Obsessing Over Numbers and the Unhealthy Side-Effects
If you follow me on instagram, you may have seen my latest post about taking a break from social media for a while. While I’m away from instagram, I’ll still be working towards my professional goals, such as my upcoming print shop, a logo, business cards, a portfolio, and more from there.
I wanted to use this medium to elaborate a bit more on how social media affected me over the past few months. I quickly realized the source of my slump was right in front of me all this time:
i was obsessing over the numbers
At the beginning of 2019, I had around 700-800 followers on instagram. As the days and months went on though, I began to see a significant increase in growth relative to the amount of followers I had previously. I hit 1k followers somewhere around April/May and I considered it to be a milestone and was proud of myself for staying consistent enough for the past several years to begin growing an audience for my artwork. But the growth didn’t stop; in fact, it increased. By the time the end of summer rolled around, I had around 1700 followers. I was approaching 2k faster than I thought, and it was exciting, honestly. But then, September/October came around and the growth just….stopped. This surprised me a lot and I subconsciously began paying extra attention to followers, likes, etc. This also began to have a negative impact on my outlook to shooting and my own artwork.
As the months progressed, nothing was getting better and I was stressing myself out over it. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was allowing social media to dictate how I created art. I would go out to shoot and get a few shots that weren’t award winners, but they were still products of my passion. But as soon as I got them into Lightroom, I began to criticize and pick apart all of the flaws of my shots. I suppose it’s normal to be your own worst critic, but I was focusing on the negatives so much, that it caused me to just delete most of the photos I took without even giving them a chance. I originally thought that the reason for all of this was lack of good conditions. I believe my style is focused around those vibrant skies, colorful clouds, and breathtaking sunsets, but for those of you who don’t know, winters in the Pacific Northwest rarely give those conditions. And the few times that Mother Nature decided to give us a break from the rain, I was working and unable to go shoot. While this reason definitely played a role, this was a scapegoat for me. For so long, this was what I blamed for a problem that was much more deeply rooted than I realized.
What made me realize my blindness to this issue was something that I feel everyone deals with at some capacity: jealousy. Despite the creative depression that had taken me over the past few months, I had made a couple really good friends through instagram and I want to give them shoutouts here:
Caiden Thompson (@caidenmthompson)
Jack Malson (@jackandstills)
What I’m about to type sounds so silly and embarrassing in hindsight, but this is what that insidious feeling of jealousy made me think in the back of my head. When I first met these two awesome guys on instagram, I had more followers than both of them (I was still in that growth phase I mentioned earlier) and wanted to try and help some younger guys with obvious talent and potential get more exposure. So we formed relationships and friendships over the platform, always supporting each through comments, likes, and shoutouts. Not long after this, I hit that brick wall…but they kept growing. I was thinking “what the hell am I doing wrong?” At the point of typing this, Caiden has basically the same amount of followers that I have and Jack just exploded, now at 3k+ followers (both deservedly so, they’re both incredible and dedicated artists). Seeing this growth from my friends outwardly filled me with happiness for them, but also inwardly fueled that fire of jealousy (still all unbeknownst to me, these were all subconscious feelings). I found myself constantly checking their profiles to see how good they were doing and comparing myself to them, which eventually called to mind a quote that an old mentor told me several years ago:
“comparison is the death of joy”
As soon as I realized what I was doing, everything quickly came to light. All of the nasty and embarrassing feelings were unearthed and brought into the light for me to see. Realizing how much I had let myself be affected by this truly horrified me. So after a few days of consideration, I decided to take the plunge, to cut these negative feelings off at the source. I deleted instagram from my phone and felt almost immediate relief. The very next day, I was already looking at my artwork with reinvigorated positivity. Because now, I’m creating for me and nobody else, which is how it should be.
Bottom line: I began to measure my success as a person and as an artist by the amount of followers I had and amount of likes that my posts would get, when there are so many other ways to measure success. I now have a strong idea of what success should look like for me and it has nothing to do with social media. A quote from a Nick Page video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLSnLvER9k0) is what really helped define this new vision for myself and my artwork:
“success is measured by the amount of time that you spend doing the things that you love”
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading. Don’t let yourself get caught up in the things that don’t matter.
Create for you and for you alone.
Love you guys.
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