Artists on the Stickiness of Social Media, Part 2 / Michael Shaw

March 15, 2025

r/aiArt, Norman Rockwell’s “Connected iKids,” generative AI art.

Before sharing a range of more artists’ thoughts on their use of social media (you can read Part 1 here), a few notes:

1) I do not mean to suggest that Instagram, or social media in general, offers no value. It can be and is a place for artists to not just connect but also to obtain cultural sustenance. Although thus far no respondents have described it that enthusiastically, I imagine that it is a shared sentiment among many, and welcome anyone to reach out if that’s your experience.

2) Instagram and Facebook continue to be go-to social media check-in spots for me. The former remains the most practical platform for any artist who’s on social media. I don’t spend more than a handful of minutes on either on a given day, unless I get into a DM on IG and/or respond to comments from a post there. These can be — finding the right word here is challenging — rewarding moments, but in the way that social media exchanges with fellow artists are a pale substitute for studio visits (IRL or virtual), chats at an opening, or phone calls. But our IG use needn’t be framed that way; it can be a platform to research other artists, curators, venues of all sorts, and then subsequently used to make connections offline (to the extent that emailing in this context can be called ‘offline’). What if we used Instagram as a database of artists, dealers, curators and collectors instead of as a substitute or simulation for human connection … isn’t it up to me to re-frame my perception and expectations? Yes, but — that kind of dispassionate approach is, as with so many things, far easier said than done.

3) My leaving Meta was an objective which started this series. I finally set up a Bluesky account. What prompted me was a post about Flashes, an app connected through Bluesky that’s a direct alternative to Instagram. I am predicting a very slow migration. I’m in a large L.A. artist’s support Whatsapp group, which is maxed out at 1,024. In late January, one artist started a thread about leaving Meta, and someone proposed Signal (an encrypted messenger app I was already on) as an alternative. A Signal artist’s support chat was launched and, as of press time, about six weeks later, a grand total of 85 members had joined.

Ianthe Jackson, “Velvet Fire,” embroidered velvet and paper maiché, 72 x 60 x 60”. Courtesy of the artist.

Ianthe Jackson, Artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY and the Catskills:

When I first joined Instagram years ago it was so great to have this new way to engage with the artworld. You could do it yourself from your own space.

Over time it became so saturated with people and evolved into a marketing tool of the worst kind. It began to feel like this competition network in which you became bombarded with reels about how to market yourself. Looking back, I realize how much it skewed the direction and purpose of my work.

I noticed people were moving over to Bluesky after Trump took office. I opened an account and saw a very noticeable difference. I was no longer bombarded with information from people telling me how to live. It was so much slower and quieter. I finally posted on Instagram and Facebook that I would be leaving. It felt like a leap and was a somewhat quick and impulsive move, but I am so much happier with this decision.

At this point I am tired of Instagram, I no longer feel like I really need it. I had much more success when I spent more time out in the world building relationships and connecting with people, places, and organizations.

Frank Ryan, “Audience (Max Max—Fury Road),”2018, oil on linen, 79 x 96”. Courtesy of the artist.

Frank Ryan, an artist and educator based in Los Angeles:

I nearly deleted all Meta platforms, Facebook, Threads, and Instagram. After a pause, I decided the most practical thing I can do is to reduce usage or to use the platforms more cautiously or productively.

I believe maintaining a basic online presence is valuable, especially when you’re not represented by a gallery or being actively promoted. I enjoy connecting with peers and supporting my students on Instagram, and I’ve also secured some commissions and art sales through the platform. However, the shift in Instagram’s algorithm and strategy to compete with TikTok by prioritizing Reels and short-form content isn’t as effective for showcasing art as the previous image-based model. Most of my feed is now filled with Reels from non-followers, and I rarely see posts from the peers I want to support. I’m sure they’re not seeing mine either.

Facebook profited from Russian disinformation campaigns leading up to the 2016 presidential election, and I suspect this trend continued in the 2020 and 2024 cycles. Zuckerberg’s willingness to compromise isn’t shocking this time around. The removal of fact-checking severely damages public discourse, and the platform’s tolerance and amplification of hate groups is indefensible.

I switched to Bluesky in December after becoming increasingly frustrated with Musk’s acquisition of Twitter and how he’s run it into the ground. Bluesky is a great alternative and I believe it will only get better as it grows.

Georgina Lewis, “Round the clock dream state,” 2023, installation at Monserrat College of Art. Courtesy of the artist.

Georgina Lewis (she/her), a Boston-based artist and librarian:

I’m in several WhatsApp groups, all of them art related. One of them just moved to Signal, to get away from Meta, and I would be fine leaving WhatsApp altogether. 

I’ve been on Bluesky for over a year. I’m there for words, not visuals. What I learn there has conceptual as opposed to formal implications for my work as an artist. At this point I follow a lot of academics, scientists, legal scholars, and people with interesting things to say. I think that in the last few months Bluesky has blossomed. There is now a critical mass of users ranging from publishers, thinkers, politicians, creatives, and of course friends.

Instagram does feel essential. I live/work in Boston where the art scene is tiny and often conservative and rule-bound. Since Covid, Instagram has been a lifeline to the outer art world: a way of staying in touch with fellow artists, meeting/finding new ones, and honestly prompting myself to make new work, if only to post about. Instagram helps me keep going: art, friends, and bunny pics.

I consider Instagram a centralized repository of images and information as well as a general collection of friends, makers, and art-world professionals. It's like a party in a library! I’m unaware of any other such online assemblage. I’m a visual thinker, and my memories and ideas are frequently based on and triggered by images.

Instagram has allowed me the time and space to develop real-world friendships in a way that crowded receptions often don't. I’ve found community in disparate parts of the world, which has in turn strengthened both my practice and my commitment to it. The prospect of quitting Instagram feels like it would be a huge loss. Social media has, to an extent, democratized segments of the art world, enabling connections that rely less on who you know and where you live; going back to the old ways would be disappointing.

I’m disappointed in Meta’s new LGBTQ and diversity stances, but I’m perhaps naively hoping that these changes will not be reflected in actual policy and are more to placate the MAGA crowd. Nonetheless I accept how hugely devastating they are. These are the sorts of things that make me feel a bit guilty as I open the IG app.

Xiao Faria daCunha, “All Hail the Bunny God,” 2023, watercolor, paper cutouts, gold leaf and mulberry paper. Courtesy of the artist.

Xiao Faria daCunha, a multi-disciplinary artist, curator, and arts writer based in Kansas City and Chicago:

If I leave the Meta platforms it will be because they are no longer functional for my purposes. I dropped my Facebook page 5+ years ago, way before any of this had happened, simply because I realized my audience wasn't there.

I'm not going to switch to Bluesky. I might set up a Bluesky account for the sake of being present there, especially since Substack now has a default Bluesky account connection, and I have a column there. Again, purely functional.

I feel like most people don't realize a simple fact: this whole quit-Meta wave is mainly about the U.S. And as important as it is to take a stance against Musk, we gotta realize that the world is so much larger than just the U.S. I write about and follow a lot of foreign artists, especially Japanese and Chinese artists, and many of them are on Instagram. Twitter/X remains a whole subculture in Japan. What's going on in the U.S. about Meta is, plain and simple, irrelevant for them. So, when you jump off Meta to take a stance, you have to factor in the reality that you're also removing yourself from a global community: something that none of these newborn social media platforms will be able to match because they're new. They just don't have that audience base yet.

Aren't we supposed to be using social media as a vehicle to make space, foster relationships, and initiate provocative and thoughtful conversations? Isn't that also what art and writing is supposed to be about?

Think about the people who're joining Bluesky. The Guardian ran an article saying Bluesky has gained 1 mil + users since the election. Let's put that into perspective: Facebook has over 3 BILLION users, and Instagram an estimated 2.4 BILLION users. Even Twitter/X still has 335 million active users. While all of us "like-minded" people are migrating platforms, we're technically leaving the people we need to continually have conversations with behind. From an advocacy point of view, that doesn't make sense with or without fact-checking, because I guarantee you most of these individuals aren't doing the work IRL to bridge the gaps with "the other side,” or those ambivalent or simply under-informed when it comes to LGBTQ, DEI, etc.

I very regularly take social media breaks. Social media to me is far more functional than as a form of entertainment. It's a platform for me to gather information, find new topics to write about and discuss, and find inspiration for art. You always need to transition from studying and researching to creating if you actually want to make something. That's how I look at my social media breaks.

Lee Wagstaff, “as a bird or an arrow,” 2024, oil on canvas, 60 x 80”. Courtesy of the artist.

Lee Wagstaff, an artist based in Berlin:

I haven’t completely left Instagram, more withdrawn. I stopped using it around the beginning of December 2024. I had been on it for around ten years. When I first started using it, it was a fun way to post pictures with very little or no text. It was a way to use the communication medium that I knew best — images — to have a dialogue with friends and associates. 

When the Covid era hit, everything changed. As a jobbing artist I prepared for lean times. However, because of Matthew Burrows (founder of the Artist Support Pledge) this was the busiest and most productive time of my career. Instagram was the most important platform for thousands of artists. ASP was a phenomenon that has not been sufficiently or accurately documented, probably because it was outside of the market and critical sphere that dominates the art world. 

In the post-Covid era Instagram has changed dramatically. It went from being a mostly personal pictorial medium to a highly aggressive and minimally regulated political and advertising medium. I found that many people in my network had become passive aggressive with virtue signaling. By this time I had gone from having a couple of hundred followers to over 40K. What I was being shown in my feed, particularly in the stories feed, were people resharing very graphic images of violence, much of which turned out to be fake or not recent.

Instagram should not be a news channel, there are many more suitable platforms for that. It has become like that scene in “A Clockwork Orange” where Alex has his eyes pinned open and is reprogrammed by watching nasty bits of ultra violence on the screen. That is certainly not why I joined.

I still have Whatsapp. My problem is not specifically with META — there are no ethical social media sites. New sites pop up all the time, but you only have to scratch the surface to see that investors in these kinds of models are not ethical people, it's all just Cloud-based Capitalism.

It is coming up to 3 months since I withdrew from IG and I don't miss it. I don't really use the internet that much anymore either. I am living in quite a remote place at the moment so my internet connection is sporadic, which suits me fine. 

It's a cliché to say that withdrawing from the internet has made me happier. I am certainly calmer. I feel less like a dog on a chain. I have been reading actual physical books. At the moment I am reading about Renaissance European art and how figures like Bosch and Dürer were traumatized by burning forests and meteors — their world was on fire and the apocalypse seemed nigh. They felt like there was no truth anymore and authorities could not be trusted. Everything they believed was being undermined and attacked. Sound familiar?

I think most of us, artists included, have grown accustomed to being servile to those who offer us opportunities. But most of the time such offers are not concrete and usually cost us time and money. 

I can't say that I will never return to Instagram, and I often think about peeking just to see if it's still there.

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.