I've discovered something.
Well, I mean probably other people have discovered this before me. Maybe you have. But I've come to understand it for myself, so here we are.
A few months ago, I spent a summer in isolation. I lived in a two-room cabin on a lake, pretty deep into the wildlife of Kentucky. There, I worked on music. It was my first real attempt at sitting down, writing, and recording something that (at the time) I was proud of. I would spend a week working on a song or two, and by the end of the week (if it was done) I would "publish" it, which pretty much consisted of uploading it to bandcamp and then doing my best to spread it all over Facebook.
I expected this would get me a following.
And it did, if you want to consider my Mom, my Aunt, my immediate family, and some close friends "liking" my bandcamp links as a following.
It was pretty humiliating to be honest. Maybe not humiliating. Humbling? Disappointing? Yeah. I mean, this song is my BABY for God's sake. Why aren't my notification feeds absolutely blowing up with likes and comments about how impressed people are with me? Why is my Facebook band page still at thirty-something fans? Why are the only ones sharing my songs my Mom and a creepy thirteen-year-old from Mexico that I've never met before? These songs deserve more than that. I deserve more than that. I'm an artist, damnit!
Alright, so I didn't exactly feel that extent of intensity as an unappreciated artist. I'm not that melodramatic. But, I don't know. It shook me a little bit. Those songs would get two or three likes, and then I'd post a status about being high on nyquill or something stupid like that and wake up the next morning to forty plus likes. People are seeing my songs on their newsfeed. I'm right in front of them. Why aren't they listening?
I never really thought that the problem wasn't exactly about how good I was (or wasn't). Instead, the problem was Facebook itself.
(And I'm not using this as a cop-out for the quality of my music. I've listened to the stuff that I worked on over the summer. Some of it I'm still proud of. Others, well... what the hell was I thinking? I don't know. But we improve. Yes, we do. As I said, a lot of the problem lies in the very foundations of what Facebook is.)
I was scrolling through my newsfeed and I saw that a friend of mine shared a video that she made. It looked like she put a lot of work into it. But I wouldn't know. I didn't watch it.
I understand now. Facebook is not the place to share your art, especially if you are just starting out. On Facebook, people do not share your art, but they only share themselves (or a representation of themselves). Facebook is an ego fix, like a fix of nicotine or heroine. People are addicted to themselves, and Facebook is the means with which we can consume, like a marijuana pipe or the rolling paper for tobacco.
For Art, any type of art, you have to invest yourself into it in order to understand it. This could be as simple as taking the time to actually listen and pay attention to a song, or watch a video, or examine a painting. If you want people to listen to you, you need to give them a reason to stop what they're doing and listen.
Facebook is not the place to do this. You are just a bit of space on a page, stuck between a funny Ermahgerd meme and a sobering article about the shooting in Connecticut. You cary no force. The only reason someone would click on your link is if they were personally invested in you (Thanks, Mom), or by accident.
This is why you do not depend on Facebook to share your art. You are not giving people a reason to listen. Even if your music is amazing or if your video is ground-breaking, this is not giving anybody a reason to care. They'd much rather scroll through their newsfeed of their uninteresting friends or wait for likes about the witty status they just made up or look through their own profile pictures and reminisce on how much they've changed over the years or look up their ex and see if she's grown fat or something. Facebook is primarily a pseudo-social ocean, and it makes no room for art.
Fixing the problem?
Give people a reason to listen.
Best way to do so?
Live with people. Physically. Be right in front of them. Parties. House shows. Coffee shop shows. Jamming with strangers. For art to thrive, you must live in community. In order to be listened to, sing in the room that they're in.
It's sort of a simple concept, but I'm pretty slow at understanding such things.
Any thoughts? What have your experiences been as far as the relationship between Facebook and Art? How about Art and Community?
