Algorithm vs. Artists
If you are a creative person, not only you thrive to make art, but you also want to share your work. Creatives rarely get satisfaction by burying the work into the drawer, never showing it to anyone. But how to do it without sacraficing your artistic integrity to the blood thirsty gods of social media algorithms?
George Costanza is not compromising anything. 👊 (Seinfeld: S4, E3 The Pitch)
I create, therefore I share
The fact that you’ve made something meaningful and want to share it is not only valid—it’s a core part of being a creative. Even if you're not trying to go viral, you're trying to reach—to connect. Without that bridge between artist and viewer, the cycle can feel incomplete. The desire for connection isn’t a flaw, it’s the beating heart of the whole thing. The trouble nowadays is that social media algorithms seem to dictate who gets to have an audience, causing anxiety and frustration among artists. It isn’t just common, it’s painfully real for a lot of serious creatives right now, especially photographers.
Alternatives for social media are growing thinner
Social media is now, by far, the most accessible and most common channel for sharing artwork and there is a seismic shift in the way art is shared, perceived and valued.
There are very few alternatives left for social media. The internet used to be great for sharing and discussing art. Early 2000’s were filled with art forums that are now long gone. Even the early days of social media weren’t half bad. I remember the day when Facebook groups were actually fun and useful.
Now that we have faced the fact, that social media is just about the only thing we have left (at least in the general consensus) we must also accept the hard truth that growing audience organically (without paying) isn’t really possible any more, or at least you’re against very bad odds. Starting a completely new Instagram account these days, and expecting results, will most likely lead into a disappointment and eventually reaching for your wallet in order to start promoting your content (buying engagement).
The phenomenon called algorithm honemoon
When you create a new account or start posting again after a long break, platforms often artificially boost your visibility. This is sometimes referred to as the algorithm honeymoon, where your content is more likely to be shown to new viewers, even with little to no audience.
It’s meant to encourage new creators by giving them a little dopamine hit of views, likes, and follows and to test your content to see how it performs with fresh audiences. It hooks you into the system so you keep posting (ideally daily) forever. It feels good to get engagement and a temporary sense of achievement. It’s like a casino giving you a small win on your first few pulls—just enough to get you emotionally and mentally invested.
The honeymoon typically last few posts or weeks. On YouTube, it could be the first 3–10 videos. On Instagram/TikTok, it might be the first few days or first few posts that get wider exposure.
After this period, your content is evaluated more critically based on watch time, engagement rate, follower retention, topic consistency, platform behavior (e.g., are you posting on trend?) And if it doesn’t fit the mold... visibility drops like a rock.
Getting some personal experience
I got to experience this myself after starting a YouTube channel late last year. I wanted to make an experiment of replacing my social media with essay style videos. I don’t use social media anymore and the obvious question that followed, was: where to display my work now? Running a static website and a blog, even though suites me well otherwise, can feel like shouting into the void, because there is little to no interaction with the viewers. YouTube seemed like something to take a stab at.
I was very pleased to see my first videos receiving a surprisingly warm welcome with much better view counts than I was hoping, even though my content really wasn’t anything that special. But alas, few months/videos into the game, the algorithm clearly cut me off with a clear message of saying: “Alright little boy, you’re on your own now. No more free engagement for you.”
Platforms do this for so called onboarding optimization. They want you to get traction early to prevent you from dropping off. There is, of course, also data collection involved. In addition to that, the boost is a way to test your content. If people engage, the platform will push more. If not, it stops. They rely on creators becoming dependent on engagement by creating this kind of hook psychology. That first rush feels validating, then it tapers off and creators chase that first high, tweaking their content to fit the algorithm’s preferences. They’re now one step away from making blood sacrifices and killing babies just to please the algorithm gods.
Why this feels so disheartening? Initially you feel like something’s working, like you’re on your way to social media stardom —“Hey, people are actually liking this!” Then the numbers suddenly collapse, even if the quality improves. This happened to me. My first YouTube videos sucked but they still reached good numbers. As I got the hang of editing and writing better scripts, my videos got much better, but they started to perform poorly, leaving me baffled. It didn’t make sense to me. At this point you start questioning your content, your voice, your direction. Worst of all, it’s not about the art, it’s about fitting into a gamified system. It creates a toxic feedback loop where you're constantly adjusting to serve an invisible master, rather than focusing on authentic creative output. YouTube especially loves people who pick a very specific niche and post like clockwork. For an artist, that often feels like death by creative repetition.
But what if you don’t want to be an algorithm whore? If that is the case, it is not about ego—it’s about integrity. You want to share your work with people who genuinely resonate with it, not to focus on tricking a machine into putting you in front of eyeballs for a fleeting 0.3 seconds, that it takes to scroll pass it. At the moment I think I still continue to experiment with YouTube, but lowering my expectations a bit.
It’s natural for an artist to want response and connection. The idea that we should just “make for ourselves” is romantic but incomplete. The problem isn’t you — it’s that the world around you is prioritizing the wrong things right now.
