Is it art or content?

How social media turns artists into content machines

Somewhere along the way, between the switch from a chronological feed and the introduction of reels on Instagram, once-upon-a-time toy photographers transitioned into performative content creators.

Posting days appeared in bios, captions ended with reminders to like, share, and follow, and photos were treated with vertigo-inducing transitions or fading feel-good motivational quotes to disguise them as reels.

What happened to those photographers who started out making photos for the joy of creating? Simple— they found more joy in getting likes and follows.

I can already hear you protesting. That’s not you, you say. But I get it though. I got tricked into playing the game. And I know a few friends who got sucked into this creator mindset too. Thankfully, some of us recognized it and snapped out of it. But there are a whole lot who didn’t.

You see, we aren’t creators. Our goal isn’t more views, more likes, more followers, or more internet fame. We just want to make photographs and put them out there.

We are artists.

That’s kind of the problem though because Instagram is now a platform for creators and that’s how they view each of us. We’re constantly being advised to ‘have a consistent posting schedule’, ‘post x times a day’, and ‘use our new features’.

We’re curious— we experiment. We see some early results. We see peers get better results. And so the game begins.

Sadly, it’s not only Instagram that pushes us this way. Even art communities will nudge us into the game and insist that members only shoot in portrait format with enough negative space for their text overlay, for example. Composition and creativity be damned— you must generate efficient, shareable content in service to them so that their account is favored by Instagram.

Many will accept these suggestions conditions and produce content that the community will share and the platform will — cross fingers — prioritize.

Each one of them obeys the capricious Instagram gods, giving them the new stuff they currently fancy and delivering it every day: ‘Behold our reels and our 3-fire emoji comments that you require! Where is our reward?’

Spoiler: there’s no reward, just more hustle and grind. Welcome to your new job, content creator. And say hello to your new audience. It’s certainly not me anymore.

Content vs Art

For me, there’s a clear difference between content and art. But first, let’s define content because it’s such a vague and hackneyed term.

Content is something that wants something from you, writes Thomas J Bevan in his brilliant essay, Content vs Art.

‘Content’ isn’t the content itself necessarily. It is a procedure. And this procedure creates a worldview.

Content is transactional. It’s impulse at root is the same as advertising. It is looking to sell you on something. The message behind content is always a covert ‘buy my course’, ‘subscribe to my email list’ or ‘pick up some of my merchandise.’ 

The fact that this often exists alongside an overt and outright ‘hey guys, make sure to smash that like button and don’t forget to turn on that notification bell’ message is simply a case of insult being added to injury.

Content is ‘whatever makes the metrics move’, Bevan explains.

Playing to the gallery makes the metrics move, most commonly seen in the formulaic images of IP mashups that excite both fanbases. So do lifestyle images of influencers showing off their new toys.

More blatant tactics are the stories containing a post to check out that very same post and “end carousel graphics” reminding us to like, comment, share, and save (with arrows pointing at the respective icons in case we don’t know how Instagram works).

They are all procedures. And when you see them for what they are— infomercials for the creator— you can’t help but cringe.

Instagram is cringe.

I know I’m not alone in this thought. Kate Lindsay writes in her piece for the Atlantic, ‘Instagram is over’:

Instagram may not be on its deathbed, but its transformation from cool to cringe is a sea change in the social-media universe. The platform was perhaps the most significant among an old generation of popular apps that embodied the original purpose of social media: to connect online with friends and family. Its decline is about not just a loss of relevance, but a capitulation to a new era of “performance” media, in which we create online primarily to reach people we don’t know instead of the people we do.

“Performance media” is exactly how I would describe most of what I see on my Instagram feed these days, in part because I can’t curate what I see anymore but also because more people I follow are playing the game.

So how do we as non-creators stop performing for the most internet points and start feeling joy again?

Ditch the creator mindset. Ignore posting frequency, optimal image sizes, and best practices. Avoid commenting if you’re not adding value. All this advice from digital marketers is not for you.

Go back to shooting because you love the process of making photos. That’s where you started, after all. The joy of creation is in creating, not in the likes and follows.

Finally, be more discerning. The more you consume something, the more of it you are served. Let’s not reward bad content by giving it our attention.

My rule is to unfollow someone if their last three posts made me cringe. (Mute is great too if you want to avoid confrontation— because some creators will show up in your DM asking why you unfollowed.)

Of Two Minds

When I said that I played the game, I did that by shoehorning my educational content into my art account, often adding a behind-the-scenes shot into a carousel with my photos.

I felt conflicted about it because while I wanted to teach and inspire more people, I knew I was performing on some level.

After some reflection, I realized that I had two parts of me— the photographer and the educator— and they had different goals, needs, and sources of joy and fulfillment. They couldn’t be in the same space.

So late last year, I began to separate the two parts and created Take Better Toy Photos for my educational content.

That would free me to do my photography as Four Bricks Tall and share my photos as I had always done before: for myself, at my pace, with no calls to action or any of that stuff.

Because like Bevan, I don’t subscribe to the idea that artists must never profit off their work— I wish more could live off what they love to create. Take Better Toy Photos might do that for me someday with some paid features or services and for that, I should approach it with a creator mindset.

If you’re in a similar situation, this separation might work for you too.

What I’m saying is that we need to square with ourselves what we are really doing and who for. Is it for you, for your audience, or for the algorithm? Be honest and mindful, and you might be able to reconnect with your original joy… and be less cringe.

Toy Photography Features

I love these dolphin photos by glowingbrickette and konschmidt, two of my favorite toy photographers.

Shooting toys submerged in water is a fun challenge but it’s tedious: positioning the subjects with wires or rods in a small tank, getting the lighting right, especially rays of light, and eliminating as many tiny bubbles as possible. However, you do have a fun but messy time of it!

Even though bubbles technically shouldn’t be on underwater objects, I like seeing them in our staged toy scenes because that imperfection tells me the photos themselves are real.

glowingbrickette

konschmidt

Here’s my own dolphin adventure, with even more bubbles— an effervescent tablet inside the chest!

fourbrickstall