I've started an Instagram. Now what?
Until now, any social accounts I've had have been private and personal accounts. Today I (finally) started an Instagram page for my designs. I knew I would have to when I came back to my shop and I've been dreading it. In the time I've been away, I've seen that the things that continue to sell are all promoted somewhere. Finding anything organically just isn't happening like it used to. Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook have taken over in the time I've taken off. At first, it seemed easy enough to learn. But then the rabbit hole happens. The likes and the followers and the interconnection between platforms. Whew, it's like the Universe.
I was born in between GenX and the Millenials, a subset of people who don't belong in either group and have navigated the digital age as it came. To give you an idea of what this means...
My first memory of gaming is Space Invaders on a DOS floppy disc but I also got a Nintendo when I was 12.
I remember listening to records and spending pocket money on cassettes but was thankful to get rid of my cd collection when streaming became possible.
My friends and I started a penpal club in fifth grade where we took turns writing and sending actual letters (in the MAIL) to each other. But email became a thing in our late teens and we were happy to jump on that train with the coolest usernames we could think of (I still have my original email from 1997- tiffjamaica, because Cocktail was one of my favorite movies and I've been obsessed with going to Jamaica since I was seven).
I talked on the phone (the actual phone connected to the actual wall) so much in middle school, we had to get "call-waiting" so that other calls could come through. In high school, when our old cars broke down, we had to walk to the nearest house to use a landline. But cell phones happened and I finally gave in and bought a smartphone when I was 30.
What's left of any old photographs from my youth are on actual film with no copies posted online to haunt me. My kids will have a fully documented life because I've learned to use DSLR cameras and digital photobooks.
In college, I had my first laptop which I used 90% for actual college work and the other 10% for having AOL IM to talk to friends. The internet was just a baby, but already people were using it to connect and everything was changing.
So as I hit early adulthood, I had led a wonderfully anonymous life. Privacy was still a very real thing. As the internet grew, I was there for MySpace and then the beginning of Facebook, both of which were not the same beast that social media is today. My feet were in the water, but I didn't jump in fully. The internet was growing, and I was able to open up a hobby shop POD on Zazzle before there were a million of them to choose from. I could connect with other designers through the forums and created a pretty fun network of artists here on blogger. No advertising or spam, just genuine people who liked to see each other's work. I want that to be what social media is now, but I'm skeptical.
And so I'm here trying to learn the new way of networking as my generation has had to learn all the other digital upgrades of our lives. And I know it's completely possible. But whew, it's like the Universe. I posted my first post to Instagram an hour ago and already strangers are finding me. And there's the rabbit hole - how did they find me? I am no longer wonderfully anonymous.
Part of me feels like making a speech worthy of Lloyd Dobler. I don't want to curate, consume, or promote anything as a career. I don't want to curate anything consumed or promoted. I don't want to promote anything consumed or curated. And I don't want to consume anything curated or promoted. I just want to hang out... But another part of me is excited to see where it all leads. After all, the strangers that found me are all wonderful illustrators and I did really enjoy their accounts.
So if you got here from there or are going there from here: hi, hello, nice to meet you, hope you enjoy what you see, stick with me while I figure this out, and also tell me your social media secrets because I can't think about it long enough to make sense of it before my head starts to hurt. :)
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