Creating, not consuming
We’re just out here riding the waves. (Image by Anna Prosekova)
Social media was so fun when it first started.
In 2003 or so, a site called Friendster appeared, reconnecting me with my high school and college classmates in a way that was exciting and novel even though we were so young we’d barely lost touch yet. It was a delight to see familiar faces reappear and find out what people were up to.
It happened again a few years later with MySpace and a few years later with Facebook.
Not too long after, the air went out of that particular balloon. Once we’d gathered all of these friends and colleagues together again, what was there to do?
Fight about politics, turns out. And share funny, forgettable memes. And brag about graduations, vacations, and promotions.
I bounced over to Instagram in 2011 for a respite from all the bad energy of Facebook (for which I blame Facebook, not my Facebook friends).
And then Facebook bought Instagram, and I kinda gave up.
By 2015, I had ghosted all of the social platforms without actually removing my profiles. Every time I tried to post, it felt calculated and artificial. I asked myself, “Who am I sharing this with, and why?” Unable to satisfactorily respond to these questions, I gave up.
Eventually, through blogging, I uncovered an answer: I was sharing my posts with whoever might be interested, as a gift and invitation.
This was very different from the Facebook/Instagram ethos of sharing the highlights of your life with whoever you already happen to know.
Posting no longer felt calculated and artificial because I wasn’t documenting my life as I was living it — or attempting to appear to be doing that. Instead, I was simply sharing my ideas.
And I wasn’t expecting that my childhood acquaintances and former work associates would necessarily be interested, so I was completely released from any sense of obligation to try to appeal to them.
This meant that I could show up and share whatever I wanted, on my own terms.
Recently, I’ve returned to social media with that vision in mind: to offer each post as a gift and invitation, and to receive the posts of others in the same spirit. We don’t have to be consumers of media. We can be creators and colleagues, supporting and encouraging each other.
Such artistic communities have existed all over the world and all over the Internet throughout history. I’m grateful to have forged deep connections everywhere from Akimbo workshops to the steps of Sacré-Cœur. Some of the these connections and communities are temporary, and some thrive for decades; I will seek them out and enjoy them wherever and whenever I can find them. Increasingly, I’m hoping to create them.
I’m not keen to share a beautiful sunset or vacation experience the way I was ten years ago when the ability to do so was new and exciting. I’m no longer interested in anyone else’s sunsets, vacations, or latte art, either. But there’s still room for stories. There’s still room for learning. I still want to hear how people see the world, and I want to find inspiration in the work of others to create my own things.
It’s overly romantic to say that everything we create is art, from our meals to our outfits to our tweets. But when I think of myself as a creator — as an artist — I understand why I don’t feel like posting a “status update” on social media. And I understand why I don’t want to be a consumer, mindlessly scrolling the way a previous generation might put Good Morning America on television in the background all morning. I want to curate what I pay attention to and be thoughtful about what I share — what I create.
Today, I’m experimenting with what it means to be a creator in the context of social media. To abandon all pretense of presenting my life, and instead, present my work and my art. I wonder what the landscape will look like in another few years.
