And thus I encounter the main issue I have with mainstream social media...

[springsodas]

So, after being absent for about a month, I decided to downgrade my social media hiatus over on Tumblr to semi-hiatus. It's actually pretty nice to be back; I was genuinely missing being on the site, even if there are certain... things I wish I still weren't seeing, and I'm happy to be seeing familiar URLs show up in my notifs who I otherwise don't interact with since we're not friends on Discord or anything. That said, within a day, I was already encountering a certain... problem of sorts, and it's driving me nuts because it really goes to show the inherently addictive nature of many social media sites.

Because the thing about modern social media is that it really, REALLY trains us to associate a positive experience with getting engagement on our posts. A lot of engagement. You see a post get a like or reblog/repost and it immediately causes a brief dopamine rush because oh hey, someone decided to interact with my post! Yay! And the more interactions you get on your posts, the longer that dopamine rush lasts, which is how you develop social media addictions because you wanna keep that high going, whether you're consciously aware of what you're doing or not. This is arguably much, MUCH worse if you're just a casual user of social media like I am--if you've got a brand/service you're trying to promote, then of course you want to try and make sure your posts are making the rounds because people are not going to see what you're trying to offer them if it doesn't get shared. But if all you're doing is posting, idk, artwork for fun, then it becomes an issue because getting big numbers just feels so good and, at some point, you do start take to notice of which posts are more likely to get some form of engagement and which ones are less likely to get much attention at all, and if the the posts with the lower numbers include things you genuinely like talking about/making... ugh.

Like I look at how I tend to draw quite a bit of OC and OC x Canon fanart for TMNT and that stuff almost never gets as many likes/reblogs on Tumblr as my posts and fanart that's focused on the canon characters. And while I get why that is--people who get invested in fandom generally come for the blorbos that actually appear in their favorite shows/movies/video games, not some rando OC someone made that they ship with Leo--it still doesn't change how frustrating it is because I do put as much effort into drawing/developing my OC as I do the stuff focused solely on the canon characters. So when it doesn't get all that much attention, it begs the question of whether I should be posting it all and just make what people actually wanna see... which is an extremely, extremely bad mentality to have because I should be making what I wanna make and posting what I wanna post, not what I think will get the most attention on social media. 

Either way, the issue of having gotten as addicted to social media numbers as I have is one of the main reasons I'm definitely going to stick around Dreamwidth. It can be a little frustrating to post here and not get any comments, but I mean... if I can train myself to post based on what I feel like posting rather than thinking about if anyone is even going to see said post, hopefully I can apply that to other places so that I won't be as disappointed if something ends up only getting, idk, 15 - 20 notes rather than 100 or more. Just a thought.

Comments

[emeraldnebulae1]

This is part of the reason why I joined dreamwidth myself. Everywhere feels too busy or cramped in design and I just want a space that’s mine where I can post my own stuff a bit more quietly. I love some of the fandoms that I’m in, but I don’t want to shout to the whole world about my personal head canons and au’s for the characters and my fan ocs.

I think dreamwidth is something grown best by interacting with communities and by building your blogs interest lists. the way this site is designed, I think it would be easier for someone to stumble by and look for a bit and see if there’s anything they’d like to comment on than with tumblr. There’s a whole different mindset I feel like is being pushed in general to rush and see the next thing instead of breaking down the current thing capturing your attention. And this leads me to commenting less and less because I am information fatigued.

I’d be wary of feeling like you have to draw things that the algorithm would like, just because that line of thinking can push you away from drawing what makes you happy and lead to burnout. I say this for myself really, I’m being told I need to draw popular things that make my soul wilt just a bit! I just want to write about my blorbos, social media shouldn’t punish us for that.

[springsodas]

You are right and you should say it.

Now that I think about it, I think social media has also negatively impacted me in terms of just studying art and developing my personal style. I feel like I have to post everything I draw despite that so much of learning art is just drawing things like disembodied limbs, practicing shadows on spheres/boxes, random doodles, etc; all stuff that shouldn't really be posted to begin with. Hell, even if a piece is fully rendered/finished, I shouldn't feel at all pressured to slap it on my Tumblr/Bluesky if I don't want to.

(Of course, the problem in that area is that, for a lot of people, the only motivation they have to draw is seeing that notif counter go up, so it's no wonder that many young artists feel pressured to make a fully-rendered piece that is post-worthy every time they open their art program of choice; this can also slow down the art improvement process tremendously. I really didn't start to see significant improvement in my character illustrations until I actually sat down and studied stuff like anatomy and focused on specific body parts for extended periods of time rather than trying to draw the entire figure.)

[emeraldnebulae1]

It's been a large distraction to me as well. When I was on Deviantart and was creating work more regularly, I was pushing myself too hard, not learning enough, and not giving myself enough time to finish so that I eventually burned out. It's taken years to get back to a point where I could create fully finished pieces again. Racing an algorithm, racing attention spans trying to stay relevant- isn't good for anyone's health. I do think it actively makes your creativity suffer.

I've started making handcoded websites, and I enjoy putting things there. There's no pressure to get reactions, just a place to collect my things. It's given me a bit of an outlet to visualize where I want to put my stuff before I finish it, which gives me some motivation as well. It shifts my focus from getting interactions and making a scrap book documentary thing instead. I wanted a space to store processes and thoughts on pieces that I'm working on, and it seems to be a good place to organize it. I worry often that someone won't want to follow me for xyz things I post, so there's less anxiety on that front when i have a space dedicated to the thing that I actually do what to just put out there. I've had a negative attachment on whether or not I should make something because I don't think it will be successful, and this kind of helps. I should make something because I want to, not because I don't feel like there's space for it to exist. Ah, I've rambled a bit.

Really cool that you were able to shift your focus as well and start seeing growth again! I ought to do that too. I've wanted to make some small sketchbooks to focus on specific parts I want to get better at. It would be cool to flip through. I want one for painting lizards, and another for hands.

[gimmighoulcoins]

Oh man, yeah, I totally agree, that's such a nasty feeling with most social media, and it's... honestly, it's basically inevitable for the majority of users. Not every post will get much, if any, attention... Add in posting about OCs and you're playing an already difficult game on hard mode, so to speak. But it's all set up in a way where it feels like such a downer! Dreamwidth does just feel more like... I don't know, like I'm doing it for myself first and foremost? Sure, I like getting comments, and there's still a level of feeling discouraged when a post gets none, (and to further the "OCs make it trickier point," most of my original characters + setting posts are the ones that have no comments) but it's very short-lived! I feel like I still had a positive experience and got enjoyment/personal benefit from simply making the post! It's really nice.

puts my thoughts in a jar and shakes them

[redstringraven]

i have a lot of thoughts on this 'issue'. it's something i've turned over and over in my hands like a puzzle cube and tried approaching from a lot of different angles, partially as a path to recovering my relationship with my own art. i have days where it gets under my skin, and i have days where it rolls off me like water on duck feathers.

i think you're onto something with using dreamwidth to be a bit of a "training device" to getting used to low engagement or responses. whenever i think of why engagement levels don't bother me as often, i tend to find myself tracing it back not just to an interest in OCs but also in secondary/background characters and rarepairs. i'm pretty sure i'm still the only person in a specific rarepair tag on ao3, and, for nearly a decade, a lot of my art and writing was focused on a group of characters who appeared for less than two episodes in a huge series and maybe had a total of 15 minutes in screen time.

i kind of "had" to get used to low engagement and rely more on my enthusiasm and love for the characters. by the time i found my way back to creating for the tmnt fandom, i'd entered a mindset of "i'm gonna do whatever i wanna do, and if y'all enjoy it: cool. if not? whatever; your loss i guess". this absolutely is NOT a mindset i reached overnight; this is after a full loss of love for my art, several years of immense shame and therapy to untangle all that, then a few more years of learning to love my art again.

this isn't to say i don't still get frustrated or discouraged when a creation of mine is passed over--that drawing of gwyn based on neglected space is at 20 notes when i worked just as hard on it and--it's just as good--as the leo drawing based off you're not here, which got significantly more reception. i've been developing liáfsini for three years and, while i know MOST of it is still in my head or kept under key because i don't wanna share it until i'm certain it's nailed down, it still makes me grumble to myself when i DO decide to share slices of it and they get passed over. but i let myself grumble, i go do something else for a bit, then i move to the next thing on my artistic to-do list. i can't remember where i read it, but i once read a post discussing the frustrations of fandom vs original creations, how easily the former gets engagement even if it's made with ""less skill"", and a phrase that stuck with me was "no one cares until they do". and the best way to make people care is to just keep sharing. they can't care if they don't have anything to care about or a back-log where they can find more. but i care. it's lonely, but sometimes that does have to be enough.

and if we're being honest? i don't think it's JUST a social media thing. i see this happen in 'private' and controlled spaces like discord servers, too. i obviously don't expect every single person in a given space to respond to something that gets shared, but i do notice a lack of any response OR what i might refer to as a "canned" response (generic, non-specific, potentially insincere). of course, folks have school or work or other offline obligations or may be otherwise recharging--again: i don't expect every single person in a space to respond to every single shared thing--but it happens often enough across the private spaces i'm in that i've taken notice.

i feel like, at this point and time, the sense of 'community' is kind of broken up, and as individuals there's only so much we can do about that with our own time and energy. but if you want change, an effort has to be made. i try to go out of my way to give back to fandom/creative spaces the energy i'd like to receive. i don't expect anyone else to do this--i know it takes time and energy--but, i dunno. i always try thinking back to high school and deviantart, and how--despite all its short-comings--the community aspect on DA was pretty strong. folks would randomly interact with each other, draw their characters interacting, there were little events, meme templates that got passed around, we'd spam each other's pages with llamas, etc etc.

i think the introduction of algorithms really fucked a lot of creators and their relationship with social media, or at least it was a big piece in doing so. that's part of the reason i've remained on tumblr despite having tried (and left) sites like instagram: tumblr doesn't have an algorithm. posts don't get boosted by the platform itself like they might on youtube, tiktok or instagram, which contributes to an almost slot-machine-like rush where one day something you post gets a TON of interaction and now you're always chasing that.

the negative side of tumblr not having an algorithm, though, is that most people have gotten used to an algorithm being present. and as a result, people don't recognize the value in sharing the things they like themselves. hitting 'like' on a tumblr post doesn't 'boost' it or give it a higher chance of being seen by more eyes, but reblogging it will, because now you're putting it on the dash of everyone who follows you. algorithms have made it much easier for the audience to be passive and unengaged, maybe assuming that the platform will do the "word of mouth" work for them, and that sucks. i think creators and 'audience' alike need to start finding ways to unlearn it.

anyway. ...like i said, i have a LOT of thoughts on this whole thing, have spent a lot of time thinking about it and coming to peace with certain things and talking myself down from others, but i think i've said more than enough for now. apologies for having rambled for so long. xD;;;