My Problem With Youtube and Instagram

Intro

Hello all! It’s been a little while since my last update. I apologize for the delay, as I’ve been sorting through some personal matters. I also took some time to re-evaluate some things, one of which is what this blog about, but I’ll get to that in a moment. 

Before I dive in, I do want to say that I have a list of blogs I’m writing down and making, so while there my be a lull here and there, do expect more blogs in the future covering a range of topics. I really like writing my thoughts out like this and I have a venue to really express my ideas thoroughly.

Now let’s get back to it. Since my last blog, I did some soul searching and have finally been able to put my finger on something that’s been bothering me for a long time. I’ve always been annoyed at the prospect of social media, even in the early stages of myspace (am I dating myself with this?) or xanga (I’m definitely dating myself with this). This annoyance was curbed by the prospect of reach new people who might like my work. It’s a very alluring promise, I mean who doesn’t want to be acknowledged for the art that they do? You have clout chasers, you have influencers and so on, so the appeal is there. I’m not going to hide the fact that I want the world to see my work, but I am very angry at how the landscape has (and continues) to evolve and how it has hurt the performance of my work.

Before I get deeper into my rant, I want to express that this is more of me venting about stuff. I’m not fishing for sympathy. I have a good paying job, a killer reel, and a lot of prospects that I’m grateful for and that other people would kill to have. With all of that said, I do think I am justified in my anger, and I want to flesh it out so it’s understandable. Could this just be me being spoiled? Sure, but I think the fundamental promise of social media has been broken, and anybody who has spent enough time trying to contribute to it should probably feel the same.

I’ll be diving deeper into my relationship with both YouTube and Instagram, as they’re the platforms I have the most familiarity with (and most acute criticisms).

YouTube is a Trashfire

It’s no secret that YouTube has changed from the old days. Change can be good or bad, but Youtube has somehow, impressively changed for the worse at every point. From algorithms to their own poorly executed management, moderation of adult content, to their de-buffing of creators and skittishness, YouTube has truly been on a roll. I want to focus on the changes that impact creators. There was a time when you could find really quirky and unique content on YouTube, and it was a safe haven for creative development. That is not the case anymore, as many dedicated YouTubers would tell you.  I can tell you from my vantage point, the changes have basically cut off any avenue of organic growth.

I’ve been on YouTube, with my current main account, since 2012. I haven’t grown an inch since that point, in 2019. I’ve signed with larger channels as well, like Frederator, and I’m thankful for them, but their impact has basically been dulled by the changes as well. There was a point when signed with them, that I had a lot of steady growth. It came at the cost of working so intensely on projects, that it was the only thing in my life. It was a terrible experience, that I blame no one else but myself for, and in hindsight, I wish I didn’t pursue it as aggressively as I did, but at the time there was definitely hope and momentum. It was around the time when YouTube demonetized accounts under 1000 or 10,000 followers. Whatever changes to the algorithm that came with that update basically cratered organic growth. My channel hasn’t grown since that point.

To add insult to injury, since I’ve been creating these Frame of Mind shorts, my audience has actually decreased! There can be plenty reasons for this, and I’m not ignorant of them: maybe the current audience I have weren’t into the new stuff, or they were bots, or they closed their accounts, or they perceived me as jumping on some kind of bandwagon or whatever reason. To be honest, in a vacuum, the drop wouldn’t bother me. The problem is that, I have no way to make it up like I did in the earlier years. People fall in and out of love with your work all the time, it’s just the nature of the game, but there are always avenues to keep new people coming. YouTube has seemingly chopped off that route, so now all you’re left with is no growth and an audience that will ultimately disappear, or simply can’t engage with you because of how the subscription feed works now (click that bell button!!!).

While I knew the risk of pursuing this avenue, I don’t think anyone really could have foreseen things changing like this. I put so much work into my content and bust my ass only for YouTube to spit in the face of animators, and have my work be lost to the void. It’s really demoralizing, and I would say the age of growth on YouTube is over. When good content and hard work can fail so spectacularly, it’s time to rethink some things, and that’s what I’ve been doing. This doesn’t mean you can’t make it, or no one will ever make it again, just that instead of climbing a small hill to do so, you now have to build yourself a rocket and get to space. I can’t foresee a path of growth for myself or small creators that doesn’t involve dumb luck, abuse of the system, or buying engagement from farms to get yourself a boost.

Instagram Was The Promised Child Until It Overdosed On Heroin

A lot of the issues I have with YouTube are present on Instagram, so I won’t repeat that stuff. While Instagram is a little better, it still is a magnificent failure to the promise it had pre-Facebook buyout. I think the biggest problem with Instagram is Facebook’s greed. You could tell the route it was going to take when Facebook stopped giving you access to your audience until you paid for advertisements. Unless you were already a big name on the platform, it’s very likely that no matter what you put out, it won’t budge or move the needle. In fact, there’s a good chance that the moment you upload a photo, it’ll get tossed to the void immediately, being beaten out by a post that’s a few days older (because of the change to their algorithm removing newer posts appearing in your feed first). 

What’s upsetting about that in particular is that I know I have a nice audience there. There are people on Instagram that have followed me for years and still love my work, but since it’s not shown to them they can’t like it (because they send the posts to a small section of people to see if it’s popular before they sample it to more people). To add even more frustration is Instagrams bot problem. Bots are on all social media platforms, but it’s particularly bad on Instagram. Let’s say you have an audience of like 500 people, but a fraction, maybe 50-75 are bots. You never asked them to follow you, but they did, so when you post instagram will send them your work to like. What’s that, they’re bots, so they don’t actually like your work. So instagram sends them the short film you spent a whole year working on, and they don’t engage. That tells instagram your audience probably won’t like it, and just like that, your post dies. 

If you think that it ends there, it doesn’t. The app is buggy ( I use an iPhone XR), and can run good sometimes, but a lot of the times it does not. From stories crashing, to uploads not working, to likes not working and so on. The app has had a noticeable degradation since the buy out. Don’t get me wrong, I understand it takes A LOT to get hugely popular apps like this running, and Instagram is all photo and video, and that’s a lot of space being used, but if there’s going to be so many other concessions in it’s usefulness, maybe there should be things that aren’t so frustrating to deal with on a day to day basis?

Instagram still has a ton of potential, and not all is lost, but if they see themselves as a YouTube competitor (and they do), they need to focus on fixing and stabilizing the platform. I want Instagram to compete with YouTube. Competition is good, but right now, Instagram is dropping the ball.

Are You OK, Kyle?

Now that i got all of that out of my system, I do want to say that I don’t make art for the likes. I’ve been creative for far longer than these websites have existed, but this is a point of frustration for me. I think every artist wants their work to be seen, and it could just be that these are not the right avenues for me to succeed, but I think this is important to talk about because there’s a lot of hope out there of thriving on these platforms. It’s not impossible, as I said earlier, just increasingly difficult. It sucks to know there are people who like your work, want to see it, but can’t. I’ve already made plans to stop leaning so hard on social media for success, but it’s coming from a place of disappointment and angst.

If there’s any silver lining to this, it’s that It has reignited my passion for making stories I want to tell. I’ve come to expect failure from social media, so I feel more free to make the stuff I want to make now, which energizes me. This is a good time to reiterate that I’m not going to cancel my accounts out of spite or frustration, this venting is more about re-calibration. I’ll still make stuff and upload them, but I’m going in with a much different and healthier mindset such as just wanting to do my best on a project.

I know this is a very negative rant, but I’m not bitter. It was on me to adapt and be less hung up about these changes. It took me some time to step away from the madness, but now that I have I can really focus on what matters to me most, which is to make great stories.