inkycap
@inkycap

Hey all, I'm an artist. I'm really excited about Cohost, and I'd like to tell you why.

There's something about the metric-measuring of social media that I think causes art and expression to become somewhat... stifled. Instead of making what they want, artists are encouraged to make what's popular. What gets shares, what gets likes, what gets followers. That's not a bad thing per se, but I don't know if it's always a healthy thing either. I think those numbers tend to drive creators a little crazy. When you post something that doesn't get attention, it feels like you got a bad grade. When you post something that does get attention, it feels like you did something right for once. That shouldn't be what art is about; art shouldn't be something you can win or lose at. Art should encourage expression.

I draw some admittedly very niche stuff. Over time, after over a decade posting art online, I've realized that finding my audience - finding the people that are really into my work, the people who find meaning and connection in it - give me the most satisfaction and fulfillment as an artist. I think I read someone else say something like "Having 100 followers who really care about your work is better than having 10,000 followers who don't." And that's true as hell. Art in the age of social media should not be about reaching as many people as possible. It should be able reaching your people.

So, that brings me back to Cohost. Cohost is great in the sense that it has eliminated metrics and algorithms that prioritize some things, and hide others. Nothing is shown to you unless you want to see, which is very nice. But that comes with a tradeoff. Now you have a little bit of responsibility, you have power. If you like some creative content on Cohost, well, there's a pretty strong chance that someone who follows you will also like it. You can help connect a creator and their work to the people who will enjoy it the most, and you can only do that by sharing.

But, what's most important to me overall, Cohost presents a unique metric that social media has never really tried before, in the sense that the only measurable metric is also the most meaningful one: comments! We can really, truly, replace meaningless numbers with real human connections - even short and fleeting ones - and show in a meaningful way how a piece of art makes us feel. That's really cool. I don't know if you know this yet, but one comment of someone saying "I really like this!" is worth more to me than 100 shares.

So, please write a comment. It doesn't have to be complicated or deep. Hell, I'm a porn artist - I just want to know that my art made you feel something. But if you want to make the most of Cohost, comment on that post.


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in reply to @inkycap's post:

Seriously though, cohost has been making me severely rethink how I interact with people online. It's made me realize how much passive engagement there's been on instagram and twitter and how quickly I'd end up glossing over something because That's How The Feed Works.

I needed to read this. Thank you. I'm still trying to grow and get eyes on my art and writing and twitter and isntagram have been hell for my mental health because of the "it feels like you got a bad grade" vibes lol. Hopefully this site is better for me, for all of us, in that regard. Connection with cool people making cool things is all I ever wanted anyway.

art is communication. I don't need anybody to write me a book, it doesn't have to be eloquent, but say something back. let artists know there are others in the void they're yelling into. most artists don't want to be like little gods handing down creations from on high. we want to connect, we want to say something, we want to be heard. so say something back!!!!

+1 agree, this got me thinking though:

We can really, truly, replace meaningless numbers with real human connections - even short and fleeting ones - and show in a meaningful way how a piece of art makes us feel.

it's interesting to think that years of simple interactions on other media may have divorced people from "feeling" things from art that don't contribute to metrics. complicated emotions that come from a piece just get distilled down to a "like" or "retweet" which could maybe lead an audience to engage with art incredibly superficially. click. scroll. click. scroll. each click is representative of 0.5seconds of eyeballs and thought and moving on.

comments represent a longer engagement with the piece, long enough to at least form a few words. i know i've been trained by other online spaces to not engage enough with an individual post (cause you gotta see those ads and keep you online), and the process of unlearning that from sites like this has been enlightening!

Exactly!! The demise of twitter has really opened my eyes to the way Twitter has not only influenced my behavior, but also influenced the way I think, and what thoughts I give priority to. I'm very excited to shift my mode of thinking.

I'd already been making an effort to comment on art I particularly like here, but this helped solidify for me why that's a good idea, even if the comment is kinda simple. Thanks, good post!

One thing I really haven't experienced enough of on the internet is making meaningful connections. It's pretty rare in today's age of the internet, and especially on the popular platforms. I don't even think I've really experienced much of it since 2015, maybe 2017 at the latest, and a lot of that has to do with the way that most popular platforms are formatted for gaining attention and likes, as stated in your write-up.

The most meaningful connections I did make, however, came from platforms that allowed for such. Forums were big with that, YouTube in older days was a bit, and a tiny fraction of that for me came from Discord. It's actually interesting to me that some of the largest platforms, like Twitter and TikTok, barely go for that aspect at all. Those two in particular limit discussion and only boil it down to something shorter without much room for detail or further conversation.

What I'm seeing with Cohost is that it has huge potential to be a refreshing social media experience due to the format it has. Everyone I've seen so far is trying to make it sincerely possible that it becomes something different, rather than as a replacement for existing platforms, and I'm totally down for that. I also really appreciate the posts that refresh on old internet etiquette, and hell, as an internet user on the younger side, I really find those informative. The fact that there's no limit for comments makes it great for discussion too.

I might be rambling at this point, but I hope I'm making sense with this. Cohost has a great thing going for it, and I hope that it can help provide a new look on making connections on the internet.

Yeah you make sense! It's really interesting how much the stated mission of the owners of a site such as this can really dictate the behavior and expectations of the people who use it. I feel like it really set the stage for how users are approaching Cohost from the outset, and there's a kind of electric optimism there too. It's exciting!

In the past I've run into this thing, that while if I get a few likes and maybe a comment that's unusual and exciting, but other people with many followers get hundreds of comments all the time and complain that it's a nuisance, people are wasting their time with low-value comments. Like on the one hand I wanna say that's an interesting question I've wondered about for years but on the other hand I never figured out The Answer so I don't have anything useful to say.

I think association has to do with a lot of it. If someone has an insane amount of followers, then the people who interact with them in the most notable ways tend to draw in attention as well. It becomes a dynamic of the Big Account creating viral content and getting attention, causing their followers to interact with them in a way that is also centered around getting attention. It becomes a sort of game that pulls all of the interaction off of the content and places it onto the game itself.

When social media prioritizes the meta aspects of virality and reach more than it prioritizes the things people make and the things people say, you get Twitter. I think Cohost is nice in the way that it obliterates those aspects almost entirely.

i've been trying to do better w/ writing comments recently, and trying out different platforms like this has helped me a lot. i especially like how you said art is about reaching your own people instead of as many people as possible. that's something i've been trying to remind myself a lot these days. it's much more fulfilling to engage with others.

sometimes when i post my art, it feels less like i'm sharing something i care about, and more like i'm casting a net into the ocean to nab as many "fish" as possible. when i made the transition from fanart to original art, the numbers dwindled and i felt incredibly inferior. i don't think it's entirely social media's fault since i might have an ego problem in general, but it absolutely contributes—no, feeds off it.

The transition from fanart to original art is REAL scary, but it's so worth it!! You definitely get less attention at first - it feels like it took me AGES to build an audience with just my original art - but that audience has lasted through years of platform changes and various career adjustments, because they're interested in me as a creator, rather than just consuming my art as a commodity. Keep at it!!

oh, absolutely! there's nothing nicer than having people invested in your original work, even if it's just a couple people. hardest part for me is figuring out how to present my characters outside of inside jokes and memes that only make sense to me, LOL. i'm not super confident in my writing yet, but i'm getting there 😂 thanks for the kind words, and i wish you luck on your artistic endeavors 👀👍

I agree!

This is why I advocate for removing the like button entirely, i think it discourages ppl from leaving comments, because they already feel they've interacted with the post. Or give us an option to disable likes on a particular post.

I think tagging people is disabled on purpose, to discourage dogpiling someone's mentions. But maybe you can have the best of both worlds by having granular options on who can tag you in a post so that it shows up in your mentions.

i really enjoy this website so far and i am glad to see so many people thinking the same.
i often think of people mocking "streamers with only 8 viewers"; do you imagine having 8 of your friends watching you play something in the same room? that's huge.

i am tired of these dark patterns modern social networks put onto us, and I am glad this website is the way it is, and most of its users are the way they are.
thank you for this post 🧡

My use of social media got so much healthier and fulfilling when I tried to focus on building communities instead of building an audience. Meaningful connections are just better for humans than a multitude of connections, I think. Thanks for commenting!!

I really enjoy cohost for just, not, indulging in anything like that. I have full control over what I see, and that's amazing. I like to leave comments whenever I can. Finally, some good fucking food.

Exactly this. This is why I joined Cohost even before the Great Twitter Exodus of 2022: I wanted to find a healthier place to live online. I once attempted to share my art on Twitter. I got essentially zero engagement despite posting dozens of pieces over the course of months. I found myself obsessing over the numbers and I knew just how unhealthy that was. So I stopped. Posting my art here has been an entirely different experience. I've only uploaded my recent dinosaur art and have already made connections with real geologists and paleontologists. I'm encountering interesting people just by using the site. Funny how much better life becomes when you cut out the rabid competition and corporate greed.

I HATE to ruin the nice comment count but you're right, and I've not been doing enough commenting anywhere. A big part is social anxiety (what if the joke I'm making is bad, am I just repeating something many others have already said, will I get dunked on) but that's a me problem that I want to work on anyway. So thanks for giving me the gentlest of pushes in the direction I was already wanting to go :)

In other places there's also a pressure to write funny/witty/popular comments for likes.

There are no likes or dislikes here and that's great <3

It feels more like a forum/board with trees of conversations, instead of likes-driven popularity contest.

"Art in the age of social media should not be about reaching as many people as possible. It should be able reaching your people." Yessss! I teach marketing sometimes, and people feel so embarrassed or down about their follower count, or their email list count, and it is so much more about having an engaged audience who loves your work and wants more. The "growth at all costs" mentality that corporations use to justify the worst human rights violations also trickles down to us when we are growing our audiences and trying to capture so. many. people. Focusing on what you value and who you are is much more fulfilling at least for me.

As someone who has only recently been able to actually make a living from my art, I can confirm that finding my people works better on every level! I want to make this art, they want me to make this art; I'm able to live while doing something I'm passionate about, AND I feel like I'm making a difference in the world. Everyone's happy. I would not have reached that point if I was trying to market myself to as many people as possible.

Thank you so much for this!! Now to actively re-teach my brain about the "social" part of social media. Because boy, am I not used to saying things on posts after how many years on mainstream socials where I would just smash like and share :')

May I ask, as you are an artist on Cohost, do you think it's better to comment rather than making a reply in a rehost? I've been replying to quite a few art pieces I like, but is that too separated compared to a comment?
I love to compliment works and want to do it in a way that would make the artist more happy (I know there's no way you could speak for all artists, but if you have a general idea I'd love to hear it. Even if it's just that there's no real difference between the two)

for me its kind of a matter of intent. replying in a rehost is like... it's almost like playing show-and-tell with your followers. you are presenting the work. replying in a rehost is like starting a discussion out of the art, because now your post is not about the art, but about your reception and reaction to the art. there's definitely a time and place for that, especially if you want to invite discussion in regards to your response to the art. but if you're not going for a discussion, i think it's best to just rehost the art as is and put your praise in a comment, because then your comment is only intended for the artist and for other people who are interested enough in the art to click on it. i hope that makes sense!! it's all about where you're putting your attention, and how you're drawing other people's attention