I tracked every single interaction with my posts for a month and the results made me want to quit (but also not)
So I did this really stupid thing where I spent January keeping a spreadsheet of every like, comment, share, and save on every post I made across Instagram and Bluesky. I thought I'd find a pattern, you know? Something to reverse engineer.
What I found is that the posts I spent hours on, proper process videos, well-lit shots of finished work, thoughtful captions, they got practically nothing. Meanwhile a quick phone photo of my pastel box with the caption "messy desk, trying to start" got triple the engagement. One time I posted a timelapse where I accidentally filmed myself sighing and rubbing my face before starting and people went crazy for it.
I don't know what to do with this information. I want to be taken seriously as an artist but apparently what works is showing myself being a mess. Is the answer really just... performative struggle? Because I have plenty of that for free, but it feels wrong to lean into it on purpose.
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Oh, I know this feeling well. The thing you worked hardest on, the one where you were most present and careful, and it's the throwaway that people reach for.
I think sometimes the polished pieces don't leave room for anyone else. They feel finished, closed. But the messy desk, the hesitation, the accidental sigh, those let people in. They see themselves there.
Not that it makes it any easier, I know. Still stings a little.
Ah you've put your finger on it there, the "closed" thing. That's it exactly. I had a print once, a heron I must have carved and recarved four times, got it exactly where I wanted it, framed it up proper, and it just sat there online like a stone. But a photo of the offcuts on my studio floor, the little curly bits of lino everywhere, captioned "heron's nest" or some nonsense, and people went mad for it.
It's maddening and it's also... not nothing, you know? That mess is real. The finished thing's the destination but people want the company of the journey. Still stings a bit though, you're right. I sulked for a full day after that heron flopped, I won't lie to you.
The heron took ages, honestly. I kept ruining the eye, that's the thing with lino, one wrong cut and you're patching or starting over. But yeah, the early pulls, before I'd cleaned up the edges too much, they had this rough quality I couldn't get back once I'd finessed it to death. I know exactly what you mean about looser being better sometimes. It's like the more you know what you're doing, the less interesting it becomes? That can't be right but it feels that way some days.
That heron print sounds like it was really something. Four times, I respect that so much. I've got drawings I've redone over and over and the early ones are sometimes looser, better in a way, but I keep chasing something the later ones don't have either.
Maybe the closed thing is real. Maybe we finish something and we're so relieved it's done that we forget to leave a door open in it. I don't know. I'm just guessing really.
What was the heron of? Just a heron you saw somewhere, or did it mean something?