We Need to Talk About the Algorithm
That's how we put Tumblr out of business, right? ...right?
I'm an artist, so naturally, I associate with artists and other types of content creators. When we create stuff, we typically create it to be seen. We don't just get an audience for our content by putting it out there, at least not in the present day. These have been wiped out in favor of hubs of centralized entertainment media, crowdsourced from friendly volunteers (hi, that's us.) We are vulnerable to malignant systems like them because we have an extreme willingness to distribute our artistic labor to greater audiences.
Your favorite social medias have set up the illusion that publishing "directly to online audiences" keeps YOU from having to sacrifice yourself to a ruthless entertainment industry that will destroy your creative output. This is a massive lie and a master manipulation plot. Horseshoe theory is really mooning the audience here because Internet creatives are mauling their work to succeed in abusive and grueling social media algorithms. This completely mirrors the industry creatives of old mauling their ideas to abide by corporate network standards and deadlines to keep ratings up. We need to realize that creativity must be independent or it will be crushed and taken advantage of for sick ulterior motives, and social media corporations are the antithesis to creative freedom.
Social media is exploitative toward creators as a principle. By the end of this article, I hope you will deactivate your accounts and become an independent Internet content producer.
How Do Algorithms Work?
I lived off social media commissions before. For a solid year I got decent business. Bought a lot of food, a lot of gas. It is an accomplishment to achieve a level of stability doing "what you enjoy." But I didn't enjoy it. I couldn't make what I loved if I wanted to keep my business going. I had to create what appealed to the algorithms. By mastering and adapting to the algorithm, I became a perfect advertisement. These social media sites compensated for my sacrifice of all individuality and creative autonomy with viewership and reception. Mastering the algorithm essentially means the social media platform's AI tracks that people spend a lot of time consuming and engaging with my post. Not for any organic reasons, mind you! No one is just randomly finding my post, unless the machine allows them to. Upon publishing, it goes through a preliminary stage of being shown to maybe ten or so people. Depending on engagements on that post, the algorithm will either continue giving me exposure or stop showing the post to new people and I'll reach a cap. That's why on Instagram in particular, users' posts will continually plateau around specific numbers if they aren't appeasing the algorithm enough.
But If I graduate to the next stage, twenty people get to see my post now; if it gets good engagements here, it will go further and further up the totem pole until it's challenged against huge numbers like ten thousand, or twenty thousand. After becoming so successful, I'll reach the Explore or For You page. Maybe even the top of the hashtag if I've scored really well!
Let's say this is you. You wanna be a big shot and make a lot of kromer. You employed all your algorithm knowhow and made the most masterful, most Social Media-Optimized post of all time. You're exhausted, out of breath, but you've tried so hard 'til now, you can't give up, because you've seen so many people make it.
Finally. You did it. A kabillion new followers, and a jillion likes on your post. Your phone won't stop vibrating, you feel super important with all these Nice Comments you're getting! Now that you've received all these big numbers and brightly colored notifications and overstimulation at the prospect of your phone blowing up from a bunch of strangers who care about you and following my content, you are hooked in the social media game. You are going to do it again. You need to do it again, because if you stop you'll never have this glory back. You'll never have the prospect of this success back if you take a break.
Except, it's not even that simple. A friend of mine feared that not posting on social media would be the only reason her algorithm engagements would not pick up, and would proceed to decline. I told them that's only one microscopic piece of this 5,000,000-piece jigsaw puzzle that no human should be forced to math out in order to comfortably produce and exchange their content with other creators. The inorganic content distribution of social media is so, so, so mortifyingly low-down and cutthroat.
I shared with them how Instagram in particular is host to some nasty algorithmic trends. Certain photo compositions would score better than just any old photograph or drawing. That's why you may have seen so many artists doing grid backgrounds and color block backgrounds with the character in the middle for so long a few years ago- while it was easy to do and accessible, Instagram's algorithms rewarded it for consumers enjoying looking at it. Including certain things in the background of your image would get it better scores, this was notable in selfies. Lighting mattered in some circumstances, colors mattered, and it's all because the robot ships your posts out to different sects of specific content consumers to see how each proto-focus-group reacts.
To establish how these systems work a little more, The AI Algorithm spends years building a database of statistics on how long people consume content. It identifies and catalogues patterns (like colors, backgrounds, subjects, hashtags, caption contents, mentions, etc.) within user uploads with high engagement. Posts containing Ideal Features are rewarded with more exposure, so the algorithm can take advantage of precious ad placement around it and successful posts like it. Trending characteristics within images like these will persistently be rewarded until the algorithm discovers new trends that score high engagement and viewership, and the cycle repeats.
Users must clamor to determine what these features are to get a slice of the pie, and not only does that encourage a culture of homogenous and same-y entertainment, it is a direct and intentional orchestrator of competition with forced scarcity. Potential viewership is the scarce resource, and we are all gambling for it.
I was lucky to find groups that shared this information with me and would work with one another to boost engagements. Many of my companions who slaved against Instagram's algorithms longer than I had knew many cycles of art trends that got good scores and had to adapt each time it changed. Sometimes it would be multiple changes within a year. Without these groups, I would have likely never made more than $30 in my whole career. It is very hard to play the social media game alone; this is manipulative in its own right, but I'll get to that either later on or in another post.
You have to realize that within each of these social media websites it is an AI robot distributing you points for jumping through all the dolphin hoops and successfully flagging its filter. Creators must realize within these broken systems, if you do not flag the filter by performing the way the system needs you to in order to sell advertising space, your push for fame will never work no matter how many times you upload. No matter how many years you upload. It is a completely inorganic process. Your lack of success is not your fault, nor is it that "no one likes your content." No one is getting access to your content because of the social media it's hosted on. A whole slew of biases comes from that sort of homogenized and centralized content distribution anyway, but I'll talk about it later. With algorithms, we are dealing with the same kind of situation as the AI that flagged "female-presenting nipples" on Tumblr back in 2018.
Okay, that sucks. But I still want to be famous and reach potential fans and customers lol. Why the hell should I deactivate?
You'd shill your hard, passionate labor out and be a stepping stool for advertisements just for a robot to randomly decide to spoonfeed you an uncertain amount of potential customers? You can't rely on this method. The algorithm will eventually stop rewarding you because it has to reward newer and shinier content. You'll have to work harder and change your specific content to flag its sensors again and potentially alienate your existing consumers. You will not make what you want to make if you want to keep being shown to people, and that is going to burn you out. You're really losing more than you'll gain here.
This is the state of the social media artist. We all become brands competing with one another in the same market, with a bunch of mini-micromarkets within it, trying to score consumers for our brand. If you don't think that's you, you've got to be deluding yourself. The entire timeline of successful influencers with lots of numbers that grow bigger and faster than yours follow incentivizes you to want those on sight.
Listen, anon. Snap out of it. Snap out of the greed, the short-sighted lack of self-preservation you've been coerced and shackled into by this seriously under-criticized and deranged hustle culture. On social media, you are playing a robot's game. From the get-go, you have no organic nor earthly chance of anyone seeing your work. Unless you link it to them or you're lucky enough to be spotted in a search, you are as good as shadowbanned.
Absolutely abysmal state of entertainment and artistry we're living in, aren't we? So many creatives wallow under corporate foot, blindly, happily, because Numbers! Your so-called "potential customers" you slave to earn will like your post, maybe retweet if you're lucky, then completely forget about what they just liked and retweeted MOMENTS later. It is a content farm. Everyone has to deal with the consumer's intentionally short attention span, and compete with everyone else for it.
Why race within a system designed for everyone to lose, and forces you to keep racing?? Definition of insanity! In the grand scheme of that system, you! Do not! And will not! Ever! Matter!!! You will be replaced by the next content farmer who pushes out creations the algorithm determines are conducive to advertisement click rates increasing. You are being USED. Your creations are an advertiser's table. Their products in the banners and between the tweets are the full-course meal served to every on-looker naive enough to think they're just surfing the web. These dishes carefully curated to the individual viewer's taste are all courtesy of every social media and corporate website's tracking cookies engrained in every facet of our technological experiences. Thanks, Google!
Your diligent contributions make all this possible, and your only payment is this evidently worthless monopoly money called likes, views, and follows. Someone looking at you, just for one second, not because they want to, but because The Algorithm told that user that they could, is the only way you could ever be paid.
It was never about your art in the first place. "Not good enough" isn't a variable in your creative endeavors on social media.
You're not a robot, brand, or advertiser, anon! You are a creator by passion, hobby, and choice. You are perfectly capable of making appealing art that masses can enjoy and spend their money on. Yet sooo many creators choose to break each and every creative bone in their body and fit in these twisted molds to pass the robots' tests. It's a real desperate loser's climb to the tops of the algorithms, only to have your work "seen" once or twice a day as a one-second novelty to the timeline. When your work will inevitably age out to the algorithm, you can only bank on accumulating a large enough replaceable following to regain novelty and customers with new "generations" of consumers, but what's the point in having an inorganic easily distracted following of freebies with no passion for what you put out? Don't allow your hard work to be a sideshow in the Twitter zoo.
If no algorithm to spoonfeed me conditional viewership for my income, then... what do?
Creators, have standards for yourselves and your content. Protect your work from being ruthlessly exploited by social media advertising platforms and move on to making your own websites. Twitter and Instagram's user interfaces are optimized and engineered to illicit pathological consumer reactions. Regaining your creative independence will restore your artistic identity; your fans will be able to tell, as well! Stop making what they want to see, return to making what you've been called to create.
Ever notice how inefficient social media functions as an archive for artwork and creative media? It's not about displaying your content like they try and make it out to be. It's about fresh, addictive, instant gratification, curated by an AI to generate the most stimulating feeds possible. Older content is buried and never interacts with the algorithms ever again. You cannot trust social media to archive your work. If your account is banned or lost to their awful customer service, you will lose instant access to your online portfolio.
Control your income by hosting your very own shop on your website. Manage business inquiries without becoming distracted by overwhelming social media notifications. Make your advertisements easy to access, unlike on Twitter where you're punished with shadowbans for attempting to profit off your work. You wont have to bump your commission sheet and LARP as an intrusive advertisement on social media if you have a whole page on your site dedicated to what services have to offer. Viewers can click it at will, and they likely will simply from browsing your website.
There are so many unimaginable plusses to abandoning the parasocial Twitter deathtrap. Maintaining distance between you and strangers on the Internet has never been more difficult, but with your own site its extremely easy. For updates, you can set up a personalized mailing list or newsletter for your fans. This establishes a necessary boundary of communication between you and the consumer! Theyll receive the content you provide them if they choose to. No more intrusive or uninvited comments demanding you for your whereabouts, or urging you to post more. No more unwarranted harassment if you dont appeal to someones interests or psychology. They can't to find your website unless they really look, and without means for communication readily available, they'll have no avenues to attack you.
After you make the shift, it might even become apparent to you that some of these features are unnecessary to your wishes. That's true, most of these tools are not for everyone! Communication is optional. On Neocities (or within other independent website building communities), communication is not incentivized or rewarded. You can finally be an island, and your creations will thrive on their own merit! Not the value attributed to them by an AI. You don't have to own a shop, all your content can be completely free. The pressure to mold yourself into a brand or competitive piece of capital is gone. Without social media influencers modeling the ideal artist as one who takes commissions and sells themself as a professional, you can curate your appearance to exactly what makes you most comfortable. You can be a hobbyist again! Remember that old word that died in the graveyard of DeviantArt? Never forget where you came from.
By uploading all your content to a website and removing it from centralized methods of entertainment, you are taking power away from these gigantic systems that lord monopolies over content and self-expression. Your work used to be exclusive to their platforms! But not anymore. You can say NO to exploitation. Decentralized content surfing returns sentimentality and individuality to online self-expression.
But the best part about being an independent creator with a website is that these things are optional. You arent forced to use the same features everyone else is using, you can do whatever you feel like.
Closing Malds
Why? I mean, what is keeping them there? They certainly aren't being paid to remain there. They're being paid in dope and culturebux, but there's no pertinent financial gain that comes from social media. Consumer interaction is typically directly related to how well your posts perform on the constantly changing algorithms. All donos will come from off-site, and Twitter shadowbans posts with links in them already. Instagram and TikTok make it impossible to link off-site unless the link is included in the user's profile. Social medias do not even want them to profit! They have to coach their following to retweet their content or and share their payment options as hard as they can to get anywhere. This is just very strange and masochistic to me. They give a lot of excuses for their co-dependence toward online systems of abuse. Whatever gets off this generation's collective cyber-fame boner I guess, lol... The monopoly money attention dollars really do seem more valuable to these guys than their creations!
To all you social mediacrawlers who mocked and griped on people "paying with exposure" a couple years ago, you guys work for social media for exposure! You are the thing you claim to despise! It is the exact same phenomenon. You morons defend supercorporations to their last breath for some exposure teat, but when some random NPC influencer offers exposure payment you all bang your gongs and sound for them to be crucified. What the hell is this double-standard? Stop living like this!
You are protecting and working for them at any cost, even if it's no cost, even if you are paying them to continue your dutiful masochistic service under them! You are sad, overstimulated, hyper-exposed to peoples traumas and nonexistent sexual boundaries, you don't even LIKE social media, but you can't even admit it because the moment you're gone you feel like you're dead to the world. That is not the case. You're a human, anon. You don't need likes, followers, or retweets to tell yourself that. Make a website with Neocities, Jekyll, or Tor and establish yourself as one.
The people behind these systems should be punished for psychological warfare on common people. I'm angrier at the fact that social media is just allowed to exist in this state in tandem with everyone's complacency, and even personal accomodation...!! There should be way more outrage, but soo many people are content because they profit off it. Simply obsessed with the concept of profiting off it, they treat this algorithmic abuse to our labor and the value of creative autonomy like an amnesty...
...instead of the unpaid compliant slavery to an ad factory that uses their efforts for a neverending content farm that it is. Get real, man! What the hell is up with your priorities?! You're broke and Twitter is your only source of income? You can't obtain a job in real life because you're sick or disabled yet somehow shilling to strangers that view you as a content-creating machine online and participating in extensive, grueling, time-consuming social media labor for said individuals is any easier on your body and psyche?
Sure, Jan. Keep tilling corporate soil for your monopoly money attention dollars that get taxed and sliced by your robot overlords every time you try to get some freetime IRL or a mental health break. Anything you make through by Patreon and Kofi is going to get taxed to hell when you try and score a commission too.
Stop doing this to yourself, anon. This suffering is optional. Please just make a website. Promoting these systems by making your online presence exclusive to them traps other people who want to access your work in this system as well. Value your independence. Value everyone's independence. Profit will come to you if you make the right connections and establish yourself as someone people will want to work with, not by grifting enough followers to get lucky with the robots. Also, why is it such a hot-take that people should keep real-world jobs to fund their creative endeavors? Okay, that's a battle for another blog.
I think I'm finally done. How'd I do? I hope I did alright. If you have any feedback for me, drop it in the chat. I hope to update this blog page with some funny cartoons, and edit it for clarity throughout the day. Also fix some embeds, etc. Next up you can probably expect a gigarant on social media refugees who preach "decentralize the net!!1" then link their socials at the bottom, lol. Watever.