This is a great article, thanks for saying what any remotely good enough artist is thinking about the arts on IG. I wrote this text in relationship to painting. Spoiler alert: it's the same bullshit you describe in poetry. Funny that IG was for artists at the beginning, and how it got so stupid over the years... In case you feel like reading it, I leave it here :)
I read your article. I know very little about painting but I can't say I'm surprised by your frustrations. I think the thing with IG is that the paintings put out there will get in front of everyone, not just "real" artists. So the vast majority of these likes and and follows will go to the people who post eye-catching videos in fast-forward of a painting materializing in seconds (like you mentioned in your piece). The nature of IG doesn't allow for contemplation. People just scroll and scroll until something catches their eye, then they numbly click like if it was remotely cool-looking, then they scroll on. No appreciation for the fine details. Great article, and congrats for all the likes it's getting lol.
YES! Hahaha thanks for reading it, apparently I said something everyone was thinking, therefore all the likes and comments, people are exhausted of keep playing that stupid game. I also don't know anything about poetry, although I appreciate the good one and realize when I read macaroni from a box with ketchup poetry. It's the same snappy way to consume arts, in the platform where fastfood art wins. Plus, the algorithm authoritarianism that we haven't even mentioned in our posts. But hey, it's great we can come here to complain 😂
Thank you for writing this! The pasta analogy was so on point, I loved it.
I find this low effort insta poetry really discouraging for a few reasons:
The rewarding of low efforts. I mean, I'd love to write effortlessly too, but I value depth too much. There is this guy who is rising quick on IG and is also on Substack who posts poetry so obviously written with AI and now he's about to sell a course about how to write poetry (I'm sure he won't disclose his involvement with chatGPT). All those algorythm based communities ask for speed and speed kills actually thinking. I'm grieving.
Secondly, I hope it's a limiting belief but this epidemic also seems to highlight that they are more people with short attention span and comprehension skills in this world than they are refined indivuals.
I wish it was the other way around but it only seems to go downward. Heartbreaking.
Very discouraging. The short attention spans definitely have something to do with it, but I think it's the sappy content that IG poetry-readers are addicted to--which is more disturbing to me.
Who is this rising poet you mentioned? (You can tell me via direct message so he doesn't get more attention than he deserves lol)
And indeed "...numbers are all that matter here..."
Have you heard of the 'thumbstop' or 'hook' ratio for digital ads or content? It is the percentage of instances where viewers watched at least 3 seconds of your content, mostly video. A good hook rate in digital advertisement is 25%...
That essentially means that you have less than 3 seconds to get your visitors hooked. Good luck with a sonnet 🤣
Instagram poetry is not about content, it's about immediate impact. And you create immediate impact by posting short, simplified messages that appeal to frustrations, uncertainties, or fear.
Anything that took little-to-no technical skill to produce can be dismissed as 'not really art'.
I like the Italian restaurant analogy. There's a time and a place for junk food, and as long as you know what you're eating, and where it stands in the hierarchy, you can enjoy a pizza and a tub of ice cream. But thinking that there's no better food to be found than pizza and ice cream will make you deeply unhealthy very quickly.
There's a closer comparison with music, but I'm not sure if it's perfect. Take the majority of rock'n'roll, swing, and other genres dominated by an archetype that is rarely deviated from. I like a lot of that music, but I'm not under any illusion that it's great music. I think a lot of people probably agree, and still prefer the copy-and-paste outputs of genres like this than Claude Debussy or John Coltrane.
None of that lower-quality stuff that makes up most of what we consume sinks to quite the depth that these Instagram poets do, though, and I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe it's because we all eat, and we can't avoid hearing music on a more-or-less daily basis. Even if most of us never develop a highly discerning ear or pallet, the sheer volume of exposure must do something to train our preferences in the direction of higher quality. We've at least heard enough mediocre music to know that we can do better than straightforwardly bad music.
Lack of exposure to poetry on nearly the same scale might have left us with underdeveloped instincts. That's probably a function of the fact that there's no passive way to consume a real poem. These Instagram poets have achieved something like poetry that can be passively heard. The subject matter is almost irrelevant. The best way to get somebody to do something, especially if you want them to keep doing that thing, is to make it completely effortless for them.
Calling the stuff that Rupi Kaur and her ilk write "poetry" is a bit like dragging a toilet into an art gallery and calling it a "sculpture". It's not what anyone who actually reads or writes poetry calls a poem. It's cringey self-help advice with line breaks and doodles. The miracle trick that these Instagram writers pulled was convincing everyone (including themselves) that they're writing good stuff. If I was actually a talented writer with published books and awards my brain would be melting every time I see Kaur on TV.
My god, I completely agree. I hate Rupi Kaur’s “writing” with a burning passion. Its an insult to actual poets honestly, i could write her work in my sleep but that would be selling out. Its too easy. Its just painful when there is so much talent out there and her “work” is what is being elevated and applauded. Its mindless.
The amount of patience that is required to not openly scoff at the insta-poet genre, particularly when a student shares an example with me of something they love, is comparable to the sheer force of will needed to not engage in a political conversation at a family gathering. I am happy that they want to share something they love, I am happy that they are reading and appreciating verse, but it's objectively BAD... I can only hope that it is a way into the world of poetry and that they might eventually realize that there are better writers out there. But the algorithms are against me... Considering how popular these writers are, the lack of anything poetic in this alleged "poetry" is disheartening.
This is a great article, thanks for saying what any remotely good enough artist is thinking about the arts on IG. I wrote this text in relationship to painting. Spoiler alert: it's the same bullshit you describe in poetry. Funny that IG was for artists at the beginning, and how it got so stupid over the years... In case you feel like reading it, I leave it here :)
https://open.substack.com/pub/marinarocade/p/instagram-changed-contemporary-painting?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=9218i
I read your article. I know very little about painting but I can't say I'm surprised by your frustrations. I think the thing with IG is that the paintings put out there will get in front of everyone, not just "real" artists. So the vast majority of these likes and and follows will go to the people who post eye-catching videos in fast-forward of a painting materializing in seconds (like you mentioned in your piece). The nature of IG doesn't allow for contemplation. People just scroll and scroll until something catches their eye, then they numbly click like if it was remotely cool-looking, then they scroll on. No appreciation for the fine details. Great article, and congrats for all the likes it's getting lol.
YES! Hahaha thanks for reading it, apparently I said something everyone was thinking, therefore all the likes and comments, people are exhausted of keep playing that stupid game. I also don't know anything about poetry, although I appreciate the good one and realize when I read macaroni from a box with ketchup poetry. It's the same snappy way to consume arts, in the platform where fastfood art wins. Plus, the algorithm authoritarianism that we haven't even mentioned in our posts. But hey, it's great we can come here to complain 😂
Thank you for writing this! The pasta analogy was so on point, I loved it.
I find this low effort insta poetry really discouraging for a few reasons:
The rewarding of low efforts. I mean, I'd love to write effortlessly too, but I value depth too much. There is this guy who is rising quick on IG and is also on Substack who posts poetry so obviously written with AI and now he's about to sell a course about how to write poetry (I'm sure he won't disclose his involvement with chatGPT). All those algorythm based communities ask for speed and speed kills actually thinking. I'm grieving.
Secondly, I hope it's a limiting belief but this epidemic also seems to highlight that they are more people with short attention span and comprehension skills in this world than they are refined indivuals.
I wish it was the other way around but it only seems to go downward. Heartbreaking.
Very discouraging. The short attention spans definitely have something to do with it, but I think it's the sappy content that IG poetry-readers are addicted to--which is more disturbing to me.
Who is this rising poet you mentioned? (You can tell me via direct message so he doesn't get more attention than he deserves lol)
Thanks for the article. It's spot on.
And indeed "...numbers are all that matter here..."
Have you heard of the 'thumbstop' or 'hook' ratio for digital ads or content? It is the percentage of instances where viewers watched at least 3 seconds of your content, mostly video. A good hook rate in digital advertisement is 25%...
That essentially means that you have less than 3 seconds to get your visitors hooked. Good luck with a sonnet 🤣
Instagram poetry is not about content, it's about immediate impact. And you create immediate impact by posting short, simplified messages that appeal to frustrations, uncertainties, or fear.
I think that's actually the contrary of poetry...
I haven't heard of that ratio but I'm not surprised by it. Makes sense that two-line poems thrive under such circumstances.
Insta-gram. Stop. 😀
Anything that took little-to-no technical skill to produce can be dismissed as 'not really art'.
I like the Italian restaurant analogy. There's a time and a place for junk food, and as long as you know what you're eating, and where it stands in the hierarchy, you can enjoy a pizza and a tub of ice cream. But thinking that there's no better food to be found than pizza and ice cream will make you deeply unhealthy very quickly.
There's a closer comparison with music, but I'm not sure if it's perfect. Take the majority of rock'n'roll, swing, and other genres dominated by an archetype that is rarely deviated from. I like a lot of that music, but I'm not under any illusion that it's great music. I think a lot of people probably agree, and still prefer the copy-and-paste outputs of genres like this than Claude Debussy or John Coltrane.
None of that lower-quality stuff that makes up most of what we consume sinks to quite the depth that these Instagram poets do, though, and I'm not sure exactly why. Maybe it's because we all eat, and we can't avoid hearing music on a more-or-less daily basis. Even if most of us never develop a highly discerning ear or pallet, the sheer volume of exposure must do something to train our preferences in the direction of higher quality. We've at least heard enough mediocre music to know that we can do better than straightforwardly bad music.
Lack of exposure to poetry on nearly the same scale might have left us with underdeveloped instincts. That's probably a function of the fact that there's no passive way to consume a real poem. These Instagram poets have achieved something like poetry that can be passively heard. The subject matter is almost irrelevant. The best way to get somebody to do something, especially if you want them to keep doing that thing, is to make it completely effortless for them.
Agreed.
Calling the stuff that Rupi Kaur and her ilk write "poetry" is a bit like dragging a toilet into an art gallery and calling it a "sculpture". It's not what anyone who actually reads or writes poetry calls a poem. It's cringey self-help advice with line breaks and doodles. The miracle trick that these Instagram writers pulled was convincing everyone (including themselves) that they're writing good stuff. If I was actually a talented writer with published books and awards my brain would be melting every time I see Kaur on TV.
My god, I completely agree. I hate Rupi Kaur’s “writing” with a burning passion. Its an insult to actual poets honestly, i could write her work in my sleep but that would be selling out. Its too easy. Its just painful when there is so much talent out there and her “work” is what is being elevated and applauded. Its mindless.
The amount of patience that is required to not openly scoff at the insta-poet genre, particularly when a student shares an example with me of something they love, is comparable to the sheer force of will needed to not engage in a political conversation at a family gathering. I am happy that they want to share something they love, I am happy that they are reading and appreciating verse, but it's objectively BAD... I can only hope that it is a way into the world of poetry and that they might eventually realize that there are better writers out there. But the algorithms are against me... Considering how popular these writers are, the lack of anything poetic in this alleged "poetry" is disheartening.
The fact that these poets may be a gateway to something better is the silver lining I suppose.