SOCIAL MEDIA, HELP ME PLEASE!!!
Episode 439 is a social media special featuring photographers Sean Tucker, Emily Renier, Phil Penman, Valérie Jardin and Neil Ford, plus letters received into the show. This ‘essay’ features material used within this show and the accompanying Extra Mile. Pic: Ravi Sharma
THOUGHTS FROM MIKE MILLER
Dear Neale,
It's good to hear your voice on a weekly basis, and that of Barney too. Please say hello to Car and let Car know that we miss hearing from them.
With regards to your request for our thoughts about social media, I found a few moments to put fingers to keyboard and give you my thoughts and feelings about this subject:
How do you use it?
Originally, I signed up for Twitter in 2009 because my soccer/football club was sending communications out via Twitter when something needed to be communicated quickly. I used to put out quotes of the day for a while. When the public school that I attended had its 50th anniversary, I would tweet out my memories about Kindergarten to Grade 6 for people to know what things were like back in the mid 1960’s to early 1970’s. I’ve also posted for my soccer/football club for several years on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and Vero. I don’t have a Facebook, Instagram, Vero nor Tik Tok account of my own. I do have my own YouTube account, which I occasionally post time lapse videos to. I also post images regularly to Google Maps. I primarily view YouTube videos and films these days.
Do you engage more, or less with social media than you once did?
Definitely less as I have retired from my soccer club.
What is your favourite platform and why?
Google Maps and YouTube. I enjoy spending downtime watching videos about photography and other subjects for entertainment and information reasons.
Explain your feelings about the currency of likes…
There is a saying, “Compete against yourself, not against others.” As a goalkeeper, I spent years internalizing and analyzing what happened and what I learned from every situation, regardless of what the outcome was. I learned to tune out what others said and to just get on with things. The only opinion that mattered to me was my own. I like to think that I was successful as a result. After more than 35 years of practicing photography, I don't feel the need to post my images so that others can criticize, praise or steal them. The only opinion that matters to me is how I feel about the image I made.
What has it done for photography?
Initially, social media did a lot to advance the discipline of photography by educating people about how they could improve their own images. Like the invention of the Kodak Brownie camera in 1900, there has been an explosion of images being made and recorded for the historians of the future to pour over. We are documenting in real time what things are like. As time went on, I feel that creativity has been replaced by copying others in search of more likes. Those who dare to go outside the boundaries or express themselves unconventionally are brutalized in the comment section. People think twice about posting images that they like but know will not receive the adoration that another image might get. Mental health issues seem to have been increasing at an alarming rate.
What would the perfect platform look like?
The perfect platform would be free to use; be devoid of advertisements; not allow any comments or likes; would show you the images of the people that you follow; be fully searchable based on keywords and AI being able to tell what and who are in images that are not key-worded; only individuals and not corporations nor businesses would be allowed to post; would occasionally show you posts of creatives that you don’t follow but you may want to follow based on the types of people that you presently follow; edits to the image would be disclosed and viewable in the metadata; others would not be able to copy an image from the site and use it for commercial or other purposes; would not use unethical programming to try to get you to stay on the platform for as long as possible or get you addicted to the platform.
Tell me about the good bits, the bad bits, and all the bits in between…
With YouTube in particular, you have a resource library of immense depth and breadth that you cannot find in a public library. If you want to know how to replace a heating unit in a 15 year old clothes drier, there is a video for that. If you want to see how to focus stack on a particular piece of software, someone out there has posted a video. If you want to be found by old friends and acquaintances, social media allows that to happen. On the flip side, it’s too easy to be anonymous and to be unkind or even threatening to others. Hate and disinformation, including fake images, are too easy to propagate using social media. Foreign governments are using social media to try to influence public opinion and outcomes in elections. In schools, there are a whole host of issues around social media that could be the topic of a month's worth of podcasts.
THOUGHTS FROM JOHN WILDGOOSE
I've been a working photographer for forty years and I have to say that social media helped democratise our craft, it introduced many people to the art of looking at more than the pavement we walk on, and developed great talent in some adherents. But you'll notice I'm in past tense here. While Instagram ten or fifteen years ago was an edifying and sometimes inspirational platform, it's now been monetised to hell, and unless you are careful in curating 'follows' is trivial beyond measure.
THOUGHTS FROM JOHN KENNY
Hi Neale,
I have 2 Instagram accounts for myself, one is landscape focussed and one is more tied into trying to build a business with photography. I use Facebook for myself, and have a page for my photography business as well. In addition I use X, LinkedIn and Threads for my photography business profile.
This sounds like a lot of accounts to have to monitor, and it probably would be if I was using them like a working professional would be advised to. I don't post to Instagram very often, but might like and comment on the work of others. It has been a useful medium for exchanging direct messages with people that I wanted to try and make a connection with. Facebook is rarely touched from a photography business perspective. Threads and X are used almost identically as a way of interacting with people in the industry, following artists and institutions, and sharing work that I have found interesting (and hopefully someone else will too!).
Whilst it is nice when people like a picture I might post, I am aware that they will have only looked at it for the amount of time it takes them to 'Like' it. It is infinitely more rewarding when someone buys a print from my pub to hang at home. There are not many images that hold the attention when viewed on a phone screen. When people say they find inspiration on Instagram, do they mean the image they saw there, or that they are inspired to go look at that work on the photographer's website?
Ultimately, I think a lot of how we feel about social channels is tied into what our expectations are. I know that posting sporadically isn't going to create a large following, but a lot of photographers I admire don't have large followings. Instead I try to interact and generally be sociable with those accounts that are of interest.
Life online would be a lot simpler if we could all follow Dan Milnor and avoid the platforms altogether, and believe that if the work is good it will be found!
I purchased the Matt Black course on Magnum Learn a while back, and thought you may find this quote useful in terms of the social media debate. He is obviously speaking from the perspective of a photographer working on long term documentary projects, so it probably isn't relevant to everyone;
"It is not something that is designed for publishing serious work. It's something that's designed for a much fluffier, and a much more mundane exchange. It rewards the superficial and the shocking and punishes the thoughtful and the complicated."
However, I think I would miss them if they were gone. The accounts that post and share amazing creative work feel like doorways into different worlds filled with different perspectives and experiences. My remote and rural location would feel infinitely more isolated without them I think.
THOUGHTS FROM SARAH MOORCROFT
You’ve asked for some thoughts about social media, and as it’s an opportunity to distract me from tidying my office, it seems timely to jot some down.
I think that I’m one of the fortunates who lived a childhood with no computers, iPads, moveable telecommunication devices. I spent my childhood walking my Collie dog in the woods, building dens in haystacks (health and safety warning) climbing trees, riding ponies, grazing knees, long bike rides down quiet country lanes, swimming in the sea, playing Pooh sticks across the river bridges. All that has rather tempered my feelings about social media. I would still rather be out there in the fresh air, surrounded by trees and wonderful landscapes, than watching other people doing what I enjoy doing.
I do have Facebook, with a number of different accounts/ pages/ groups, one for my personal blathers, one for the wee Old Schoolhouse Gallery, one for Kintyre Rainforest Alliance, and one for a village art group. I’m not really fussed about whether anyone sees what I write on there, but I do enjoy content from other places, obvs the one and only Photowalk, but also ecology sites, sites about lichen, photo sites, and it is a lovely way to keep in contact with friends on the far side of the world. What I can’t be doing with is sites that become nasty or angsty, so I remove myself from most of those.
Probably my favourite visual social media platform is You Tube, there is some exceptional content, things that I could never do myself, lessons, ideas, wonderful teachers and philosophers (not influencers - I’m not sure I want to be influenced that much, it sounds expensive). You may recall that I am somewhat obsessed with the Scottish Temperate Rainforest, well the stories that are shared on the platform are wonderful, and keep me inspired and motivated to keep fighting for our local rainforests, and of course the lovely Simon Baxter can take me on as many trips photographing the woodland as he likes.
I used to enjoy Instagram more, when I actually saw content from people I follow. I normally follow people for a reason, and have a couple of people with whom I really enjoy connecting, and we enjoy the odd chat back and forth. It’s so sad that everything now seems to be rather inane reels about things I really don’t want to engage. And why oh why do I keep getting follows from scantily dressed young women, I really don’t thing their clothing is appropriate for a trip to a Scottish rainforest, can you image, the midges would have a field day. I’m afraid I block them, I don’t think we would get on!
I like Vero, have a Flickr account, neither of which I have used in months, I would like to use Substack much more, but how do I fit it all in, something has to give so that I can get outside and find wonderful unexplored new Rainforest in Kintyre and photograph all the tiny unnoticed things to be found there.
All that brings me onto the wonderful world of podcasts, I assume podcasts are considered social media? Because to be honest I probably listen to more podcasts than spend time in front of the screen nowadays. Of course I started with you Neale, found you when we were decorating the new extension in 2021, and don’t think I’ve missed an episode since! And that has led me to some other really wonderful content, and the best companion ever for car journeys, wanders in the countryside, baking bread, doing the gardening. The Photowalk podcast has had a transformational impact on my life, I have learnt so much, challenged my thinking so often, laughed and cried listening to the stories shared by quite amazing guests and extra milers. If I had to take only one social media platform with me there is no doubt that it would be Podcasts, and Photowalk is always at the front of the queue.
Oh by the way, as today is my birthday, I will by now have unboxed my new to me Zuiko 60mm macro lens from MPB.com to help me with my passion for making the Kintyre Rainforests the stars of their own show, they don’t promote themselves much, not so great at making their own reels, so with their permission I like to try my best to keep them safe by telling everyone how special they are. With luck I’ve a few more birthdays in me, and many more hours to spend photographing and telling stories in the woods.
But the office is still a state, and I’m not allowing myself out until it’s more respectable, so that’s it from me now, and I’ve just been told by my husband that the framed photos on the wall are not straight! Well he must have put the hangers in wonkily!
THOUGHTS FROM MICHAEL MIXON
My favorite description of the internet comes from John DeVore:
“The internet is a giant Rube Goldberg machine that transports tiny scoops of rage from one place to another via a complicated system of gears, pulleys, and levers.”
This description could easily be applied to social media as well, seeing as it dominates much of our engagement with the internet these days. And while rage is certainly one of the more popular flavors, we do have some influence over what goes into those scoops.
For me, that influence is inversely proportional to how much passive time I spend inside of social media’s dopamine bubbles. When I’m just mindlessly scrolling, letting the algorithm feed me spoonfuls of mathematically curated content, my experience is pretty consistently negative. I feel simultaneously empty and overstimulated. But when I choose to actually engage - taking more than milliseconds to look at a photo, reading an entire post vs skimming it, leaving a thoughtful comment vs just smashing the like button - I come away with a far more positive experience.
But this distinction also seems to apply to real life. Superficial interactions and extreme multi-tasking never result in rewarding experiences for me. I always feel so much more enriched after a long conversation with someone or when I’ve opted for mindful solo-tasking.
Our modern world can be fragmented and chaotic even without social media. I think social media just turbo-charges that feeling, pulling millions of additional people and bots into our daily orbit. If I am self-aware and disciplined enough to interact with this virtual world the way I would want to if it were actually in front of me, then I can reap the benefits of having my life expanded, by meeting people and learning things I otherwise never would. When I don’t do that, though, my frustrated self just wants to throw the manipulative Rube Goldberg machine out of the nearest window.
THOUGHTS FROM KATIE DWIGHT
Hi Neale,
I was so excited to read about your special walking edition tackling the social media question, as it's one I talk about A LOT! I gave up teaching (Secondary English, because everyone always asks!) last August to work with my photographer partner (@the_street_thief) building a business where we work with photographers to overcome the boundaries that stop them taking great photos. Alongside photography, we run workshops, host a YouTube channel and create zines.
I took over the social media side of the business (@idaretoshoot) last May with no real intention other than to build a community where we support photographers, in line with our goals. We have grown from around 300 IG followers to nearly 4000 in that time and I have met some truly inspirational people, some of whom I chat to daily on the platform.
I share 10 pictures every morning in our stories from photographers who have tagged us, an 'inspiration' shot at 11am alongside a quote from the same inspirational photographer (across all genres and time periods) and at 3pm I share one of the best tagged photos from a follower (we select and review these weekly). We also share the work we are doing and the work of workshop participants regularly, through posts and reels. I spend a good part of my day on Instagram, although I have to do it in a disciplined way otherwise, I'd spend even more time on it! There are always pictures to see, comments to answer or questions from the community.
I wasn't a photographer when I started this work (I still wouldn't consider myself as such!) but the photos I see every day have had a huge impact on the way I see the world, and on the kind of photos I aspire to take. But the biggest thing that I take from IG, despite the many comments/articles I read to the contrary, is the community that it makes me a part of. I have so many conversations about the mental health benefits of photography, of community and of the power of sharing. I am genuinely connected to people, both online and now 'IRL', and feel a real part of something.
I have conversations about 'reach' and likes almost daily and I try to highlight that the fact we're having the conversations demonstrates 'reach', if only to one person, and that if just 10 people told us something they liked about us we'd be delighted! Posting for likes is not something I do, although of course it makes us feel validated in some way, but posting what I like seems to work. Isn't taste subjective after all? And my experience of posting in a supportive way sees only positive interactions.
We have also dabbled with Threads, Facebook, TikTok etc. but for me, it's Instagram where the real juice is...
Kindest regards,
Katie
THOUGHTS FROM MICHAEL TENBRINK
I'm looking forward to this, as I find social media to be very complicated these days. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, as well as Threads and X. I promote my work on the first three, but have had virtually no success at all with the latter two so have pretty much given up on them. (Especially since Elon took over Twitter.)
I am on social less than I used to be, because I found it was overwhelming my life. (One can only read so many updates about the breakfasts and kids' soccer games of people I used to know 20 years ago!) My favorite platform is probably Instagram, although Meta seems to be making a concerted effort to worsen the experience there with each app update.
I am very confused by social in general, as I can't seem to find any rhyme or reason to what gets traction with my followers and what doesn't. I recently spent probably 100+ hours on a project that I was very passionate about, and it got almost ZERO traction, whereas silly one-off projects that take less than a tenth of the time will get 5X the Likes. Nothing seems to make a notable difference: hashtags, tagging people, tagging location, keywords, etc. (Although one thing that seems to get more Likes is selfies, which I don't even like, and which I almost never take, and which I seldom post if I do take them.)
Since I'm an American who lives in Italy, I'm grateful for social media, in that it does allow me to feel a little bit more "in touch" with folks back home. But I also think life was probably easier and less stressful (and safer for democracy) when none of these platforms existed. So...it's a mixed bag!
THOUGHTS FROM PAUL FRIDAY
Neale,
“Social media: yes or no?”. Well, I come down firmly on the side of, it depends.
I've been around since the days of Usenet forums, then the rise of the web page, then those in turn being overtaken by Faceplant and Xitter. At their worst, the forums were the lair of trolls and self-important bullies. Web pages were carnival barkers shouting into the void, much like the worst aspects of Instabull where people joined the caucus race of continuous posting to stay on top of the heap. What we saw was the results of the social media algorithm: the purpose of the medium is only to drive engagement. This means that the more people are drawn to look, to comment or to argue, the more money the medium makes from its advertising or selling your data.
But there were, and are, quieter places that have a specific focus on things other than promotion or praise. Photowalk is a good example and there are many other places that provide useful or interesting information or opinions. Some years ago, I set up a self-help group for people who also owned a rare and quirky motorcycle. It started as a web page and an email distribution but has since migrated to a social platform. The small membership and the shared feeling that we are all bailing-out the same boat means that the conversations are generally helpful. The same applies to a number of photographic websites and blogs.
Perhaps the difference is the type of engagement? A good blog or website is like a magazine: it has interesting articles about and around a general subject by people with some knowledge. Rather than a simple like, you ideally get thoughtful responses. A like is a fleeting emotion, but the best responses will say something like “I agree/ disagree with this specific aspect because..” And go on to explain why by tackling the issue, not the author.
I confess that I also write a blog. It's not to try and adjust the world, nor is it my manifesto. I just like getting my thoughts in order through writing. I'm pleased if people read it and it's nice to get the occasional like, but it's even better to get a written comment and even betterer still when someone subscribes. Perhaps oddly, I'd still write without readers because I enjoy the process of shaping and expressing an idea. It feels like therapy.
I would not move the blog to one of the big social platforms though. I don't want to have to chase the pace of constantly responding or trying to feed the monster. I can keep to my weekly cycle of posting and reply to the occasional comment as needed, rather than being driven. But that's easy for me - I'm not dependent on the blog to generate work or attract clients. If I was advertising then I probably would have to create an easily-found shop-front. But again, what would be the point of likes? The only like that matters is paying clients.
So I guess you can colour me curmudgeon. I dislike the manic, shouty and bullying aspects of some social media. I do like the useful and thoughtful sources though, whichever platform they are on. Now there's an idea for Photowalk - gather a list of other useful and interesting resources. And not just nominations, as that would be like likes. Each suggestion needs a description of what it is about and why it's useful.
Anyway, the nurse is coming round with the dried frog pills, so I'll get this missive into an envelope and consign it to the aether. Up the revolution, as long as there's somewhere to get cup of tea and a sit down.
Regards
Paul
There is a PS to this.
I was recently at a literary festival (that's me: born to be mild). One presenter described the audience as looking like a cruise ship had arrived in port, meaning it was all the middles: class, age, and England. And yet there was a security bag-check to get onto the site and security people by the stage for some presenters.
Most of the presenters mentioned that they had been threatened on social media. Some were death threats, hence the security. It comes to something when historians can't speak about their work in safety.
One speaker was a journalist and was asked to comment on something during the end-of-talk questions. They declined, on the grounds that they couldn't face "another few thousand insults and threats on Twitter".
So it looks like social media is an experiment that has failed: it has become toxic. Ideally we would all walk away and join small communities of shared interests, where we might challenge each other's ideas but never their person. But social media is addictive, and you can only leave if your friends agree to leave as well.
THOUGHTS FROM CK HICKS
My relationship with social media is...complicated. I used to post very regularly based upon whatever I could capture with whichever phone I had at the time. But since having a family and shooting more film, my uploads are more infrequent, more private, and much less spontaneous.
As I listened to you talk about it on the show - please bill me for therapist hours - I feel that I should be less nervous about posting the same ways that I have in the past. Perhaps whatever I find interesting and compelling should be there, regardless of changes in interests, cameras, or seasons of life?
THOUGHTS FROM CHRISTOPHER PARSONS
Howdy Neale,
Hope that this is at least somewhat interesting in response to your questions about social media. Sorry for the length in advance; I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about social media professionally in a number of ways, using it professionally to affect political change, and also using it personally now for over 20 years (!). But as I’m sure you’ve sadly come to realize, brevity remains elusive for me ;)
How do you use it?
My uses have changed, a lot, over the past year and a half. One of my many positive memories of social media was how, over 10 years ago, I and a series of cybersecurity researchers used Twitter to coordinate an incident response that led us to realize that the government of Iran was intercepting Google traffic being delivered to residents of Iran. That led to the resolution of the issue and stopped that government from surveillance its residents. So a good thing! Overall, up until about a year ago I used Twitter constantly for professional purposes.
However, the implosion of Twitter under Elon Musk, combined with moving into a privacy regulator’s office, has meant that I’ve stepped back from the same professional presence. I’ve trained the LinkedIn algorithm so it surfaces valuable professional content in my current role, but I don’t really use other social media professionally at this point.
Personally, the only truly valuable social media service that I use, and participate on, is Glass. It’s a small and paid photo sharing site. The community is positive and active, and it features interesting photography from around the world. I’ve also been blogging, now, since the 2002, and continue to keep that up as another outlet. (Though all those earlier blogs have long since been scrubbed from the Internet and archived in a place no-one can find in storage. Which is a relief as no-one needs to be reminded of what I was like online in the early 2000s! :P )
Do you engage more, or less with social media than you once did?
Less than in the past. Some of this is time. Some of it is, as mentioned, due to changes in the networks (e.g., Twitter) or the scattering of the communities (see again: Twitter) and the changing of my job.
I continue to use Glass, however, with a high degree of frequency and visit once or twice a day to see new images and I post once image per day.
What is your favourite platform and why?
For photographic purposes, Glass. It’s not as interactive as some other services which is fine, really, because I can go in and see things/comments, and then leave. There isn’t an algorithm that’s trying to keep me interested in perpetuity. It’s a healthier way for me to interact with other people online.
Explain your feelings about the currency of likes...
They’re….not good? I mean, they give quite the dopamine hit! But it interferes in why you might create work, or explore producing new kinds of work. We know that certain kinds of images will get more likes due to smaller screens and shorter attention spans as we skim images; removing likes — or at least deprioritizing them in the user interface — can have the effect of encouraging people to explore different kinds of practice and without a sense that the new isn’t less liked.
What has it done for photography?
It’s easy to say that likes have done bad things to photography. But I really don’t know that that’s fair or even necessarily correct.
There are a LOT more people making photographs than ever before. And part of the process tends to be learning how other people tried to make images: how many of us spent time to figure out how to make silhouettes? And with the ‘like’ metric you can get a rough guesstimate of whether you’re getting better and better at this kind of classic image. The same is true for lots of other ‘standard’ kinds of images. I think that’s great! People are better photographers on average, today, than ever before. We should celebrate that more often than we tend to.
Where I think that likes can be harmful is that they can stunt photographic growth or exploration. Also, due to how algorithms work, ‘low like’ content might be hidden and thus prevent the artist from receiving feedback on positive areas to improve towards. And, of course, there can be mental health issues when individuals ‘bully’ one another by providing or depriving individuals of likes. All of those aren’t great outcomes.
What would the perfect platform look like?
Utopia and dystopia: both places that don’t exist in reality, and neither of which is a place that you likely ever want to end up in :)
All of which is to say, I think there are different characteristics of social media sites and you can dial those characteristics up or down and you create different kinds of sites and experiences. A few ‘dials’:
How ‘chatty’ or conversational is the environment? Does ‘community’ involve direct messages?
How compressed are the images? Is it build for phone screens, tablet screens, monitors, or…?
How effective are you introduced to/able to discover new photographers?
What is the information density — how much is on the screen at once?
What is/isn’t made public? And how? Do you list numbers of followers, likes, etc?
How much are you appealing to the masses vs dedicate photography enthusiasts?
Monetized by users paying money, or monetizing the users?
Is it a ‘hot’ medium (e.g., sound and video) or a bit ‘colder’ of a medium (e.g., photographs and text)?
How personalized is the experience (I.e., lots of algorithmic engagement vs just find it on your own)?
Is there an assertive and active safety team that blocks certain content from appearing on the site?
When you adjust just some of those dials you affect the nature of the site, the number of users that you need to be revenue neutral, and affect how people will interact with one another. What I think is better will be worse for others, and vice versa.
I actually think that there should, ideally, be a diversity of experiences. And that it’s fine if different little groups form across the Internet that enjoy their parts of the Internet differently. There’s no reason why a half-dozen different photographic social media sites cannot exist, as an example, nor is it really a problem if you aren’t engaging with all of them. Find a site that has the ‘dials’ adjusted to your tastes and you’ll have hopefully found an environment — and user base — that you can enjoy and thrive with.
Tell me about the good bits, the bad bits, and all the bits in between...
I’m sure that I could go on in more depth but won’t drag on. Suffice to say that I think — hell, I know based on my professional experiences — that social media can be powerful and important and enable lots of good things in the world. But, at the same time, it can foster anti-social behaviours, be used to fuel genocide, and just be a depressive hellscape.
This isn’t to say that technology is neutral, however: all technologies as they are designed have particular affordances. They affect how those dials are turned. And there are certainly some ways of turning the dials that are not particularly good for humans, even if we enjoy those sites like sugary food, and other ways that are better, which are more like a banana or apple or something that has a modicum of healthiness.
We shouldn’t demand that everything is digitally healthy — we should be able to enjoy cheeseburgers and poutine now and again!! — but the totality of our dining establishments shouldn’t be fast food and deep-fried food. Because we know that it’s really not good for us.
And….now I’ll really stop abusing this food metaphor!
Hope that you’re well, Neale!
Cheers,
Chris
