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I posted recently to Grainery, the sorta new photo-sharing platform, for the first time in a long while. I opened the account about seven months ago as I, along with many Instagram users, had grudgingly endured Instagram’s turn to video, increased advertising, and, perhaps most sinister, posts from people and entities one does not follow in the form of “recommendations.”
A funny thing happened since I opened that Grainery account: Elon Musk finally fulfilled his tumultuous purchase obligation with Twitter, and immediately started making dumb decisions. Which threw into perspective (for me, anyway) how futile it is to invest one’s time too heavily into any social media effort.
As a former journalist and editor, I utilized Twitter extensively since 2009 (@mlbmitch). I never had a huge following (I don’t think I ever cracked 1,000), but I was one of those connected to others in my field, and long story short, my voice was amplified when necessary. Twitter was a magnificent tool for information gathering (when utilized with care). And, as we know, what made it a great tool to accumulate great information also made it a great tool to spread misinformation. Its flaws, along with Facebook’s, are well documented.
So how does this relate to Grainery? I’m getting there…
When Musk contributed to Twitter the exceptional conundrum that is his combined ego, hubris, and striking social naïveté, he introduced another level of malevolence (and more Nazis!) to an already problematic platform. Hoards fled to other platforms like Mastodon and Post. (I have accounts on both as I figure out what will stick as a Twitter replacement. Mastodon: @mlbmitch@masto.ai; Post: @mikemitchelson.)
Those who searched for an option beyond Twitter were exposed to many considerations, but the most notable were those that were ever-more specific and those subscription-based. Sometimes both. It’s the same for those photocentric folks looking to abandon Instagram. Among the pay-to-play alternatives for photographers are Grainery and Glass.
One could include good ol’ Flickr (find me there with my name or Darkroom Detritus) in that list, but I didn’t, because a user can still post a substantial amount of material (1,000 images) before needing to upgrade to a paid subscription or edit your archive. There’s also 500px, with which I also have an account, but have never really explored. One needs to upgrade to a paid membership to “get the full Awesome experience.” Sigh.
I haven’t looked seriously at Glass. Reviews are fantastic, but, I don’t want to invest time in a two-week free trial. This is where Grainery’s founder is wise to give a taste of even 24 images before one bumps against the freebie image limit. When that limit is reached, one can still explore all they want.
As most of you photography-focussed social-media users already know, Grainery is a website (currently beta testing its apps) on which to post exclusively film photography. (Glass welcomes digital or film.) I don’t recall on which podcast I heard some months ago an interview with Kyle Johnston (Instagram @kylespergallon), Grainery’s founder, designer and only employee, but he said something to the effect that he was developing Grainery in response to the track that Instagram has taken in recent years. He taught himself to code and built the initial site himself. More recently, I saw an October Instagram post where he said he had enough support to quit his job and devote energies full-time to Grainery’s further development, including in app form.
I am impressed. One can post their photos in the format they deserve, and one builds their profile by entering their gear (cameras, lenses, film) and then you select all that shit when you post a photo. So, up-front time investment that pays off when you post. And you can still hashtag away.
But, to the concern that this is yet another site to fill: It is.
And, to the larger concern that one is “preaching to the choir” (i.e., other film photographers and no one else): You are.
These are big problems. For all the hate piled on Instagram these days for its turn to video and “stories,” the real cause of that ill will was the proliferation of that random shit, the “recommendations” that were the result of that one time or another you liked one thing from somebody—or, most sinisterly, even if one “viewed” for a time (without even clicking on it) a random video. My feed was often filled with almost nothing I followed. It got so bad that I pondered junking my account, but, instead, started another, tuned tightly to photography, as an experiment. That helped.
Also, enough Instagramers raged that there seems to be a turn back to normalcy (albeit, a new version of normalcy—I’m still annoyed by an avalanche of ads if one even accidentally (or not) clicks on ONE fucking advert for a wristwatch company). And, one can block “recommendations” from your feed for 30-day stretches. I do that regularly. I’ve kept my primary (@mlbmitch) and photography-focussed (@darkroomdetritus) accounts. Both have value.
Having a film-focussed social media platform is fine. I get it. We’ve been in visual overload since Instagram (and to a degree, Facebook) was introduced. The idea of having something curated simply by eliminating the primary method of photographing something in the 21st century is sort of remarkable.
But there’s another problem. Just like any movement toward “how things were done back when” or “retro,” doesn’t automatically make that content or product good. Take craft beer, for example. A lot of it is shit, with much of a brewer’s incompetence or indifference masked by face-melting levels of hops and/or alcohol in a lazily-concocted IPA.
Just because it’s shot on film, doesn’t make it better. No one looking at any work should be impressed just because it’s shot on film. And like any artistic movement, eventually it settles into its own ubiquities (expired film, anyone?).
I’ve always enjoyed being pulled in other creative directions beyond photography. This is where Instagram still has an enormous advantage. I enjoy my friend’s paintings that get dropped into my feed every so often (@ericweinsteinart). Same with my brother-in-law (@smackenziemoll), a comic book artist for DC and others. I do click people’s Stories regularly now—some express themselves very creatively there (for photographers, one can present slide show to express an idea that doesn’t require someone to swipe their thumb). The Stories feature, like TikTok, is also a tool for sales—a handy thing for an individual or small business.
I also don’t think the format limitations on Instagram or other social media sites are a disadvantage, necessarily. I don’t—and I think most smartphone users, if they’re honest, don’t—expect the best visual experience from smartphones. An artist’s social media feed, ideally, is something with which to pull a thumb-scroller from that feed to a website, anyway.
Other big-picture (pun!) challenges
Social media subscriptions are a tough sell. Most of us, having used Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for 15 years have accepted some level of the “free-service-for-personal-data” bargain. I’m willing to accept some ads to pay for a decent service that allows me to share information or creative work and be part of a community, and gather that same stuff from whom or what I follow. (That’s not a glib statement. It is an ongoing, difficult bargain to accept if you’re a person that pays attention to the revelations on the pervasiveness of disinformation in recent years, such as causing havoc in our elections and COVID response to genocide abroad.)
Further, all of us are being bled by media subscriptions. We’re likely paying for multiple streaming services, and those are only getting more subdivided. Competing for our dollars and attention are podcasters, Substackers, YouTubers, Mediumites and others setting up paywalls or asking for donations (and I do donate here and there). In short, I’m not tossing $4.99/month to Glass, no matter how many people gush about it.
None of that written above is meant to discourage Mr. Johnston and his diligent work on Grainery, however. I will continue to check in, here and there, to see how it develops.
But competition abounds beyond the specific photo-sharing apps. Mastodon, which many of us Twitterites (Twitterers?) fled to when Musk began melting down, has a vibrant and interactive photography community. Hashtags rule over there, and #BelieveInFilm is substantial. Post also seems to be developing good interaction for photographers.
While there’s opportunity to capture users in this era of social-media flux, one needs to develop the product quickly. A creeping rollout within a landscape where someone could drop a fully-formed, venture-capital fueled app tomorrow is a risky game.
Further, if there’s one thing that the Twitter stupidity (on top of all the Facebook stupidity, and TikTok security issues, these last years) has reminded us, it’s that we shouldn’t, really, invest too much in any one app. Hey. I think I said that way up there near the beginning. Yeah. I did. Not a bad thing. Less time online, more time doing the work.
#socialmedia #flickr #grainery #photosharing #instagram
