Can creators / artists abstain from social media?

[akitsukino]

I imagine the answer is “it depends” but it is something I’ve been thinking about. Obviously social media has always been a toxic waste dump in its own way but for artists specifically it feels like things have just gotten a bit more hectic what with the whole A.I debacle, Twitter rules constantly changing, etc. This comic from from Sas Miledge I think summarizes my feelings.

https://twitter.com/sasmilledge/status/1604780375279968256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1604780375279968256%7Ctwgr%5Ed138ad8fd371d4038e15cb4010d9d3804d0e2992%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublish.twitter.com%2F%3Fquery%3Dhttps3A2F2Ftwitter.com2Fsasmilledge2Fstatus2F1604780375279968256widget%3DTweet

I imagine there probably are some professional/ published/ moderately successful artists who don’t really use social media that much but the fact that you can’t see them makes it hard to quantify. In the wake of this whole AI thing I saw some art directors say that if people stopped feeling comfortable posting to web galleries they could just send their portfolios to them directly. That’s sweet but is it practical? Provided they’re open to do it, would sending your art / portfolio / pitch packet to some place not look weird without an accompanying Twitter, Instagram, or ArtStation for them to paw through? It looks like at the very least you should have your own website to post your art but what about the other places?

I know social media has always had its ups and downs but it feels like as more time goes on I see more professional people withdrawing from it when they see what it’s doing to them. But I’ve also seen other professional people admit they want to leave but CAN’t do to the boon it gives their careers. Is the answer really as simple as curate your own online experience, or is there more you could do if you just don’t want to be involved in the first place? Let me know what you think below.
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I imagine there probably are some professional/ published/ moderately successful artists who don’t really use social media that much but the fact that you can’t see them makes it hard to quantify. In the wake of this whole AI thing I saw some art directors say that if people stopped feeling comfortable posting to web galleries they could just send their portfolios to them directly. That’s sweet but is it practical? Provided they’re open to do it, would sending your art / portfolio / pitch packet to some place not look weird without an accompanying Twitter, Instagram, or ArtStation for them to paw through? It looks like at the very least you should have your own website to post your art but what about the other places?

I know social media has always had its ups and downs but it feels like as more time goes on I see more professional people withdrawing from it when they see what it’s doing to them. But I’ve also seen other professional people admit they want to leave but CAN’t do to the boon it gives their careers. Is the answer really as simple as curate your own online experience, or is there more you could do if you just don’t want to be involved in the first place? Let me know what you think below.

[VersusVII]

I think having at least an online portfolio is important nowadays for small artists. I remember a lot of advices I've read about how to apply for projects during conventions suggest to have a social page or an online portfolio where people can see your work if they lost the paper copy of it.

I see instagram and facebook pages in general more for the promotion of the projects, so people know when each episode is out or when the printed version is available. Without socials in general I don't know how many artists could promote their stuff, comicons here in Italy become more gadget oriented and give small spaces to artists or the prices for a stand become high in the main events.

[rajillustration]

me, sometimes I withdraw, sometimes I'm all in. And like what I'm using social media for isn't necessarily the same reason another artist is using it. My main art account on twitter for instance has been basically abandoned for about 2 years, because once the pandemic started, twitter stopped having really any reach, and it really stopped being worth the time and effort to maintain. I have actually made more money with art since I decided to stop posting there because my time was spent in spaces offline and online where I felt my work was being seen and word of mouth was actually working. (also I got hella sick this year so I had to withdraw anyway)

But for other things, like if I were applying to a studio: Yeah they don't care if you have a twitter/instagram/tik tok. I've applied to many places with only my own website, and they always asked for me to send digital (sometimes physical) copies of my work (hell if you are in the NY/SF/LA area, you can walk into some book publisher's offices and drop off your physical printed portfolio, which is a bit old school and a hassle, but I've done it).

Art Directors don't want to see a ton of random content, they want your best, no more than 10 pieces, all on one page. A Twitter or instagram is hell to sift through. So it's totally reasonable that there are successful artists who just never post online, especially since a large part of their professional work is under a Non Disclosure Agreement, and that can only be given to other art directors through email and by getting permission basically, it does not go on the internet.

But if you are a content creator in the sense that you are selling content online to be both an artist and influencer, then yes, your posting will matter. For them their engagement is quite literally what gives them sponsorships and gets some companies to work with them as an artist, because those companies want both the art and the influencer sponsorship at the same time. You do hear about some asshole companies turning people down because their reach was too small, but I personally wouldn't be working with them anyway, because that's online sponsorship stuff and not currently my wheelhouse.

I dunno, maybe one day I'll be able to do art online to get paid a free watch (like does that artist-sponsered watch even still exist?) but I had to set my priorities because I can't do it all. Hell, I don't even use twitter for the comic anymore since the Musk takeover.

[RedLenai]

I believe that if you don't like social media, then every single aspect of it would look negative to you, you will see the bads more easily than the goods.
The artist of the comic you shared, seems to make a comment in what is my personal belief about social media b ut of course, I'll be more crude with it:

People are masochists, people online have a terrible habit of purposefully choosing to expose themsleves to the stuff that triggers or frustrate them, they damage their own mental health by interacting with content instead of limiting themselves.

I don't personally consider the internet or social media a "toxic waste dump" because I simply don't allow that content to reach me, I consider it unnecessary, from time to time yeah I do search what is going on in my country or a friend of mine shares something related to what is currently going on in the artistic communities but beside that, I don't do an extra effort to frustrate myself. I don't seek fights with total strangers because I don't have the inner feeling of considering that my life doesn't have as much conflict and I need to experience adrenaline (Of course, this is what I personally think and the reasons could vary from one individual to another)

Like, you could simply do what most of "The old Gang" artists did all their life before the online boom, seek local jobs, going to editorials, studios on their own, making prints or fanzines and then selling them in local parks, the schoolyard, study an art related career that also has a classified section, contacts or job exchange forum or recommendations from the teachers/professors for jobs, artists alleys, conventions or exhibitions.

Personally the whole IA thing doesn't worry me that much, people who seek to take advantage of technology always existed, to me is no different than the tracer/scammer that claims that "Oh but if your work is in the internet I can use however I want!", contemporary artists stealing artwork from digital artists and selling them in exhibitions, traveling to the other side of the world bringing an art piece and claiming it yours, or those who grab Picrew generated images, trace it and try to sell commissions with them, those who trace VRChat 3d models, or from MikuMikuDance, then NFTs came along and now it's IA.

Same story repeated all over.

Sadly, Social Media despite how much it seems you despise it, it is still a medium that allows people to connect with others all around the glove. But it is not a portfolio, there are pages that you can create solely about your work and properly categorized, there are portfolios in pdf, powerpoint etc too.

What you can do if you're easily overwhelmed by this cruel eldrich entity, is

• To limit your access to it.

Instead of scrolling in your feed, instead of following strangers or interacting with posts that only upset you.
Simply open Business Studio (Instagram and Facebook can be linked together to post in both places at the same time), schedule your work, copypaste the text and do the same for the other social media you use and after you're finished, check only your notifications in case someone commented in your work or sent you a DM, then quit for the rest of the day.

Put on alarms, extensions or ad-ons that'll block your access to pages after a certain period of time, use schedule organizers, have a routine, block the content that upsets you, and even if you adore a person, if they constantly post stuff that honestly doesn't make you feel better or doesn't work as escapism, or to have fun, then either mark it to see less of said content, take a break or unfollow them at least in that social media.

It'll also depend on what you consider the aspects to be a succesful artist, which vary from one individual to another. It'll depend too as in what kind of content creator you are, or if you can allow yourself to pay a community manager that'll take care of social media presence while you focus on creating the content and disappear after delivering it.

[Lensing]

Having an online portfolio / homepage etc or using social media are 2 different things for me.
When someone says they are using social media it usually means that they upload content to a page like
instagram, facebook, twitter, tiktok etc regularly.

Then there is the difference between using it for business or using it for private fun.

I don´t see the benefit of social media except communication. The international
prices for illustration jobs are ridiculous compared to what offline customers pay +
you need to put all that time into feeding the social media.
That´s just my opinion, maybe someone in a different country has a different opinion
about it

[GumshoeComix]

You can leave whenever you want really
I only log on for several minutes a day cause it was doing quite a number on my mental health. and you can try doing everything irl instead of online-
But there are some publishers who won't give you a second look unless you have a social media presence and the way social media is against so many creators right now..

You always have to remember there are websites that aren't social media that will get more reach for your art, and there are TONS of successful artists who don't post online.

[Nugtown]

Nobody has to do it, but if you have some goal, you want to fund a kickstarter, you want to print a book, anything that you want to sell, it can't be accomplished without some state of recognition by a group of people somewhere, that's just how it is. The fact of the matter is a lot of us do want something and social media has monopolized the means of doing so.

[Tthoroughman]

I feel like if you're seriously trying to get out there, you do need social media.
Whether it's a portfolio or building a following for your series/work, it's somewhat easier done online vs in person.
I say somewhat, as I struggle with it and have to really work at it to get somewhere. But if you're either A, an already established artist- you're more likely to use it to expand your reach or B, a hobby artist, then arguably it's less important to a degree.
I do agree with the sentiment of how mental health damaging it can be, along with distracting. So I personally think it's best to post your update, maybe do a quick scan and likes and follows, and get off. Keep it short and sweet. Not every log on has to be longer than necessary.

[VibrantFox]

ive already shared my sentiments ahout online spaces and their use (as well as mental health impacts in my curating online experiences thread) but honestly i think its up to the individual yo decide its level of use

personally ive managed to find a reasonable amount of success through twitter, nothing "huge" but still its serves its purpose with reach and connections.

when it comes to all the other negatives that people fixate on tho i agree with red in that people really give off masochist vibes with how they either seek out stressfup things or do nothing to bar themselves from seeing it

overall social media does have benefits but people need to do better i think in shaping their spaces to avoid stress

I will add an exception in that there's also the brand of folks who will actively seek others out to start shit (something i saw lots of during events like blacktober or nativetember) so in those cases its less on the individual who is existing themselves online but more on confrontational types who share those spaces that go looking for problems to cause

[TheLemmaLlama]

People are masochists, people online have a terrible habit of purposefully choosing to expose themsleves to the stuff that triggers or frustrate them, they damage their own mental health by interacting with content instead of limiting themselves.

This is probably a part of it, but I feel like another reason people interact with content is because a lot of it is about 'global suffering', as the comic linked in the OP put it. You feel guilty about ignoring it, turning away from it because it's a privilege to not have to deal with that stuff every day as part of your life.

Ofc constantly feeling like you have to be 'aware' of those issues doesn't actually help. As the comic put it, 'the world is not a better place for the time I have spent on twitter, and I am not a better person. I am meaner, angrier, less curious, and more judgmental.' Sometimes it should be okay to say this:

But like, point is, there's more to it than 'just some weird masochism people do for some reason'

[powerplantanimations]

Haven't been using social media to advertise my webcomic (except just for Tapas Forums), but still....

I will say I like them meme accounts on Twitter... keeps pulling me in lmao.

[TroyVSTheWorld]

Eh, the one-panel comic drawings I do feel like a part of what makes my comic whole so I suppose the social media aspect is important to me.

[RedLenai]

I know, and that's what I say that that's what I personally think, not that is the sole and unique reason.

Still, limits are a requirement, you don't need to be an ignorant, but continuos expose won't solve the problem, won't make you a better person, and guilt... welp, that's going back to the ego and the lack of real conflict once again.

Moderate your exposure, identify when you're only upsetting yourself and fueling the dumpster fire, learn that guilty is not always empathy, but it is also a means for others to manipulate you through it.

In short words... pain is inevitable but suffering is a choice

[darthmongoose]

I think it's ultimately a matter of branding and whether you're happy to sit under somebody else's brand, or a company's brand, or just the sort of... collective "brand" of a specific style... or if you need to become a brand yourself.

If you're good at turning out work that fits in very well with stuff already created by specific publishers, like you can match a similar style and vibe, and are up to their level of quality, you can go and make a living writing popular fiction, or become one of the stable of artists who quietly work away at various publishers making comics where either the IP is the big selling point, or the genre or style is. There's absolutely nothing wrong with this, if you can do that, that's fantastic, good for you! You can basically be as invisible as you want while working this way. Make a long-scroll villainess isekai Fantasy Romance comic with polished art in a visual style that matches Korean webtoons, then make sure the cover matches current trends too, nice polished presentation....basically make it look like other things people already on Tapas like... and you're set! You can do minimal promo and still probably find decent enough success (provided the quality, style and presentation really, truly, genuinely are polished and the genre or subgenre is legitimately on-trend or has a big audience on the platform you're on).

But if you want to make something a bit more distinctive, or you want your name to be the big name on the cover... that's where you kind of have to be a brand. Because if what you're making isn't falling under the brand of "It's a Marvel Comic" or "It's another comic like Solo Levelling", the assurance of quality people will latch onto might actually be that the creator themselves has a strong voice, confidence and values they can buy into. Basically, if the work doesn't sell itself by being reassuringly similar to other things the audience likes, and you don't have a marketing department to sell if for you as one of their products, you need to hop up onto a soapbox and sell it to them.

I do both, of course. When working at my day job, I'm one of the cogs in the machine that makes an edutainment franchise, helping make things with the writing and artistic tone of that company or IP, which doesn't really require me to be on social media at all. These books aren't selling because I help make them, they're selling because of my boss' visibility and the themes and the publisher and stuff and I just need to make work up to scratch.

But with my own comics, I've always had to be a brand. I like to make unique comics. You don't look at them and know they're part of a specific trend (because they're not). They have a distinctive personality to the art and humour, and so selling people on that personality, and getting them to buy into "The Kate Holden Brand" is often very necessary for building an audience with my original works. I could make work that's more like whatever's trendy, or just go and work with publishers if I wanted, and I seriously don't think less of anyone who takes that route, because oh my god... being a brand is really tiring and can take a toll on your emotional wellbeing!
I think it may be necessary though, for creators who really want to make work that has a very distinctive art style and/or writing style, or in lesser-known genres, to put a lot of that personal legwork in built around a personal brand. Publishers are onto it now too. I mentioned earlier, I don't need to post on social media about my dayjob....but that doesn't mean my boss hasn't gently encouraged me to, and of course, I'm on the Tapas Creator Bonus Program, which is a program where creators are incentivised to bring new people to Tapas, at a bizarrely low sub count (they invited me at like 1600 subs to a program where to apply, you need like 10,000+), and was probably chosen specifically because of my visibility outside Tapas, strong personal brand and tendency to occasionally make viral content. So through various similar circumstances, I've become aware that my personal brand has value to publishers. It's now something I can bring to the table that adds value on top of the basic value of the work I can create, and I think it's value that's necessary when convincing a publisher to take a risk on the weird comics I like to make that don't necessarily fit in a specific genre or style, so it's a weapon in my arsenal I'll gladly use.

Overall, I don't think having a strong or visible personal brand is absolutely necessary to have a career in art or writing, but I feel like it can be a very valuable thing to have for certain sorts of work. You don't necessarily need to wade into discourse or political stuff, you just need to post regularly and to have a consistent personality people can buy into.

[Flios]

To be frank, as most people have already replied with the many opinions that I also share, it is possible to not use social media at all. As sugarcoated as this seems, if you have outstanding works/comics that you publish on professional sites such as here, Webtoon, Deviant Art, etc., there are bound to be people to post your work on social media for you. Although what I said above pretty much only applies to promotional stuff like raking in subscribers or views, it could be what someone would be satisfied with. The truth is that many companies seeking sponsorships or trying to get people to post work on their site look at social media almost exclusively instead of looking at professional sites. To sum up my opinions, I would say that some creators/artists would be satisfied with the attention and money they make while not using social media, but for people with high ambitions, it would be largely beneficial to post on social media.

[TheLemmaLlama]

Adding onto my thoughts about discourse/politics, I feel like people (artists or otherwise) with a big following might feel a responsibility to use their platform to speak out against bad things. Which I guess I don't know how helpful that actually is, since the more popular the message is, the more comfortable people are to preach the message without fear of damaging their reputation, but also the more likely it is that most of their followers have heard it already just by being on social media.

But it goes back to that feeling of obligation, which is probably harder to ignore for them than a rando with no following like myself, because it does feel like you have the power to make a difference when you have 100k eyeballs on you, and with great power comes great responsibility and all that :'D

[system]

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