When did art become content?
This is going to come off a little controversial, but don’t you also miss the good old days when Instagram was just meant to share photos, add some fun filters, and make real connections and where we didn’t worry about engagement and followers and likes?
I get it though. An app has to go through multiple evolutions to grow and become popular and famous and stuff.
But …
Since when did making art and taking photos become creating content?
As an artist, I find the phrase, “creating content” cringe. So cringy it doesn’t make me want to draw or paint on some days because let’s face it, the reach is dead, the engagement is dead and Instagram has become an app to just sing and dance your way into marketing yourself even if you are an artist who just wants to showcase your work, put up a video once in a while, and maybe vanish from the app for days. But no. You can’t do all those. You need to spend hours recording yourself, placing your cameras at all angles, visualizing how you want the video to come out … and then creating your art. By the time one does all of those, the actual feel to create just goes away.
And that’s the heartbreaking part, isn’t it? The joy of creating, the act of making something with your hands, something that flows from within, is overshadowed by the constant pressure to package it perfectly. To make it consumable. Digestible. Marketable. As if the value of art lies not in its essence but in its ability to fit into a 15-second reel with trending audio.
Where did we lose the focus? The serenity of sitting down with a blank canvas or a lump of clay, with no agenda other than to see where the process takes us? Now, instead of immersing ourselves in the magic of making, we’re caught up in the mechanics of showing. The right lighting, the perfect angles, the editing process — it all feels more like a production than a creation. And for what? A handful of likes and a sense of validation from an algorithm that seems rigged against us anyway?
So…
Can we just take a step back? Can we reclaim art for what it’s meant to be — a personal journey, a process of exploration, a means of connecting with ourselves and the world around us? Let’s normalize creating art for the sake of art. For ourselves. For the peace it brings to our minds. Let’s stop turning everything we make into “content” to be consumed by the masses and instead focus on learning, experimenting, and growing as artists.
Art doesn’t need to be performative. It doesn’t need a script or a soundtrack. It doesn’t need a perfectly curated behind-the-scenes clip. What it needs is time, space, and freedom — freedom from the expectations of others and the algorithm. Let’s allow ourselves to draw badly, paint messily, and create imperfectly, without worrying about whether it’s “shareable.”
The truth is, art doesn’t owe anyone anything. Not engagement. Not likes. Not visibility. It exists for us first, for the way it makes us feel, the way it lets us express what words can’t. Let’s protect that. Let’s cherish that. And maybe, just maybe, let’s put the cameras away for a while and get back to what we love — creating.
