I think I've just about had it with social media.

Not because it wastes my time (but, yes, it does).

Not just because it feeds a corporate machine more emotional blood (but yes, it does).

Not just because it's a necessary evil (but yes, sometimes it is).

But because it's just straight-up toxic.

Let me be clear: I harbor no illusions about social media. I do not have an inflated sense of self-importance. In fact, I often doubt myself on a per-second basis. But I force myself to put work out there. I share photos. I share music I make. I share electronics projects. I share writing. And for someone who can be a tad hypersensitive, it's hard! But I think it's also healthy to share and get feedback, and just know that things are not created to exist in a vacuum.

With my recent foray back into photography, I created a new public Instagram account a little over a year ago. At first, it was pleasantly surprising. I got numerous likes/follows a day. It felt like validation, and that honestly felt good. It felt like I found an audience for my photographic eye. Never mind that the photos I was posting a year ago were not really things I would choose to post now.

So I persisted.

I kept posting, but the more I posted, the less engagement I noticed. Ostensibly, my photos were slowly improving, yet, I was losing followers. My posts received very few engagements, save for a few frequent flyers—most of them with good intentions, but a few whose only contribution was a copy-and-pasted 🔥🔥🔥, or ❤️❤️❤️, or even a 😍😍😍. Maybe, if they were feeling a little saucy, I'd get a ❤️🔥😍🙌🏻. After a while, one starts to realize that these folks are gaming the system. They're checking off the disingenuous boxes that Meta tells them to in order to get their content to float to the top of the heap.

And then one realizes, it's all a lie. You see low-effort stuff that constitutes pointing a phone at something, closing one's eyes, hitting the snap button then sharing without any curation, only to get hundreds or thousands of likes. Then beautiful work by another person with nary a peek. There is little visibility for effort or skill unless you are already at the influencer or content creator level. It's MLM for creatives.

So then I'd give up for a while. Just post whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. Not worry about liking/commenting on other peoples' posts. I mean, it's kind of like high school, and I was never a popular kid. So I was used to it.

But then I'd get irritated and try to play the games, only in my own sincere way. I'd offer real, heartfelt, observational comments. I'd repost things. I'd save posts.

Over a couple weeks, I saw a tiny bump in my own engagement. So I'd keep going.

Then I took a few days off, came back, decided maybe I needed a Threads account, and then saw the same "first hit is free" bump when an image from IG that only got about 30 likes got 450-ish likes in 24 hours. There it was! Validation, again!

And then...nothing. Crickets, as they say.

To add insult to injury, my Instagram engagement absolutely tanked. Again, the work I was posting was work I was excited about. I was tapping into my color grading more, taking photos of stuff that hits my own feels. But the engagement? Well, let's just say that over 24 hours, it was shown to 38 of my followers. I have about 1115 followers, just for perspective there. That's when I realized that this system is not for me. And seeing the comments in many Threads posts, it's against many other photographers, who used to enjoy more views/engagement, but suddenly are having the same likepocalypse as I am.

When I saw my engagement for this recent post after less than 24 hours, it just all came into focus (yes, pun intended) for me: Instagram/Threads/Meta does not give a shit about being supportive of artists. It does not care about you as a person. It wants you to stress out, to doubt yourself, to fall over backwards trying to appease their abusive algorithms. It wants you to question your own worth. It wants you to feel awful unless your content somehow meets their shifting expectations and financial goals. It wants you to serve.

Where does this leave us?

Sure, there are many other options out there. Some are more welcoming, and others suffer the same flaws as IG does. And Instagram sure as hell won't change what they are doing until they lose business, which means a huge swath of users would need to leave and stop feeding the machine. Not gonna happen.

For me? I am going to stick with Glass, and will probably still post to IG, but my expectations are going to be zero. I'll interact with the people who I follow when I feel like it, but I am not going to eat away at my own self-worth just to try to increase numbers when this is largely a serious hobby for me.

And I think I am going to start sharing more curated work here, on my blog. That feels more controlled, and more intimate. Less expectation and more expression for the esoteric crap I like to take photos of. And maybe, if the IG overlords decided one day to put humans first (spoiler alert: they won't), I'll consider putting more effort into it.

Until then, Meta/Threads/Instagram, you'll get no more of my emotional investment.

Not that you care.