Social Media and sharing

Hello, dear readers!

gives a huge blow to remove the dust

I haven’t forgotten the blog part of this site, but sadly, what is there to say? What a difficult question! It doesn’t help that since my last post I was still recovering from a burnout. It is clear that studying, working and trying to do professional projects on the side are three things that do not necessarily go well together, who would have thought! As we cannot add hours to the days, I was therefore forced to cut short my occupations. Unfortunately, the only thing I could cut was the personal projects, so the Corridor of Worlds. Well, damn it, but that’s life, we can’t help it sometimes. Then came Corona. And now we’re somewhere in 2022, and I have long or post covid, plus I haven’t touched a brush or a pen in some time. Not that I have nothing creation-wise (although it is almost nothing), but, more and more often, I asked myself the question: where to share? With whom? What’s the point?

There used to be blogs, even the terrible skyblogs and livejournals. As a teenager, I spent countless hours following artists’ blogs. To tell the truth, it was a motivating experience: listening to the artists describe their creation fueled me to be creative. Stumbling from artist to artist through links was nice. Even on deviantart, people took the time to take an interest in the image, much more than what I see today.

But now? Maybe I’m getting too old, but after trying long and unsuccessfully to have a social media presence and follow artists and creators through social media, I’ve noticed for a long time that: at best, I remain indifferent. At worst, I hate it. There’s something quite bitter about following artists on twitter and being at the algorithm’s mercy. Ads, other people’s likes between people talking about politics, the last person to cancel and kitten videos, etc. Social media scrolling is an emotional mess. And yet I like my twitter feed: the people I follow have interesting things to say and creations that I appreciate! But that does not encourage commitment to an artist’s work. We like, we rt, and we keep scrolling. There is a very impersonal side that I struggle to accept, even if the skyblog era has clearly shown that some people do not know how to create readable content in addition to having bad taste.
Instagram is much more focused on images? Same story. We scroll, we no longer click on external links. We stay confined in an infinite scroll box that wants to keep us prisoners as long as possible: that’s its goal, and that’s ok. If I do not deny the usefulness of social networks, I notice that the consumption of art is different compared to my beginnings on the Internet. You have to be liked and follow the rhythm of the networks. Trends are constantly changing. If the problem is known on youtube where the creators are sacked by the algorithm if they do not follow a certain speed of publication, the other social networks find themselves in a similar concern. And I believe, that in the long run, it hurts creation more than it does good.

And it’s clear that I don’t just want to scroll from image to image. I would like to immerse myself a little more in the universe of artists that I appreciate. If they have a site, I go through it more easily and I take more time to appreciate their work. Even realizing that social networks are built to push us eternally to scroll and push a like button, breaking this circle is not always easy (there is a certain pleasure in stumbling from interesting thing to interesting thing, or from video of kittens to a philosophical discourse on life). And one thing leading to another, I ended up realizing that not only is the desire to follow social networks absent and the appreciation of art difficult for me, I have absolutely no desire to share my creations on them . Social media engagements mean nothing to me. The likes, RTs are window dressing. I had an overdose of images on tumblr many years ago: I felt like the constant flow, even though I loved it, ended up overloading my brain and my own creativity was impacted. Social media and myself really don’t mix, and I am done with it for good.

My time and energy are too scarce and precious. Maybe I’ll do it once in a while when I really have something to talk about. Otherwise, I just want to share the “old fashioned” way. Even if this means to write for nobody than myself, my efforts and my creations deserve better than a scroll. I don’t want to consume or be consumed as social media encourages to do. I had proof last year that my work interests publishers and that people contact me despite my non-existent presence on social networks: this is worth more than all the likes in the world to me!

So I dug up this blog. It least I get some sort of a journal out of this, even though it will be at an irregular piece. For the trouble, here’s a WIP. Because I have a hell of a lot of them in my drawer.

As said, all of this is just my very personal impression: creators who are happy on social networks…, props to you! That’s fine and great and dandy and all. It’s just not my case!