Social Media Is Destroying Art And Artists
Thank You, Charli, For This Reminder
‘Platforms are coming for every free second you have. We used to colonise countries, now it’s human attention.’ - Bo Burnham
I know artists.
I know illustrators and cartoonists and animators and photographers, who are quietly holed up, projects paused, pencils down, learning how to turn a week’s worth of work into twenty seconds of content because they’re scared of not being seen.
I know musicians.
Who make beautiful music that heals and helps and allows us to feel it all; now tasked with turning everything we've ever loved into ten second of trending audio.
I know writers.
I know film makers and storytellers; bold, ass kicking, risk taking sons of bitches that bring entire worlds to life, stuck trying to turn their tall tales into tiny ones.
I know performers.
I know acrobats and actors, burlesque dancers and cabaret queens struggling to sell tickets, as audiences turn up their screen time, instead of turning up to shows.
Art isn't Content.
But if we keep treating it as disposable, we'll lose it.
If platforms continue to encourage artists to create for an algorithm, and an audience to cheer for trends instead of a connection, artists won’t want to create on here.
I don’t want to create on here.
- Charli Burrowes (@meohmygirl)
If you're an artist of any sort, you may have seen this post by a fellow artist named Charli Burrowes on Instagram.
This post pierced through my heart. What this amazing human being and artist is saying here is, unfortunately, the truth.
Social Media is making us forget Art.
Social Media is destroying Art and Artists.
I'll use myself as an example.
Whenever I come up with an article idea to write here, my brain immediately starts thinking of how I repurpose this one article for social media in a million different ways.
80% of my writing here is Content, not Art.
Even right now, instead of working on my novel, I am writing this essay.
I am writing that 80% to keep the algorithm gods pleased and bring in readers to read my Art - when it's ready to see the light.
Art needs patience, effort and its own pace. These are something Content doesn't want to hear about. Content takes me an hour per article to create. Art has its own maturity time; I can't rush it or half-ass it.
Whenever I learn a lesson, I start thinking of turning it into Content.
Or when I see something beautiful, instead of appreciating it, I have to take a picture "for Instagram."
For the last two years, I have been creating Content.
And while doing that, I could hear my Art screaming inside of me to come out.
But my reply was - "No, I need to create this content first to bring in the audience to whom I can sell my art."
I now understand I am looking at it all wrong.
Content has its own place. And Art has its own.
But Content can never, should never, come at the cost of Art.
