Understanding social media

Social media is among an independent artist’s most frustrating elements. We struggle for engagement, wage constant battles with “The Algorithm,” scramble for every last clue to success... and lose. Time and again, we lose. It’s a little overdue to closely examine what’s happening here.

CC BY 2.0 Drümmkopf

Social media is for profit.

Every social media app is a company solely for generating a profit. That’s hard to explain to people who saw the dawn of the Internet when so many of these behemoths sprouted in front of our very monitors. Back then, they seemed like experiments — fantastic, creative studies in the World Wide web’s boundless potential. But they were fa, creative studies in new ways to generate boundless profits.

That sounds cynical, but it’s an important factor to consider as we move forward in this discussion.