Being a working artist these days feels as if it is 5% making art and creating and 95% “business” (scheduling, making “content”, shooting, trying to navigate social media algorithms, and promoting your art).
This feels exhausting, and in the end of the day not only it takes away the joy of making art, but it also actively stops you from doing any art at all.
There are days where I say “I will do my daily list (socials etc.) and then I will do this watercolour painting I wanted... by the end of the daily list I feel so drained and my head is buzzing to the point that I just need something to “numb” the buzz (for me it is videogames)... I cannot think, I cannot read, I cannot do anything let along create art.
Social media, or more accurately, the way social media has evolved is ruining the way that working artists operate their day to day lives. It used to be so simple. Deviantart for digital art downloads uploaded in bulk, a Tumblr portfolio for all your art uploaded whenever you had bulk photos to upload, and then Instagram, the main social media to communicate with the world, and that was it.
Then Tiktok happened, and it really put the pressure on smaller (solo) creators. If you want to “compete” in order to have an audience, then you “have” to play the game, you have to film the making process of everything you make instead of the result, you have to film a lot of little videos and take many photos so you can have a very specific uploading schedule, you have to.... you HAVE to transform from an Artist to a “Content Creator” who isn't working for themselves any more, but works in order to appease the algorithms so they can retain people watching ads that make the huge platforms rich.
And all this creates a sea of procrastination, when you think “I will do this or that project later when I can film it”...
Once you were an artist, now you are an unpaid marketing worker for the big media corporations, and the only thing you get in return is that they “might” bring you some people so you can work as an artist and pay the bills.
I think we should normalise artists being artists and not free marketing agencies.
I know that if I do not enslave myself in this machine in order to compete with those who do, I might never make it as an independent working artist, but I think I will not. I do not want to allow this to kill any joy I have for creating and making art, even if it means that I will be doing it just because creating makes me happy.