On Quitting Social Media as an Artist

How to Share Art, Get Inspired, and Stay Connected WITHOUT Instagram!

Hey there,

These essays are always written about whatever I’m struggling with in that moment. And you know what’s funny? I’ve written a lot about using social media as an artist over the years.

In 2018, I wrote about not making art for likes and made a social media manifesto. Those tactics helped for a while. Then, in February 2021, I wrote about taking back your art from the algorithm. That lasted for all of two months when on April 2, 2021 I decided to take a 1-month sabbatical from Instagram. After 30 days, I reflected and declared that sharing our art is important and that I was going back on Instagram with new intentions to craft my Instagram experience into what I wanted it to be.

Then, almost exactly 1 year later, on April 11, 2022, I quit Instagram for good. I haven’t been back since. And I haven’t written about social media since. I cut it out and that struggle is gone, y’all.

The Impact of Quitting Instagram

My life has infinitely improved since quitting Instagram (the last remaining relic of my social media life). While I know it isn’t the only contributing factor, quitting social media has had a huge impact on both my mental health and my art practice.

I have more time in my day now that I don’t waste pointless time scrolling through Instagram feeds. I have more space in my mind now that I’m not thinking about the number of likes my art gets or how my follower count is growing (or not). But do you wanna know the best part? I’m having more FUN drawing.

When I draw now, I enjoy it more. I feel more lighthearted, looser, and freer. I just do. not. care. what anyone thinks about my drawings anymore. And that feels so, so good.

I used to need the act of sharing on Instagram as a motivation to draw. But now, I’ve developed a more internal motivation—I draw simply because I want to draw. And I draw completely whatever I want to draw in whatever way I want to draw because I’m not sharing it on a platform that pushes me to make things that are popular or trendy.

Half the time, I draw something and don’t show it to anyone at all! But is a piece of art still a piece of art if no one sees it?

Of course it is! Drawing in my sketchbook is a way for me to release emotional tension, practice my craft, grow my skills, and have fun. Do I need to share my art with a platform of a billion people to fulfill that purpose? Absolutely not!

Reorienting My Art Practice Post-Social Media

Quitting wasn’t all roses and rainbows from the start though. Like quitting anything, it takes time to get adjust. I had to reorient my art practice without the daily posting on Instagram, asking myself, “what do I do with a drawing after I draw it now?” I’ve also had to be more proactive about maintaining connections with other artists.

But the amount of time that has been given back to me, and the sense of freedom in my art that has been released in me has been invaluable. I thought I could “take the reins” of my social media and make it work for me, but that’s just not the way the social media system has been set up. Instagram will forever be trying to push us to get more followers, follow more people, post more, get more likes… more, more, more.

And lately, it looks like I’m not the only one who doesn’t want to play that game anymore. I try not to talk about the news here in my newsletter because I focus on art and creativity, but uh… Twitter and Facebook are not doing so hot, eh?

More and more people are probably going to be quitting social media over the next year. We’re all trying to be more mindful of how we spend time on our phones and using platforms that give us actual value without sucking us into spending hours mindlessly scrolling.

If posting your art on Instagram was a crucial part of your art practice (whether for accountability, motivation, a curated portfolio, or connecting with other artists) and you decide to quit, let me give you a heads-up: you’re going to have to spend some time figuring out how to fill the hole that Instagram used to fill.

Where will you get that sense of accountability, motivation, and connection? How will you keep contributing to the global artist collective? Where will you share your work now?

How Do We Still Share Our Work?

It’s a question I’ve been tinkering with for years now. I’ve experimented with lots of avenues for sharing art and connecting with artists, and to be honest, I haven’t totally nailed it down for myself either. For the past year or so, I’ve been using Studiomates to share my art and have conversations with other artists. It works relatively well, offering a familiar feed experience without the baggage and pressure of Instagram.

But, there are drawbacks. For one, it costs me ~$50/month to host Studiomates. And for another, I have to convince people to adopt a whole new platform, learn how to use it, make an account, and log in to it. That’s a big ask, I know.

Sharing Art in an Ephemeral Way

So, imagine my delight last week when Substack announced its newest feature, Chat! Substack bills Chat as “a new space for writers to host conversations with their subscribers.”

Substack’s Chat is less like social media (with feeds and curated profiles), and more like texting with a group of artist friends. I love the ephemeral nature of it. Threads are started and used until a new thread is begun. It’s focused more on having a conversation and sharing for the sake of sharing versus creating a curated persona and sharing for the sake of gaining followers and likes.

It sounds perfect as a private space where we can share our art off Instagram while still contributing to the global collective of artists—receiving inspiration from other artists and attempting to give inspiration back in return!

For now, I’ll be making a new Chat thread each week with our MCDT Art Prompts as a space for us to share that week’s art. In the future, who knows? We’ll make this space together and see what we want it to become. Will it replace Studiomates? Perhaps. I’d love for you to give it a chance and tell me what you think!

To join our chat, you’ll need to download the Substack app (messages are sent via the app, not email). Turn on push notifications so you don’t miss a chance to join the conversation as it happens!

Speaking of which, come say hello in our very first thread below:

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How to Join the Chat

1. Download the app by clicking this link or the button below. Chat is only on iOS for now, but chat is coming to the Android app soon.

2. Open the app and tap the Chat icon. It looks like two bubbles in the bottom bar, and you’ll see a row for my chat inside.

3. That’s it! Jump into my thread to say hi or share some art! If you have any issues, check out Substack’s FAQ.

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Quitting social media has really been a huge improvement in my life and my art and I hope that tools like this new Substack Chat will keep enabling us to share our art and connect with each other without Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or any of ‘em.

I’ve already started our first chat thread so I hope you’ll come on over, say hello, and maybe share a drawing with us!

<3,
Christine