Well folks, we have reached the end. The end of what you may ask? Well, this whole shebang, from this blog to my Facebook, Instagram and Imgur, was all for a project.
In an attempt to understand social media, we were all tasked with running social media accounts for whatever our hearts desired. I’ll be completely honest with you guys; When I first heard how much the project entailed, I was ready to either suffer and fail the class or even drop it until I felt better prepared.
Luckily, neither of those things happened, and I ended up posting a lot more than I thought I would. So what changed?
Inktober!
As much as it seemed like I hated Inktober, it helped me to become part of a drawing community on Instagram. This small community were all new to either drawing or posting them online, and we supported each other by liking everything we drew and commenting supportive words when needed.
Inktober also pushed me to think outside of the box and try my hand at drawing things I would not have thought to draw otherwise. The prompts on some days made me want to bang my head against a wall and yeah…I did cry at times out of frustration, but I’m grateful for it. Also, I’m super proud of myself for actually sticking with what I set out to do.
My favorite platform was Instagram because it got the most activity and it was a lot more welcoming to new artists unlike Facebook and Tumblr. My least favorite, and one that I will not be returning to, is Imgur. Imgur was quite a weird experience, as it gave users who saw my artwork the opportunity to down-vote them. There were pieces I did that I hated but got a lot of up-votes, and pieces I loved that got way more down-votes than I thought necessary. This really messed with my self esteem and I no longer felt like posting there.
Another thing that pushed my limits were the collaborations. This was a requirement of the project.Coming up with ideas for people other than myself left me questioning if I even had the creativity to pull it off. Luckily for me though, the people I worked with were all very encouraging and gave me free reign over what I drew. This was freeing, albeit a little too freeing at times, but I was able to pull through.
Over the years of using social media, I sort of fell out of touch with it. When I had first gotten started, I was always excited about sharing my interests with everyone, but now I prefer just logging on to observe, like a few things, and then move on.
This class taught me why it’s necessary to use social media if your goal is to connect and share with others. I was able to experience art from so many different perspectives that I now have a deeper appreciation for those who post regularly, even daily, online; It’s hard work playing to an audience, especially if that audiences only criticism is liking what you post. As the weeks passed, I wanted to try harder and engage more with my small following, and in this modern age, social media is the way to go.
All in all, I’m really glad that I didn’t drop this class, and that even after all the mental breakdowns, I was able to finish off with something I feel great about. I’m definitely taking a break for Christmas, but will try my best to continue posting, just not as often.
That’s all folks!
SorayaTheTired 