Is social media a blessing or a curse for young artists?
Social media is undeniably challenging the conventions of the Arts Industry, opening up more channels for young creators to put their work out into the public sphere and traction popularity. The development of social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram have allowed artists the autonomy of self-promotion; a practice of advertising that doesn’t cost an artist 50% of their income in the same way being represented by a commercial gallery does.
Whilst platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube are well-known for their ability to seamlessly and effectively promote and popularize music- think Grammy award winning rapper Lil Nas X whose debut single “Old Town Road” garnered popularity on TikTok – Social media is not often considered a space for artistic growth.
And yet, content posted to TikTok with the hashtag art collectively has over 156.9 Billion views.
It would seem that in the past year there has been a collective cultural shift towards romanticising and aestheticizing life. Young people are tuning in to the arts, and whilst this may just be the inevitable swing of the cultural pendulum, it could be argued that this affinity for all things beautiful comes as a result of the Corona Virus pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns that people faced world-wide. This swing towards aestheticization is exemplified by a TikTok trend that dominated social media from April to May in 2020: making whipped coffee.
With the world communally in lockdown, and creative public spaces like galleries, museums and gardens closed to the public, people had to get imaginative to create beauty in their lives. This resulted in an upsurgence of creative output on social media platforms. In journalist Amelia Hill’s article ‘‘It’s reawakened something”: creative ambitions blossom for lockdown 2’, written for The Guardian back in November 2020, Hill observed that in the second lockdown people were directing their time and energy into creative endeavours. Observing that “Pinterest […} had a 130% increase in viewings in the UK of “how to” videos for sewing gifts”.
And although these aesthetic trends started off with coffee and sewing, they continued to explode across TikTok garnering more and more popularity and unearthing more and more talent. It is through this influx of creative output that art “creators” came to be.
An example of this type of content creator is Sophie McPike, a Melbourne based artist whose illustration practice exploded after going viral on TikTok. Her most viral video is captioned “THANKYOU for 50k💖 to celebrate, enjoy this one of me having a bad art day! Haha! They happen! It’s ok! #fail #art #asmr #drawing #artist #chill #fyp” and depicts the process of Sophie drawing a technicoloured caricature of a naked woman. The video has an amusing tone, presenting all of the accidents intrinsic to art making alongside sardonic statements like “…maybe we can save this” and “uhh not feel’n it”. The video is not dissimilar to her others; with a zoomed in focus, ASMR style of audio and fragmented editing.
However, this video has over 12 million views, 2.3 million likes and 6438 comments (compared to McPike’s usual 20 thousand view range).
McPike was met with a tidal wave of new followers on TikTok, attaining an additional 50,000 followers in the following four days after her video went viral. Nevertheless, this accrued support did not translate economically. “I had a small spike in sales, but it wasn’t that much!” said McPike, who is 31. She sells her work from her online store Thistle Be Nice on Etsy which is linked to in her bio on TikTok.
Despite the goldrush of attention artists receive when a video blows up, TikTok does not carry as much monetary opportunity for visual artists as it does for musicians and TikTok personalities. Unlike musicians and creators who can set trends and produce content every day, an artist’s practice demands time to generate work. And in the fickle and fast-paced world of social media, consistent creation of content is necessary to stay relevant.
As of 2020, a colossal 3.6 billion people are actively using social media, almost half of the world’s population. Over 1.29 billion users are on TikTok and 1.074 billion users are on Instagram. With so many people using these applications, the potential audience for creators is practically limitless. However, the volatility and capriciousness of TikTok leaves artists vulnerable, and to stay relevant they have to post every day which isn’t achievable for many artists.
Success on social media requires eye catching content, something that breaks through the monotonous scroll and grabs the viewers’ attention. As an artist and a user of social media myself, I can’t help but think that to appease the ever-growing demand for content one would have to sacrifice their artistic integrity and vision to continuously produce viral videos.
Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are good starting points for artists to gain popularity and put themselves out into the public stratosphere, but they lack the stability and loyalty required to nurture an artist’s practice. Whilst the growing popularity of artists as social media creators is a good thing in terms of cultural capital, it is still yet to be proven how beneficial the limelight is for someone’s career.
LILY BEAMISH 
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