Why It’s Better For Artists
I make art. I am a fine artist who paints with a brush onto a canvas, indulging in the tedious process of my craft, tortured by technique and composition, it is what I do, what I love, and it takes hundreds of hours to be that artist; whether it’s painting, marketing, planning — it all takes a lot of time.
To make one post an artist has to look into analytics and check demographics; what do the people want? And when’s the best time to post in order to make the most out of it? Sticking to one medium and one niche is extremely important because people don’t like it when we stray from our usual cute fan arts, or watercolour landscapes.
Painting works just to post is also extremely time consuming, these pieces take copious amounts of days to complete, especially if you’re an oil painter like myself. When work like that is senselessly scrolled past without thought or hesitation, we go back to the drawing board (no pun intended) and start again.
These faster paced platforms demand we use every function that that social media has to offer; take for example Instagram, there’s posting, stories, IGTV, reels, and going live — and all these functions must be used everyday in order to have some sort of presence, let alone success. Where the problem lies however, is with how it is consumed, the quickness in which the flick of a thumb takes can mean 1 or more creators were glanced at maybe, or at worst scrolled past completely.
We have been trained to be quick, allowing ourselves a few moments, downloading information, as this is what they are designed to do, in a way, we are able to absorb a lot of content in a very short amount of time. So the time put into making great art vs the time it takes somebody to vacantly scroll past, doesn’t add up anymore.
This is damaging to artists in so many obvious ways; making yourself known online when you’re an artist is the main way connections are made, and in turn content consumers then connect with the artwork itself. Finding people to buy and enjoy our art is most of the struggle, but when we find them, we’ve also got to keep them, and this includes responding to comments, posting new and exciting art that doesn’t stray too far from what we were already doing, being available in many different ways, AH are you exhausted yet?!
As well as all that work that goes into posting, the way it affects the art that is made can be truly damaging to an artist’s authentic voice. Being authentic, and having a voice that translates to beautiful pieces of artwork, exposes all the parts of an artist that are vulnerable. Art, whether it be traditional, digital, song writing or even writing, is an extension of the human soul, and social media, in fast form, will never be able to translate that feeling from one soul to another.
I myself have seen artists quit because creating the same images in multiple different ways, over and over again is like selling your soul to the social media devil, unable to explore or change mediums, or even experiment with subject matter. Art is now very much made to please the masses, and the rise of ‘social media art’ leaves very little for more exploratory works to be made in order to challenge, and provoke thought.
What is slow content?
Slow content is quite simply the opposite of fast content. Time is precious, and so when that time is spent consuming slow, thought out pieces of content, the creator wins a lot more than if you were flicking through months of their hard work, without taking even a second to pause and take it in. Examples of slower content are; long form pieces of writing like blogs and articles, videos longer than a couple of seconds, live streams and podcasts. All of these forms of content make the consumer sit and slowly take in the words whether read or spoken, and it sinks in further than just floating at surface level. Reading the stories and meanings, or even simply listening to the thoughtless rambles of a ‘penniless artist’, and truly hearing them, empowers our own being to be and do more, to be there for another person in healthier ways, in more compassionate ways, and this will always be the better option next to swiping mindlessly through the ether of the world wide web.
Instead of artists working hard on one post that will easily disappear from feeds within the hour, slow content usually offers benefits such as Google SEO, AdSense, and can be a great source of passive income whilst trying to sell physical pieces of artwork as well. Our time as creatives is extremely precious, and like they say ‘time is money’, so investing time wisely in avenues that will pay you back later down the line rather than make you work harder for nothing is the only way to make it in 2021 as a creative person.
