Joining Threads has me thinking about how I would prefer to show up in the world of social media. I've been at it for 15 years. I've developed a communication style that feels natural and comfortable for me. I share in a way that doesn't make me so uncomfortable that I feel like I have to hide, deactivate, or take breaks. I share in a way that doesn't invite the kinds of interactions I prefer not to have. I don't want unsolicited advice, critiques, and people acting too familiar with me. I have too much respect for friendship to expect it to happen instantaneously. I have seen the weird parasocial relationships some social media users have with each other and want no part of that at all. Honestly, I just do the bare minimum at this point. I copy and paste. I have a document with a master list of all my repeating social media posts. Same pictures, different words; same words, different pictures. I see my social media as a bulletin board, billboard, or bullhorn, not a way to start a community. I don't actually want to start a community, anyway. I'm fortunate to already be a part of some wonderful communities online and in-person, and I feel like Facebook groups, Discord, Zoom calls, forums, specialty websites, and other smaller networks have been a better way to facilitate that kind of interaction on the internet than social media sites like Threads and Twitter.
After doing all the exercises in The Artist's Way and Walking in this World, I feel very protective of my creative process. It's not something that I feel comfortable sharing in high-speed time-lapse videos. I have no desire to invite an audience to pack shipments with me or get ready with me. Not sure if it's due to my age or my introversion, but I often prefer to just be left alone.
I want to work alone and then share my finished product with an audience. I don't see performance as a part of my art practice. I don't enjoy live painting. I want to be alone with my supplies and my ideas. I don't want input from a focus group. I'm not looking for collaborators or brand partnerships. I don't want to show everyone what my process is. I feel like my process is none of the internet's business.
Perhaps I've been subjected to too many micromanaging bosses and nit-picking teachers over the years, but at this point in my life, I don't want to be judged, watched, and second-guessed as I work. I would like to work without the suffocating presence of hovering know-it-alls giving me the kind of performance anxiety that ultimately blocks artists.
When I watch biopics and documentaries about artists and writers who lived in the past, I see how they were allowed to be aloof and mysterious if they wanted. No one was pressuring them to share every aspect of their daily routines and personal habits. No one expected them to. I find that quite enviable.
I've written before about how much I hate the expectation to overshare in the name of "authenticity." My unpopular opinion is that I don't owe the internet the whole entire story of my life. I'm not interested in satisfying the curiosity of nosy people on the internet. I don't work for Instagram, Threads, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. I work for me. I shouldn't have to put on a fashion show or perform a choreographed dance routine to sell a painting. My art should speak for itself.
Joining Threads has also introduced me to a lot of influencer accounts that I don't follow and has given me a chance to learn more about their struggles through the posts they share. And that's given me a lot to reconsider when it comes to how my feelings about them have changed over the years, namely my resentment. I think what I resent is the outsize influence that influencers have had on how those of us in other industries are expected to show up on social media. The advice on how to succeed at social media comes from that lens. And that advice ultimately trickles down from the pyramid scheme shaped world of motivational speakers, coaches, and sales trainers, the same phony garbage advice I was forced to listen to when I worked in retail. I was supposed to use neurolinguistic programming to manipulate customers into buying things whether they wanted them or not. I was supposed to strictly follow sales scripts. My micromanaging bosses were spying on me from adjacent room vignettes to make sure I did.
Putting on a show, mugging for the camera like a kid on a Disney or Nickelodeon sitcom, effervescent, carefree, and upbeat, embodying the Great American stock characters of the beauty queen and the door-to-door salesman, all pageantry and spectacle and no substance are the things the experts say we all must do for engagement and likes.
And when we're done mining our personal lives for material, we're encouraged to look around and see if there's anyone in our vicinity who we can use for that purpose. That has led to a cringeworthy trend of eavesdropping and being a tattletale as content. I see this as an outgrowth of our see-something-say-something post Patriot Act milieu. Little by little, with every smart device and social network, we have surrendered our privacy and subjected ourselves to endless surveillance. But it's not just the apps that are telling on us. We are telling on ourselves. I now know entirely too much about complete strangers against my will because of their oversharing content.
Art and content are two different things. My art is not content, but sometimes I make content about my art. Art, to me, is something that is intended to last. A painting or sculpture you want to live with, a book you're happy to add to your shelf, a movie you want to watch again, a song you can't stop listening to... all those are things that were done for the art. And content is fleeting. I see content as something you make to promote the art, a commercial for the art, a trailer for the book or the movie. So in my mind, art is timeless and content is time-sensitive. Acknowledging the difference between art and content helps me keep things in perspective.
Related Reading:
Want to sell a book or release an album? Better start a TikTok. - Vox
How TikTok became a place for tattletales
Reesa Teesa’s ‘Who TF Did I Marry’ & The Highs & Lows Of Oversharing On TikTok