Someone close to me yesterday said “I really need to get out of the house more often. You have shown me a lot of different spots I didn’t know about.”
This was from someone who has lived in the same city and state their whole lives and I think it was one of the saddest things I heard.
Look, I know I am wired differently than most and have an insatiable desire for something new and different. Random beats repetition for me every time.
Sometimes I have to lose myself to find a new direction and the only way I can do that is by exploring more.
6th St, Pearl District looking towards downtown Tulsa in the snow
It used to be a great way to network with
great photographers and friends. It has evolved from a creative
community into an abomination of memes, unoriginal work and
advertisements.
When Facebook purchased Instagram everyone knew that it would change
drastically and not for the better.
Shortly after, ads were
popping up with no regard for anything. Nothing was relevant because
Facebook hadn’t yet figured out your likes, dislikes, friends. It still
hasn’t figured me out. I am seeing ads for candy, ads for salt. Yes,
salt. Ads for a house flipping seminar by some faux celeb on a DIY
channel. Ads for paint etc etc. What the hell does salt have to do with
photography? This is a photography platform…or it used to be.
IG has added video features, photo/video stories, IGTV for longer video
stories. All laced with ads.
FB and IG both have shitty
algorithms that is distracting what we want to see. Their shitty
algorithms have also destroyed the order in which we want to see our
friend’s photos by assuming they know best. But FB and IG don’t know me
at all. They’ve stopped caring and allow any advertiser to show whatever
they want, relevant or not and then have access to our data.
How
pervasive are these irrelevant advertisements? It averages one ad for
every four photos in your feed. Four, maybe five of your colleague’s
images and then you get a “sponsored post”.
These are the offered options when telling IG you don’t want to see their ads:
Why don’t you want to see this ad?
It’s not relevant
I see it too often
It’s inappropriate
Deleting Facebook was easy. I never took it
seriously and my friends appreciated me mocking everything that they
enjoyed about FB.
Speaking of deleting…I just accidentally erased
my whole last paragraph and don’t have the energy to recreate it.
Anyway, IG sucks and I am getting real close to pushing that “delete
account” button.
The Norman Rockwell exhibit at Gilcrease museum was a brilliant behind the painting look at his photography. Throwing in a green screen and a bit of fuckery at the end made it even better.
