The online media landscape (and the looming drought for creatives)

From a young age, I always wanted to be a writer and/or an artist. Like most kids, I went through a variety of 'dream careers', but those two were always on the list, even if it was part time in addition to having a day job. I also always knew that my chances of 'making it big' in either of those careers were slim - as they rely almost as much on luck as they do on talent or skill, and who you know is often as important as what you know - but even until a few years ago, it seemed like a creative career was at least somewhat achievable, as long as I put in the time and effort to hone my skills and actually finish a project.

Unfortunately, the creative industry has changed a lot in the last few of years. Most of the following examples in this post are from an author's perspective, but many are just as applicable to artists in a lot of ways.

Once upon a time, if you were lucky enough to get your book published through a traditional publisher, they would not only print and distribute the book, they would also market it for you. The channels they advertised in obviously changed over the years - from paper catalogues to websites and finally to social media in the last decade or so - but it was still considered the publisher's job to sell your book. They would keep a greater percentage of the profit from sales of your book, but they were also the ones doing the work and taking the financial risk, so that was at least somewhat reasonable.

But at some point in the last 5-10 years, that responsibility seems to have been shifted onto the author. Unless you're one of a very few, very big names (eg. Stephen King or N. K. Jemisin big), your publisher is unlike to do much advertising on your behalf aside from the odd Tweet, which is likely to be as effective as shouting into a well. Brian Kirby did a thorough comparison of engagement that various publishers were getting on Twitter versus Bluesky for promotional posts they made. They found that even with only about a fraction of the follower numbers, the number of likes and ReTweets the publishers got on Bluesky were significantly higher than they were getting on the same posts on Twitter; in one case, the only engagement a Tweet got was from the author of the book being promoted.

Some publishers will apparently take it a step further and blame the author for not promoting their book if it happens to have poor sales. In other words, they expect you to do their job for them and pay them for the privilege of doing it. Not only that, but some publishers won't even touch you if you don't already have a huge social media following, which makes being a writer feel a bit like being a job seeker who can't get a job because they don't have experience and they can't get experience because no one will give them a job.

So it seems like these days if you want to make it as a writer (or an artist), you need to have a good social media presence. You need to be a promoter and advertiser in addition to being a writer (and probably in addition to your day job as well, because the vast majority of us can't afford to write full-time) and have the skills to market your product to your intended readers. The problem with that is that the same social media sites you have to rely on to find your audience seem to be hell bent on alienating as many users as possible.

CultureCrave posted on Bluesky (via Financial Times, though going direct to the link seems to hit a paywall) that Meta plans to fill Facebook and Instagram with AI generated users*, which to me seems akin to a sports centre manager announcing that he's going to start shitting in the swimming pool as if that's a good thing. Meta claimed they were doing this to "make their apps more engaging" and attract more users to the platform, even though filling the apps with bots will have the opposite effect. It's bad enough seeing the deluge of AI-generated slop posted by accounts run by humans (not just because of the poor quality but because a lot of it is just downright wrong) added to the existing slurry of advertising spam and constant harassment to follow pages or join groups I'm not even interested in, but if the accounts themselves aren't even real, what is the point of interacting with them? What is the point of staying on that platform? While many users will stay out of apathy or because these platforms are the easiest or only way for them to stay in touch with certain friends or family members, a lot will simply leave. Some might end up on the shores of some other social media platform (where it's going to be difficult to start building up connections again, especially if your friends and followers scatter to multiple different platforms), while others will just vanish outright; I left Twitter** along with many other users as part of last year's mass exodus, and although I did find some of my Twitter friends elsewhere, many of them have apparently disappeared into the ether.

I've already noticed the effect of this social media attrition even on my own small pages. I run dedicated profiles for my art on Facebook and Instagram (and on Twitter, before I nuked all my posts), and once upon a time, when I'd post a new art supply review or demonstration, I'd get at least 10-15 likes on each (not much in the grand scheme of things, of course, but at least I could see that my work had some reach). Now I'm lucky to get 2-3 likes, and those are usually from the same handful of friends who like all my posts. If my already-established public pages are facing such a significant drop in views, it's going to be so much harder for a creative person setting up a new page and trying to build up an audience from scratch. And at this stage, there aren't really any viable alternatives; sure, you can set up your own website (or even a blog), but how do you get people to find it?

As a creative person it's actually really goddamn depressing knowing that even if I manage to finish writing my novel, in order to get anywhere, I'll be forced to do my own marketing and advertising because the people whose job that actually is (ie. publishers) don't do it anymore, which means having to rely on social media that is becoming more and more unusable because the companies that own these sites are just pumping them full of spambots and AI trash (like this and this) and letting abuse and hateful rhetoric against minorities flourish***, thereby driving the actual audience away.

Maybe one day things improve for artists and writers (and other creatives), but I fear things will keep getting worse before they get better. I can't help but wonder how many awesome books and how many beautiful drawings and paintings we won't get to see because they got drowned out by the sea of ChatGPT and MidJourney trash or because publishers wouldn't even give them a chance. I don't know a single sensible person who actually welcomes all this AI rubbish in place of human-made art and stories (as I've posted before, it's not just poisoning creativity but also people's ability to think critically), so I just hope there's enough of a pushback against it that we as a society can prioritise real imagination. As for traditional publisher's failing to do their jobs, I know there are self-publishing options and the ability to create eBooks, but as with having your own website, how do you market your book to an audience that isn't there?

*Sure, Meta has since deleted these AI-generated profiles in response to the overwhelming backlash against them, but if you believe they won't try something similar as soon as they get half a chance, then I have a bridge to sell you...

**I still have an account there to maintain my username, but I deleted all of my posts and removed the app from my phone and I no longer open the site.

***[content warning for this footnote; threat of sexual assault] Let's be honest, they've always done this last one - Twitter once told me that someone threatening to rape me with a broken bottle for saying I didn't care for Steven Moffat as a Doctor Who showrunner "didn't violate their community standards", and Facebook have repeatedly refused to remove pages encouraging violence against women (though they did put a year-long warning on my account for "threats of violence" when I joked to a friend about "nuking" my account!) - but now many social media companies aren't even pretending to care about the safety of their users anymore, with Meta now explicitly allowing abuse and harassment of women and queer people and removing their fact-checking system, Twitter being taken over by a giant attention-seeking toddler who supports a convicted rapist and felon and allows misinformation to run rampant and BlueSky refusing to remove a user known for harassing trans people (as well as other toxic behaviour).

On the Australian government's social media ban for under 16s, and why it will be as useful as a fart in a spacesuit.

As many of you will be aware, the Australian government is trying to ban children under the age of 16 from using social media.

Banning children from social media is like banning them from going in the water. We'd be far better off teaching them to "swim"; educate them on the dangers of social media and how to be safe and protect their privacy online so they have the skills they need to navigate the water/online world.

Young queer and trans kids and other marginalised people (for example, people of colour and people with disabilities) need support and information, which is often difficult or outright dangerous for them to get from people in their lives but which is available from communities online. Cutting them off from that will put them at risk of further isolation and harm (which, sadly, is likely the main point of these laws being introduced).

And this won't just affect teenagers. It's not like social media companies can only ask teenagers to provide proof of age, they'd have to ask EVERYONE to do it. Which means facial recognition and/or uploading formal identification. This obviously has colossal privacy/safety implications. In this day and age it's not a matter of if our data will be stolen but when, so all adults are in danger of harm from these laws, but vulnerable populations (gay, trans, folks with medical issues, people who have/had an abusive partner/family member etc) are even more at risk. Not just because they're more likely to be targeted in the first place, but they're also more likely to be harmed if their private details are made public. So their only options are to either risk being doxxed or just cut themselves off from their online support groups/mechanisms (which again may be the only support they have).

As a writer and artist, I'd also be remiss in not mentioning the impact this is likely to have on creative people. Unlike for a lot of other occupations, we almost have to use social media to advertise our work. Whether it's photography, writing, art, music or anything else, it's incredibly difficult to get eyes on our work because (leaving aside the very few big/famous names in the industry), we can't get other people to advertise for us. If we want our stuff marketed, we have to do it ourselves, and even if we have a dedicated website, that doesn't mean much if people don't know to look for it. For a lot of writers and artists, social media is THE main way they get the word out about their books or their new art for sale, and often one of the most practical way for them to solicit commissions that help them put food on the table. If Australian creatives are forced to upload their identification in order to access these sites, will they do it? Sure, some will... but as above, many will justifiably decide it isn't worth the risk, and they will just stop using social media. As a result, writing or art will stop being financially viable for those people and there's a good chance they'll either revert to only doing it as an occasional hobby, or they'll be forced to take on more 9-5-esque jobs that leave little time and energy for creativity at all. This sucks for the individual artists, but also sucks for Australia's creative industry.

From a practical standpoint, banning YouTube means also banning Google... which is used in a huge number of schools for student collaboration and accessing learning resources, so... RIP that too, I guess? Hope all those teachers are going to be paid overtime for having to rewrite lessons and curriculums because the kids won't be able to access those educational videos anymore... (lol, like they even get paid enough in the first place)

Also, like with a lot of other "prohibitions", those who want to get around the ban will probably find a way anyway (at the risk of further punishment), so not only does the ban have the potential to harm young people, it's also unlikely to actually protect them.

On a similar note, kids are going to keep bullying each other regardless of whether they have social media or not. Without Facebook or whatever, the bullies will just continue with good old-fashioned name-calling and schoolyard assault they were already doing in addition to the online bullying, because teachers won't do anything to stop it either way (partially because they're under-resourced but also because, let's be honest, a lot of them just don't give a fuck). On top of that, students who are ostracised in school may have built up friend networks online, so taking that away from them will do even more harm.

So not only will this ban introduce a whole heap of new problems, it won't even solve the ones it's supposed to. But this is what happens laws around technology are made by people who probably think a floppy disk is cutting edge and that "all the cool people" are using MySpace.

[this post was constructed from rants I have made previously on various social media sites]