February 22, 2025
I came across a couple of Instagram posts promoting an action called “Lights Out Meta,” a targeted boycott of all Meta platforms (including the biggest: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) for the week of January 19th through the 26th. I appreciated the challenge, both to stick it to the man (or men) and do a little social media detox simultaneously. Instagram has clearly become a destination app for so many industries, contemporary art (along with modern, historical, graphic and schlock art) very much among them. I run two feeds on IG: one for my art and one for my podcast, “The Conversation,” and while there have been periods where I’ve found the experience of checking in to be somewhere in the range of benignly satisfying to a nice dopamine hit, the enshittification of the platform over the last couple years has turned the experience into a chore about as satisfying as taking out the trash.
Despite learning healthier approaches to navigating IG, the feelings that come with time spent there remain a problem — a combination of envy, FOMO, and general uneasiness that’s been extensively documented. While I can’t claim that my one-week detox was profound, it definitely reduced my rumination levels significantly. Over time, I can imagine those benefits would continue to improve my overall mental health.
But I’m a visual artist living in the 2020s: not having an Instagram feed doesn’t seem like something I can afford to do. With Zuckerberg’s hard-right turn after the 2024 election, eliminating fact-checking and enabling LGBTQ discrimination, along with his kowtowing to the Mango Mussolini, users of Meta are, or at least should be, facing a complicity check. To what extent am I, as merely one of a billion users, stuck supporting Zuckerberg (or fellow despicables like Musk, Bezos, Thiel, and their respective corporate monopolies) by using Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, et al?
I am far, far, far from being a media analyst or pundit, so instead of getting out of my depth, I put the word out (mainly on Instagram, of course) to crowd source a range of artists’ current thoughts on their social media consumption. One wrinkle I added to the equation was whether the newer app Bluesky is a better, safer haven for disgruntled IG users to flee to (the short answer is “not so much,” because to begin with, Bluesky is modeled after Twitter, not IG).
One IG friend shared a post from the account all_things_democracy that read, “Do you dislike Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg but use their platforms? … if so this video is for you!” This is a near perfect emblem of where we are early on in what appears to be a very tepid reconsideration of social media use thus far: you can still be on it, but without the pesky guilt of compliance! Indeed, the general tenor of the responses I’ve received has been, “I don’t like where Instagram, or Facebook, have taken us, but I need to stay on them because of X, Y and Z.” The self-justifications are quite numerous.
These thoughts from my fellow IG artist users, including one who’s left the platform, exemplify a solid cross-section of people’s thoughts on both IG and Meta in general. Let’s start with two artists, one in Saskatchewan, one in the Bay Area. No doubt about it, a lot of artists have a lot to say about social media.
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Kara Uzelman, an artist living and working on Treaty 4 Land, Nokomis, Saskatchewan:
Like any self-employed businessperson, I am reluctant to give up this network as it is my primary point of connection to peers and colleagues as well as a potential source of commerce to sell my own work through studio sales and promoting exhibitions.
I currently live in a rural farming community in Canada … I can afford housing and studio space here, but the tradeoff is being physically cut off from the urban centers of art and culture. There are no public or private galleries at which to view others’ art and socialize at openings. There are no studio visits, no in-person talks, no movie theaters, no restaurants. So that’s why artists gravitate towards urban centers.
However unrealistic or delusional it may be, I have not given up hope of being able to make a living from art or craft … and feel reliant on this network as an important tool for enough commerce to allow me to invest as much time and effort as possible to making art. The freedom to do that is the reward of my internet usage. But I am not happy with what social media has become.
Moe X, an Arab-American artist living in the Bay Area:
I have considered leaving Meta’s platform as I felt the algorithm was biased against queer and non-binary individuals. There are users who would report queer posts due to homophobia or transphobia and the algorithm might take that as proof our bodies are inappropriate.
Due to my long hair, the algorithm sometimes assumes I’m a nude female, when I identify as a non-binary man. I have to fight to keep each post that includes any part of my body.
The reason I can’t quit Meta is that as an emerging artist you are expected to have an active Instagram account to showcase your work and keep people in the loop. Almost every application asks for your Instagram account, and you are judged by it. The network effect for Instagram in the art world is so strong that fighting it is a losing proposition.
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These are just two; there are a lot of really interesting comments, some short articles in themselves. During March we’ll post some more, and ask you to decide if you want to read more of these artists’ stories. If enough of you want to read (or listen) to more, we will give you more.
Michael Shaw is a Los Angeles-based artist and activist. His work was recently included in the exhibition “Meshuganah” at A Very Serious Gallery in Chicago, as well as the exhibitions “Sociality” at LA Tate gallery in 2023, and It’s My House! at the Porch Gallery in Ojai, CA, in 2022, and has been exhibited throughout the U.S. He is the recipient of a Culver City Arts grant in 2023, a Puffin Foundation Grant and the Rauschenberg Emergency Grant in 2022, the Center for Cultural Innovation’s Quick Grant in 2021, and the New Student Award at Hunter College, where he received his MFA.
Visit Michael Shaw’s website.
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