not care about stealing my art through their IG terms, however, the new ia art softwares that have come up open up a new Pandora’s box.
Much love my Squid Connoisseur. I'm down for any chats moving forward! Keep that RU-vid train running strong 💛 Also hi to all the comments, hope you enjoy this chat between these two art nerds!
I recently made a post on Instagram after months of not posting anything. It got less than 10 likes. I try again a week later making another sketch that I was really proud of and it did worse. But the videos I posted of my progress of these drawings only did great on TikTok. My video on Instagram reels did worse there than it did on TikTok. I am extremely frustrated because Instagram was a great place to post my art and get the most engagement. Now it’s slowly dying and I get little to no engagement even if I post weekly.
For me it's the contrary, whatever I post on instagram performs far better than on tiktok. We have to keep into account that tiktok's average audience is much younger than instagram, so what works on one platform may not work on the other. But I believe all the algorithms now are very similar: they are based on how every single post performs rather than trying to reach the followers, which is the very sad thing explaining the current trend.
This was a really great discussion. As someone who started taking my art more seriously in 2022 ( so post-decline) I was always used to low engagement so it didn't really bother me. I actually grew quite a bit on Twitter rather than instagram last fall but it has somewhat halted since. I attended my first con a few weeks ago and it was definitely a boost to hear so many reactions to your art in real life. It really is sometimes a matter of people just not seeing your art rather than not liking it. Interestingly, people from cons typically only follow you instagram and are actually much more engaged with your posts rather than just random online followers. Rn I'm just happy that I get any kind of engagement and I'm not super focused on growth. I'm kind of dreading having to do constant short form video content. btw there were 2-3 audio blips when you switched cameras inbetween shots. Very loud and jarring for headphone users
As you already know Felix, I'm so curious to see how your career evolves and grows moving forward with the current state of social media! Def here to help one another succeed! 💛
I always failed on the internet, so much that that my career was shaped by going the traditional, boomer way, making a reel and knocking on studio doors. I wish I could make my work be seen, to push personal projects, but every time I post something and get a total of 5 views I think "what the heck am I doing with my time?"
I’m an antique… 60-something painter. I built my digital and marketing skills 20+ years ago and never completely plunged into social media. Painters used to find sales on Insta… but by the time I jumped in (3 years ago) that was waning. And the tiktokification there has destroyed it for me. I CAN. Make short vids. But I hate them and it takes me too long to make something I’m satisfied with. Some of my painter friends work so hard making videos without seeing any significant growth. I’m a still-image artist. It’s helpful to hear your take, it validates what I’ve seen. RU-vid is actually a reasonable choice for me, I think. I spend a lot of time there on almost every subject, and when I do make vids they’re more involved, a tedious 3+ minutes n length! I’ll post more art to threads, give it a chance.
Loved seeing your guy's friendship, just a fun little ol' chit chat about the decline in social media for artists! A good time for all!! But seriously, enjoyed listening to it while I was crying in a fetal position. :)
Let's not forget the spam. Instagram feels overrun by bots and scammers which particularly target artists and idk if instagram is doing much against it. Maybe they are but it feels like nothing is happening. So I'm supposed to trust the same company that they'll keep their twitter clone a nice place?
Wow, i clicked on this video in my suggested video fed because i thought, "wow, i havent seen Vonnart in a long time." And now from his Instagram engagements i see why. Instagram is absolutely not showing me his art. I find this really upsetting.
I recently watched a video where an artist advised to use social media metrics to assess if your art is good or bad based on the engagement, likes, etc. I did post a message as politely as I could but basically expressing how irresponsible that is and the damage it could do to young aspiring artists, my comment was deleted.
Instagram now feels very corporate, forced, trying to be it all, everything all at once (and imitating tiktok), like all authenticity and joy was sucked out of there, people follow you but don't engage with you because instagram doesn't show your posts to them. Only 8-14% of my followers see my posts now. What the heck is that? What is the point of having followers if algorithm is crap and doesn't show my content to them?
Nowadays using mainstream social media gives you this dread. Reactionary content, people getting offended on behalf of other people, canceling someone because he said something in private or a long time ago without context, etc. I wish things returned to the 10's era.
You forgot to add annoying fight videos and intentionally inflammatory political videos (ever since Elon came along) especially meant to foster chaotic engagement at a profit for the poster. You can't even have peace of mind nowadays with twitter recommending the worst trash you're not following.
48:59 You are so right. I try to keep a human touch to my content by adding silly selfies or pictures at the end of my Instagram posts, but I still feel guilty when thinking about posting anything other than art to my socials. I use Instagram stories as a sort of outlet for that, but only because they're not permanent. I didn't grow up with social media around the time you guys were using it, but I still remember how much more alive Instagram felt 3 years ago. My art was worse back then, but I was joining challenges, got invited to art chatgroups where we shared art and did monthly challenges, and my art sometimes got over 100 likes. But this all died down eventually. The groups became inactive, I was seeing less DTIYS challenges on my fyp and noticed more advertising, and now that my art has gotten MUCH better, It's difficult to even get past 20-30 likes despite me having got more followers from a few reels. I was starting to feel bad, but I reminded myself that my worth is not determined by likes and followers. So I keep going, even if it pains me a little. If I had the kind of engagement I had 2 years ago, my comic would definitely have more readers and comments, but I'm grateful for the fact that I have any readers at all. I gotta start somewhere. I really like Deviant Art right now. It unfortunately has a smaller community, but It feels more human. I know, it's not that good nowadays, but It's the platform I find the most comfortable in :D It felt great having users greeting me and welcoming me to the platform. I upload my comic there as well now, and someone even gifted me core! Idk, it's definitely a weeeeiiird time in the social media space and I'm glad I wasn't the only one who felt this. I hope things get better soon.
Indie-game-Dev here, I've been doing clips of my game as I develop it, and its been a lot easier for me to grow on Twitter than Instagram reels or TikTok for some reason and threads has no hashtags which is a bit annoying.
I was able to do my art full time on Instagram from 2020-2021 and did really well. I had left my job at the start of the pandemic and was living my dream thanks to Instagram and Etsy. 2022- present I’ve only seen a decrease in engagement and sales and am back to working a day job that kinda drains my creative energy. I’ve been thinking I might go the route of in person (like hang my art in cafes etc) and email lists instead. I hate the superficiality of social media and I feel that the art you stumble upon in the real world is art that you’re meant to see and holds more value for whoever stumbles upon it.
I make money another way so art is a hobby to me and is a lot of fun. When you start to sell your art it becomes something different, it feels good to sell art but it changed how I feel about the process. I went back to just posting here on youtube and enjoying it. Its the one thing I truly enjoy and is far more important then any payslip.
I started drawing in 2021 and this year I decided to take social media more seriously, but everyone is telling me it's futile and I'm starting to lose hope. I hope things get better or some new opportunity shows up.
Hey, I get your feelings but want to encourage you to try it nevertheless. If it's futile or not, depends a lot on your goals. I don't have a lot of followers on my Instagram account but I totally have regular customers, a lot of encouragement through real fans and at the moment a very nice second income through my art. I won't get rich when it stays on this level but it's a great start. I started my account in August last year, but only posted one or two drawings. At December 2022, I started to post regularly and already in January I earned more than 300 € with art sales. Give it a shot! Perhaps you are lucky too ☺️
It was really an interesting video. I've been online since 2015, but it was only from last June until 2 months ago that I managed to grow from about 100 patrons to over 300 (if we use Patreon as a measure of conversion/engagement and the ability to "make things work"). Unfortunately, just 2 months ago, I experienced a significant drop on Twitter, going from over 1k/2k likes per post to less than 200, without any reason. Now the situation is uncertain, and you are constantly unsure about what to do and how to continue growing. You grab every opportunity because, unfortunately, bills still need to be paid. Actually, this situation has led me to participate in more in-person comic events and discover that there are alternative roads. However unfortunately, until now, social media was the part that allowed me to do more. and with more stuability. It's relieving to know that other artists are going through the same situation, although it's still sad to realize we share these difficulties. What's ironic is that in the last year, as I started earning more, I had begun working on my personal projects. Perfect timing for this crisis.
Finally caught up with this - even in the "good old days" those that became sudden, wild social media success stories did so because of having the right amount of engagement, connections and luck -elements that didn't come equally to all. I tried all the tricks on the book and never got my IG audience to go beyond the thousand-follower mark. And these days I rather think if we haven't collectively fed a giant beast (for the benefit of a few billionaires) that is now turning its back on us. As if impressions or exposure could ever be translatable into sales or book deals, which we know it just doesn't happen that way. I wish I could have the nerve to get more into video and thus make it big with the Tiktok crowd but truth is I'm a visual artist, not an entertainer, and I resent being somewhat forced on becoming one just to be noticed out there.
I feel the same. Being forced to become someting we've never been or will (at least I don't want to) just to share our artwork, is just someting I can't even stand the thought of.
I really appreciate his first answer. He essentially gave a massive overview of the transformation of social media and its impact on art from 2006 to now. Such a tremendous level of insight.
What really changed was what content was prioritized via algorithm. With instagram, we moved away from your feed being around the accounts you follow to mainly accounts that you may be interested in. You now have to compete against the "recommended for you" accounts. This also changed for RU-vid as well, where now you get recommended content mostly from other channels over the ones you've subscribed to. It was very discouraging for me when my old fandom music channel from 2013-2015 has more of a following than the current one I run. No matter what I try to do, it is almost near impossible to be noticed compared to back in 2013. When algorithms were structured different, people in general were happier. But now since there is such competition because of the change in algorithm structure, saturation has grown to a peak in attempts to remedy the problem. It only continues to make these platforms worse. When circles of art focused creators start to get hardly the support they used to (because that was far more relevant years ago), there is no avenue possibly in other than posting and hoping shit sticks.
Cons are the way! Nothing beats the face-to-face RL experience. Everything social online should just be a follow-thru. That's just me, tho. But I'm so glad that most (if not all) events out there have banned AI-generated stuff in their artist alleys altogether. Really good discussion topic for a video btw. Great indie artists such as yourself need to do more of these on an updating basis. Really helps out the community as a whole. Cheers!
I’ve been struggling with insta a lot lately and seeing those screenshots for the engagement was so helpful! Like it’s insane to see how much the engagement decreased and on a whole your discussion was super great to hear and answered some questions I’ve been having. I’m a very small account and I’ve just felt that I must be doing something wrong to have such little reach and engagement, but its clear that large accounts are also experiencing the same thing. I’ve seen artists I follow mention engagement from time to time, but this really puts it into perspective as to what the experience for large accounts is like trying to retain a following. The fact that I draw things I really enjoy and like, but when posting them I don’t get much feedback is still pretty disheartening atm. I hope I’ll figure out how to get past that soon and this video helped me feel less lost about not knowing what I’m doing, so thank you! :)
honestly RU-vid is the only platform that still feels like a community to me, esp the discords tied to channels. but being able to make video content for your artwork is a huge time consuming process, and you end up spending a fraction of your creative time on actually drawing and so much more of it on video creation, SEO and analytics. RIP the golden age of Deviantart. You are missed.
I’ve been trying to get back into drawing and building up my skill. I remember using deviant art and tumblr back around 2010-2014. I feel like both sites have fallen off or don’t feel like they did back then. Really, I just want some sort of community where I can share my art (or attempts at it), and follow fellow artists.
dude tumblrs waaaaaaaaaaaay better i found my mexican omg 3 profiles that like rand paul ted cruz psycho real, ones a guuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurl no eyebrows tho and catholic
I still love DeviantArt. Been there there for 20 years. Seeing it so empty makes me sooo sad. It was my home and I just don’t get the same “home” feeling from IG or ArtStation. I hate IG and I still come back to DA but the engagement is gone and that’s because the internet changed. Apps and smartphones weren’t a thing at DA’s prime.
well, for me the engagement on DA is still better than anywhere else the worst place is IG, where I can get only a few likes and a bot comment. and it was the same a few years ago, in its "golden era"🙈
@@DigitalResurrection if you don't search for it and ban realted tags, the chance to see it really not so big. I see it sometimes because I'm a group admin and approve stuff by hands, also it can be in the comments when people share something (e.g., DA's staff posts). pretty avoidable
The real, huge issue is the tiktok-zation of all social media, from youtube shorts to instagram. Now, these algorithms give the opportunity to immediately go viral to each person, and in this sense are very democratic. But this means that now every post performs based on its own statistics, and followers matter much less. Every time we post, we are therefore asked for the masterpiece or the attention-hacking post. If you add that also the competition for attention is larger and larger, social media are clearly unsustainable in the long run.
This is a very interesting interview. I am a Dutch artist and I sooooo agree with what you guys are saying. For me social media is no fun anymore. Like what you are saying: the personality, emotion and inspiration is just gone. It is too focued on marketing and it pushes the artist to not be spontainious. But to focus on ratings. It is such a releave to hear you guys say the same thing! Along with the others in the commends
i stopped posting on instagram altogether and only post tumblr sometimes. but it honestly feels like like the engagement on tumblr has been going up recently. as in genuine, honest engagement that doesn’t come in form of one like after someone looked at a picture for a whole of three seconds. i get so many comments in the reblog hashtags alone? and i can come back after months of not posting anything and it still reaches people bc it seems like tumblr isn’t the same algorithm hell as other sides (maybe, I don’t know). but it definitely feels like the art community is coming back to tumblr a little bit.
I feel like artists are dismissing newsletters far too easily in favor of social media. Yes, it’s hard to get people to sign up. Yes, a lot of artists hate it because they are afraid of email. But it’s also one of the few platforms where you can actually move your audience from one place to another. Got 400k subscribers but you’re sick of that one mailing list company? Take your subscribers and move them to another. The medium has been around for decades for a reason. It also has high open rates (30-50% - try that on social media) and high click through rates. On top of that, there’s barely any algorithm to beat and the etiquette is to be less frequent about your updates, so you’d have more time to work on art instead of worrying about making multiple posts per week. I think social media is a great tool to be just that - social. But like you both said, people are sick of it as a sales platform. My strategy going forward is to connect with people in public spaces, but also keep in touch with them through newsletters. For new artists, I’d recommend a platform like Substack, because it combines the reliability of newsletters with the visibility of social media.
@@SpaceBandit666 Good question. I’ve noticed my engaged audience is mostly 28+, so I’m definitely no expert on a younger audience. I’m guessing they’re less likely to sign up for an email list unless there’s a really good reason for them to, like free brushes, exclusive videos or being a big fan of your work. But a bit of googling shows that a huge majority of Gen Z still uses email and still signs up for newsletters. That being said, I think most people sign up to newsletters not so much to connect, but much more to stay up to date (unless it’s Substack, which has the comments beneath newsletters). That’s where I think the synergy between social media and newsletters happens. People find you through social media/newsletter referrals, sign up for the newsletter, from which you can point them to channels which are more community oriented: e..g. specific social posts, Discord servers, Patreons, you name it. But once you have something new to announce (new art, a new video, a giveaway, a sale), you send another newsletter. The goal is to not lose contact with people who want to hear from you because of some algorithm that decides for them. Newsletters allow creators to do that, because not seeing the emails anymore requires a conscious unsubscribe action or deleting the email unopened. Either way, it’s up to the subscriber themselves.
People have told me that before. You do you of course, but imo it's the only way for followers to reliably keep in touch with a creator. Following someone on social media has a large chance of never seeing their work again. I'm personally seeing more people become fed up with social media's spam instead and sign up for my newsletters. With email it's easy to filter spam out and funnel meaningful newsletters into a separate folder where I go through them at my own pace. I love it :)
@@DavvyKathave you found it good so far to start from scratch as an artist? I started a new account on Instagram and Twitter now that I felt more confident in my art but I have yet to gotten a single engagement/attention and it feels really discouraging....
The engagement and mutual support on Instagram was awesome back then. You were also simply much more motivated. I'm only a small fish in the sea, but I still liked the time and my little bubble that formed around me. Nowadays, I'm only rarely there, trying to stay up to date, regarding this old bubble, to still support them. But the rest is just fast food consuming. I myself am very unmotivated to post anything there anymore. Mastodon and TikTok actually work best for me, but it's still not the same as it was back then. Makes me very sad and tired overall.
Seems like every platform follow this standard business model. They make it very good for creators in the beginning to attract people then when they got a big audience they focus on monetization instead and cash in until the creators leave and the platform die. Rinse and repeat.
the sadest thing for me in it is, the years beforehand my mental health was affecting me too much to socialize a lot on IG and then 2021/2022 I managed to find sweet people where we interacted a lot with each other, commented on each others post nearly always etc. and it was amazing. but most of them stopped using IG and I just don't have the capacity to keep up with them on discord. and i really would wish to have a place where such stuff could happen again. but that would also mean to swap onto the same apps etc. and it just feels so overwhelming in that regard.
I have found RU-vid to be better for a community. I have a core group that always interacts and I watch all their posts and comment and interact with people on their channels.
@@LilyGazou totally! i enjoy youtube way more too. but making videos is super exhausting and time consuming for me. and we used to interact a lot with instagram stories and I miss especially that interaction a lot.
Even though I have heard conversations like this before concerning this topic, the way you guys put certain things in perspective had cause something to just click for me in a huge way. Like brain rewiring lol. As much clarity as this brought me concerning my choices on how to move forward with this tool, it also brings up questions that havent crossed my mind before. Thank you both so much for this!
Loved this pod! I'm on instagram and tiktok and while instagram is headed downhill for me at the moment, tiktok is so inconsistent that I don't think I'd ever use it as my sole platform. I really liked the insight on what kinds of art does well right now, I see so much more engagement when it's clear something is done in a sketchbook vs a digital drawing, I think because of the AI stuff but also probably some deeper social stuff like a desire to divest from screens and tech. Thank you both for sharing- this got me through a hefty order packing sesh
Don’t worry, it’s not your fault that the atmosphere has changed. We’ve all become really desensitized to appreciating what people put into their creations. The volume of what we view and how quickly it comes and goes is a conditioning we’ve all gone through. I’m trying to make sure my ratio of drawing time is way more than my social media surfing time. I also want to spend more time talking with my friends who make art. Talking about art with them reminds me of why I like to draw 💕
This is genuinely the most honest and insightful video about the chaotic social media situation nowadays. As a new artist confused with all the options (non of which seems to work) I feel more relieved knowing I’m not alone 😮💨! Good luck to all of my fellow artist friends out there I hope you’ll soon get the recognition you deserve 🍀.
I made a separate instagram accoung and only followed artists - but i still get all sorts of sports / entertainment promoted content. Thats why instagram is dying, people don't want to see all that junk
Do you know why? Because Instagram knows it's still you. It doesn't matter how many accounts you make, they all get added to the dossier with your name on it, and that's how the algorithms work.
@@Aircalibur Probably. But I made the art one on my macbook pro and my normal instagram on my phone, and I never log in from the other device. That's the extent of my effort on this issue...
Thank you for this video, i really need to hear this right now. Ive been doing digital minimalism and failed in social media part but everything else is working the way i wanted right now because i had the love and hate relationship with social media i am a paper artist and i owe social media to my journey of artist that i wouldn't think ill be rhe artist i am today without it. I felt like i am still trying to play the old game and wanted to get engagement as it used to but not anymore. I think this is my final kick to stop obsessing on IG and just make art instead. Thank you for the insight and its been very informative for me specially that after 3 years of making paper art i think im reaching my peak level but i feel disappointed on IG as my art is better than before but i felt like it made an inverse relationship with the engagement i get.
I’m tired… that’s all… I don’t like the fact that in order for you to grow on IG, you need to be posting constantly or in a certain way, why not let it be organic and/or genuine
Thanks for making this video, it's nice to hear that other artists were experiencing this and that it's a issue with platforms and not us u__u I remember in mid-2020 I published a digital comic online that went semi-viral and I earned over $1000 in digital sales with tons of people asking me for physical copies. Fast forward a few months later I launched a shop update with the physical copies. That was after a few somewhat successful shop drops. But I made ZERO sales on that drop, which was devastating. On the twitter, it got less than 10 likes. Less than 10! SINGLE DIGITS, on something that I sold literally hundreds of copies of in digital form beforehand. It was so hard not to feel like I did something wrong, even though I knew there must have been some level of algorithmic suppression or change for that to happen.
so glad you guys had this discussion! i used to love posting my art on social media, i made so many friends through instagram and twitter and it just felt so lively and exciting. now however, it's so overwhelming, there's so many platforms with so many features to keep on top of and it's been difficult to feel the same passion for what i'm doing. hoping it gets better, we just have to keep going!
I think most of this applies to musicians too! Without dipping into video format, growing is nearly impossible and IG just isn't working anymore. Thanks for your well thought out and articulate perspectives! And for making me feel less crazy haha
One thing I learned about past, and present is this. It's not as enjoyable anymore. The porn bots that keep sending me messages in the inboxes is really tiring. Also all the pot gummie candy pushers that keep popping up before any video. That gets very tiring too. I read a little bit, and watch videos, but I shut things down. There is more fighting going than educational engagement. I use my time wisely.
I've been feeling this way a lot recently that for the general public who are not artists and maybe even some artists themselves that they don't really care about how well you know lighting, perspective, color theory, etc. (which is what I tried to practice for YEARS) when I first started out. Now it's simple rendering almost something that anyone no matter their ability can do as well as "slice of life" kind of work that seems to be the most popular. Which like stated "everyone can see themselves in." I think finding the right balance of "slice of life (everyone can see themselves in)" and "what I (people that may have niche type art or wanting to expand on their knowledge) want to draw" is going to be both hard but rewarding for a lot of us going forward. I've also been thinking that instead of having my first goal of going to conventions it should be going to my local arts faire. Granted it's mostly handcrafted works but if possible why not shake things up? lol
Artstation for me I find a community in while being able to post my work which later can be used for finding work. It’s also great to network for other artists. Otherwise with selling art as a self employed artist I’d say to take a more rounded approach and advertise across multiple platforms without relying on one specific social media.
This is very informative and thank you for posting this dialog. My god though, this is like... really heart breaking. I'm so tired of spreading myself out on various platforms on my art accounts.
Instagram did something hugely negative to the algorithm for artist users. I don't know exactly what it was but viewership plummeted for all visual artists in the past 3 years. Established industry artists that would get thousands of likes a day suddenly dropped to hundreds basically overnight. I can give my personal account. I'm a new to the platform artist who joined Instagram in 2019. I had low expectations since no one I knew personally ever used Instagram, but I was sick of DeviantArt. At first I only got 2-8 likes per post, but as my skills improved I started to average 20. After a few months I started getting 40 likes per post! That doesn't sound like a lot, but twice as many likes in just a couple months I saw as exponential growth. This growth continued until around 2021 then suddenly... 2 likes. Nowadays my posts rarely break 10 likes. Something massive happened on Instagram that specifically targeted artists and I don't know why.
same for me! it's funny cz when my drawings were ugly as a beginner i had way more likes, now that my skills have improved I barely make it to 10 likes lol
@@LilyGazou this is about artists who want to grow their account and plan to monetize off their work so likes and views matter. If that’s not you then move along.
This was exceptional! Thank you for your honesty, transparency, authority, and thorough exposition of our current cultural climate. I have sighed through this video realizing I am not alone. Thanks again.
5050, just dont go on weekends, its still good but not weekends uploads WHY even a they them told me WHY and i was like they them is adorable and she was but shes only 20
Hey-yo, another fellow artist who joined DeviantART around 2005? Very cool. I joined in 2005 but was aware of it's existence in 2004. It's insane how much the site had changed in the last 2 decades isn't it? You're right that DeviantART did kinda go downhill around 2010+ but at the very least, the site was still had plenty of activity during 2010 to about maybe 2016/2017.
23:10 this is so good to hear! Social media feels like a trap that instantly makes me feel inadequate :( I'm trying to look at it in a different way, in the same way that some commenters here have only focused on their friends and other artists they admire. My goal is to just improve as an artist and not become famous, so the less I get overwhelmed by social media, the better I can focus on that goal.
