Nothing on the internet is fun anymore

Do you remember when you would open Instagram and find genuinely interesting and rad things to look at? It’s why I joined IG in the first place, for the love of the image. The only people I followed were fellow creatives, and the feed was a really interesting and an actually authentic place: letraset collages, incredible photographs, graphics illustrators were making, and true experiments, and people’s unvarnished photos. Rarely did a “we’re drunk at the bar!” photo show up. It was a real special place for those who communicate with still images.

Nowadays? Everyone’s complaining. There’s a meme post going around calling IG a sinking ship. There’s protest graphics going up seemingly from every artist and designer I follow. It’s impossible to ignore that the algorithm feeds you content (ie. Reels and videos) that users are forced to make only so that they stay in other people’s feeds. I saw a post from a ceramicist that only 8% of their followers see their posts anymore and their business is dying. I saw another post from a maker colleague who had an online sale and was asking her followers to share her posts, as only 3% of her formidable following even saw the announcement she posted. Things are v squishy in the Instagram world these days. It’s a funhouse mirror hall in there, nothing is making any sense.

The rule of thumb at Vue Weekly, the indie weekly magazine I worked at as art director before it folded (thanks, social media) was ~40% ads, ~60% content, or you’re gonna lose the reader. If the page is covered in ads, no one’s going to read the article shoved into the last column by the inside margin. IG is losing the reader, and the business bro bots are in control. Nothing on the internet is fun anymore.

I don’t know about you, but no one I know is really itching to watch (or make) a Instagram reel. Producing a reel takes hours of time. My entire feed is full of video content no one wants to see, made by people who don’t want to be making reels but are forced to by an algorithm which prioritizes reels. That alogrithm is controlled by business bros who are further monetizing the IG platform, either through the free content-making labour of small business account holders desparate for views, or through those account holders paying for ads, or often both.

It’s worth remembering that absolutely everything we see on IG is curated by an algorithm now. There are no humans behind the scenes saying “this is perfect, they’ll love it!”. It’s all a robot, a string of code in a machine, programmed by engineers and marketers and businesspeople. Incredibly sarcastically: what fun. Magazines curate their content better than the algo controlling the IG feed. And I’d honestly prefer to read one instead of seeing parts of the mag on IG. Algorithms are not a replacement for real flesh and blood, creative folks. Those I’ve-got-a-gut-feeling, other-people-are-gonna-like-this editors. Magazine editor is a gatekeeping kind of job, it takes privilege to get a gig like that, and they hold a lot of power about what gets seen. Social media was supposed to level this paying field, and it did for a while, allowing anyone to curate and to build audiences. But now Instagram has just become the gatekeeper - we all dance so hard to the beat the algo sets. Whoever drops out, well, too bad.

The internet has been morphed into its current state partially by metrics-obsessed quant types who work at tech companies. This is a specific kind of person who likes spreadsheets, structure, metrics, probably thinks in code, and has been storied to drink Solyent for the efficiency. An excellent recent tech company example of something someone like this came up with is the pretty ridiculous “Star Seller” program at Etsy. The first time I saw it, I laughed until the tears came. It’s where independent artists who sell on the platform are now literally handed Etsy report cards on their “service time” to customers. The Star Seller program creates metrics that Etsy brass make up, which independent artists, running their own businesses, need to meet in order for their items get a good rank in Etsy’s search. Answer your Etsy messages right away, put it in the mail right away, absolutely get good reviews…or else. As if indie makers don’t do their best with this because they’re running their own business? And as if Etsy’s forgotten that makers chose an independent self-employed life in some part to get away from corporate middle management hoops like this? And as if life doesn’t throw wrenches in your way, and that a customer doesn’t understand that they are dealing with an independent, often solo, maker on the other end, that the embroidered hoop with a bird on it is not an emergency and can wait a few seconds, a day or two?

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Then these quant folks are mixed in with some extremely competitive, incredibly wealthy business people who live and breathe generating shareholder value for their tech company. What this blend of personalities think is totally awesome and will appeal to others in a way that they can make money off it...is sometimes so bland and obviously concocted in a boardroom/zoomroom that it makes me turn off my phone in the desire for authenticity, for fresh air.

So maybe it’s the desires and values of a particular type of personality and thought process being applied to social media that’s busting everything? Social media isn’t one-size-fits-all. But the infrastructure that social media exists in can only be created to work one way, and the playing field needs to stay the same for all users for the whole thing to work. Social media is increasingly designed by people who frankly probably have no idea (or care) what someone creative, or running a tiny business, essentially someone like me is about or may want or need from their platform.

If you’re working for a tech company these days chances are very high you fit into ‘the system’ very easily. How on earth can you make tech products for the masses that need the juice of creatives, artists, makers to stay interesting if all you understand is how to put on a suit (or more likely, a hoodie) every morning, show up to boardrooms on time, speak in business jargon, work 16 hours a day in a cubicle, create shareholder value, and collect a huge paycheque every two weeks that your robo-advisor deducts a portion of into an investment account for you on a date of your choosing?

And this is all happening while these employees are collectively making decisions that choke out tiny businesses by shifting the rules of social media so hard that small and micro biz can’t survive the shift. It just suddenly takes too much labour, too much time to keep up. What is the point of keeping on posting if the system is so obviously stacked against you? Why struggle with making time in your marketing schedule for making reels and post twenty times a day if only 3% of your audience (that you spent a decade building up BTW) will see it? And you have no way to contact all those followers directly, either?

No wonder many are becoming totally turned off of an internet that has suddenly become inorganic, striated and focussed on monetization. Come to think of it, I find going on the internet to always be a chore these days. The tech companies have killed the joy of the internet that I so crisply remember (you HAVE to click on this link!).

I have to use this utility to write work emails, look up references and phone numbers, market my design studio (book cover, anyone?), shop for whatever I need, read the (always terrifying) news, pay bills - rarely is the internet much fun anymore (aside from writing this substack, of course).

So for the rest of summer, maybe it’s time to just head back into real meatsack life. Take some photos, use your maps, stream your music, write your texts, but stay off those social media apps. Don’t worry, you won’t be forgotten. Enjoy what’s right in front of you, it’s so much better than the algorithm and the tech bros telling you what to see.

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Listening
Talking Heads - how can 35-year old music still sound so so fresh? David Byrne is enduringly transcendent. On repeat in the ceramics studio lately.

Ceramics by Roxy Lee - via Wrap Magazine