Is Social Media Serving Artists Or Starving Them?

Back in 2004, probably up until about 2011, I utilized my browser's bookmarks feature way more than I do now. Every morning I'd wake up and have breakfast, grab my coffee and laptop and go to my top ten blogs/sites where various writers and creators posted almost daily. This was all before Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok and Twitter, etc. There were no algorithms. The "rhythm" was set by me and I never missed a post from my favorite creators.

Social media feels dead.

Jump to now and as a photographer/artist I'm constantly missing amazing artwork/posts created by friends and other fellows artists due to corporate agendas. It's so frustrating (and not to mention it's billionaires at the reigns) that I left Twitter (thanks, Elon) after being active on that platform for well over a decade. I'd met an amazing community of fellow photographers over the years and Twitter was where we met on the daily. 

I left Facebook (or, have been trying to for six months now - that's a whole other post) because the misinformation and anger regarding vaccines, politics and <insert anything here> had washed over that site. It's led to family fighting in my comments. 

And now, am mostly off of Instagram because I'm not seeing the incredible work created by people I follow - I'm seeing what Instagram wants me to see.  Sure, this is most likely fed by posts I've clicked on and those morsels are cooked up and served back to me in other, albeit similar, posts. But it's the same thing over and over. Literally. I started to wonder, "...but where are the people I follow?" That's not to say I'll never post on Insta again, but I'm on there way less. 

I realize that Blogger is owned by G*0gle, so this isn't really completely better. But, my work will be updated here and that's my main concern: Creating the work, not feeding an algorithm. 

Feeling like an artist without a home; floating out here. 

...whispering - don't forget me.