The rise of social media and the dominance of short-form video that followed may well be one of the most impactful trends on the modern artist and their work. According to market research firm National Research Group, 78% of Gen Z, Millennials, and Gen X watched videos on a social media platform on their smartphone in the past 6 months. While having access to a free platform to showcase work with a (small) chance of being seen by millions might seem like not too bad a deal, the double edged sword of whole thing is that the art also has to be made into social media “content” before there isany chance of that happening. Arguably, how this happens can, and must often be, more imaginative than the end product itself. The gimmick itself drives engagement, and therefore income, on social media.
Take, for example, a TikToker and painter like Andrew Cadima, whose greatest success on TikTok has come with his series in which he paints a picture using only two colors, or Lander Elena, whose social media presence predominantly consists of ‘challenges’ such as trying to draw with long nails, or competing against her twin sister, with each painting being half of the same canvas. Some craftspeople take on weird and whimsical projects that result in eye-catching thumbnails for their socials, such as making a jacket out of mussel shells or giving their audience insight into a personal passion project, like crocheting their own wedding dress. As with anybody who has a vested interest in going viral, these artists are entrepreneurs as much as they are creatives, attempting to monetize the process, and while simultaneously building a brand that viewers will keep coming back to.
“While 'big tech' sites… claim they’re 'democratizing' culture, they instead demand that artists engage in double the labor,” claims journalist Rebecca Jennings, noting that social media’s promise to bypass the traditional artistic gatekeepers like curators, gallery owners, and professional critics comes at the price of chasing online trends. “Under the model of ‘artist as business manager’, the people who do both well are the ones who end up succeeding… You can see this tension play out in the rise of ‘day in my life’ videos.”
Videos that describe the day of an artist or reveal the process of crafting something offer a narrative outside of the finished product. The piece does not speak for itself in the way we might traditionally expect a creative work to do in a gallery or on a runway.
Instead, viewers' constant expectation for a “behind-the-scenes” look into the work’s creation insists that an artist must develop a persona or strategy that explains their creation before the observer is willing to interpret it. Thus, the purpose of the work itself becomes nothing deeper than a TikTok or Instagram Reel.
Taking the “content” creation for social media aspect as seriously as the more classical forms of creativity that it showcases turns the art into a product of the platform hosting it all. Artists often succeed on their ability to pander to the platform more than their creative skill, or as Jennings puts it, “You’ve got to shout into the digital void and tell everyone how great you are. All that matters is how many people believe you.”
The phenomenon of the artist-as-influencer also means that more people view artistic creations than they ever would have at any other point in history, and the direction of the art is dictated by this potentially huge and algorithmically influenced audience. It is hardly a revelation that their interpretation usually sits at the shallow end of the spectrum, engaged by the quirkiness of a crafting concept or the ups and downs of the 90-second storyline that a creator has constructed around their piece.
In 2015, writer William Deresiewicz noted the “democratization of taste” with art on the internet, where “everyone’s opinion… carries equal weight.” This leads to what he terms “producerism”. A circumstance that goes hand in hand with the appetite for excessive consumption that comes from consumerism, it describes how artists turned social media entrepreneurs make their creative process into an experience to be consumed by others. “The customer is being sold a vicarious experience of production.” While the vast majority of viewers of a viral painting video may not buy the work, their views are a big part of what motivates it (and creates the income from it). It promises immersion and delivers a spoon-fed contemporary romantic ideal of the 21st-century creative.
In a world where many feel too distracted to indulge their own creativity, it is gratifying to live vicariously through someone else’s. The end product is not always superfluous, but it is invariably on an equal footing with the package it comes in; edited to satisfy our most basic impulse for novelty. While visiting a gallery or museum is far from the only way to appreciate art, social media is not necessarily a medium built with gratitude towards artists in mind—they have to build it at their own expense.