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Post-Like Society
Dear friend,
Something I’m curious about — what would a “post-like” society look like?
Don’t crowd-source your self-esteem #kanye
Currently we are slaves to likes, followers, and notifications. Too much of our self-ego and self-esteem is “crowd-sourced” — we value our self-esteem based on how many likes/followers we have.
But what if we had a “post-like” society? A society in which “likes” and followers no longer existed, or wasn’t even significant?
ARSBETA: The productive online learning community
This is the big challenge I’m trying to figure out with ARSBETA —
If we could create a new online learning platform/social-media for photographers and visual artists from scratch — how could we make it a meaningful platform which actually facilitates mutual learning?
Currently ARSBETA (v1) is based on this simple functionality:
Upload a photograph, and other real humans (randomly and anonymously) will rate your photos as ‘keep’ or ‘ditch’).
I wanted to build this to solve these problems:
- We want honest feedback on our photos, yet there is too much “friction” to get feedback on our photos.
- Often we only “like” the photos on the photos of our friends, because we don’t want to hurt their feelings. We also want to encourage them.
- Thus, nobody gets real feedback on their photos.
The next version of ARS BETA (v2) is going to integrate critiquing — getting meaningful critiques from other photographers in the ARS BETA community giving you real feedback on your photos (via writing).
Social media as a filter
One idea I have is this:
Let us use social media as a way to filter this digital sea of information we are drowning in.
For example, the problem in photography is this:
We have too many photos to look through, and we have no idea which our best photos are.
So what if ARS could be a platform in which photographers can help one another filter your artistic portfolio of images?
Perhaps a post-like society would be a ‘curation’ society. A society where we mutually help each other curate our portfolios to have our best pictures/images.
To collaborate or invest in ARSBETA, email us at arsbetahelp@gmail.com
Which human emotions are universal?
Unfortunately I don’t think this concept of “liking” stuff or “following” people will ever go away. In-fact, I think it is embedded in humans. Consider how during Roman times, there was an “up vote” or a “down vote” (thumb up, or thumb down) to determine whether a gladiator should get killed or allowed to live.
Or when studying ancient philosophy, even in Greek times– there were many philosophers who desired to have many followers and disciples.
Studying history and philosophy, I generally think some human emotions which are innate include:
- Envy/Jealousy
- Joy and delight in approval from other humans
- The feeling of power-influence over other humans. This explains why people like to play sports, competitive video games, or perhaps “flex on” each other at the gym. (Nietzsche’s “Will to Power”)
I also think of us as artist-philosophers, we must not be techno-phobes. We must think of meaningful ways we can integrate social media, technology, internet, and devices in our lives– and figure out how to cut the superfluous crap from our lives (like how I deleted my Instagram).
In praise of messaging
I am actually a huge fan of messenger apps. Facebook messenger, What’s App, KakaoTalk, LINE, WeChat, etc are all good platforms that allow us to have direct contact with our loved ones, friends, and business partners. And I know for myself, using text-messaging is a good way to coordinate “real life” meetings with my friends and loved ones.
Thus, technology used as a bridge to help humans meet “in real life” is good.
I hope to see society to move towards the “meetup.com” concept– to use technology and social media to meetup more in real life. This is also why I love teaching workshops — we can all learn together, and meet other passionate photographers, and make new friends/build a new community.
I love society
Perhaps also in a post-like society, we can choose to disconnect from Facebook, Instagram, or any social media platform that has a ‘like’ or ‘follower’ number. This is the genius of VSCO; their new platform doesn’t show you likes or numbers. Thus, you are more driven by the desire to share your best work, instead of just getting likes for the sake of likes.
I also like the idea of getting more honest feedback/critique on your photos from humans. This is the main driving idea behind ARSBETA.COM.
Or we can spend less time checking our Instagram to seeing how many likes our photos get. Instead, send your photos directly to a friend whose opinion you respect, and ask them to “honestly help me kill my babies”. Or message your friend via messenger with 20 pictures, and ask your friend to help you edit your portfolio down to your 5 best pictures.
To collaborate or invest in ARSBETA, email us at arsbetahelp@gmail.com
Conclusion
And ultimately the question you must ask yourself is this:
Do I like my own pictures?
Everything follows from there.
ERIC