1500 to 9500 followers in 4 months. Thoughts on IG

I'm at the gym. I'm paying a lot of money each month for a fancy gym program because if I don't pay, I won't go. I'm also paying a lot because I figure out so many things in my day-to-day life/career that I don't want to conquer fitness as well. It's challenging. (You have to vary your routines to see results.) 

Another classmate is driving me nuts today though. She is just burning through all the routines. She's rowing super weird. Leans all the way back on her pulls. The very informative instructor says today is about strength and intensity, not speed. When we're on the treadmill she doesn't rest between distance runs. Which means she's not running fast enough on push efforts. She starts all her routines just before everyone else and before the instructor has finished counting us in. It's driving me absolutely insane.

I try telling myself that she's just not following the guidance of the class and she's missing out on the point of everything. But it doesn't calm me down. I try moving a little further away from her but I can hear her treadmill going faster than everyone else while we are walking. And then speeding up even more when we start to run. I try to tell myself it's just my low-level New Yorker OCD and I need to chill out. I'm getting a good workout in and that's what I want/need. But still, I can't shake the agitation. I know what's going on in my head is my problem and has nothing to do with her. But why can't I shake this agitation? Why am I so bothered by her? 

Then I realize... I'm angry because the first thing I had to do this morning when I woke up was immediately made a post on Instagram so I hit the best time for my audience to see my posts. Because if I don't post at the correct times, IG seriously throttles my reach. It's drastically lowered my reach three times in the last three months. And there's no discernable reason why. Or anyone to talk to that actually can help me figure things out. It makes me so angry. 

It's very addicting. When you're getting tons of views and great numbers the entire world is focused on your life. You feel like you're winning, achieving your goals, and will somehow make more money so you can upgrade your life. But the algorithm doesn't react in a human way or in a manner that I am accustomed to in the non-digital world. The three times I've found my reach diminished drastically were when I felt out of steam as a saxophonist or person. I felt human. I needed to rest and come up with new ideas. Immediately at those moments when I fed the beast less content, it throttled me super hard. When I started releasing more content again I started at lower levels of reach and never achieved similar levels as before. I don't ever feel this way in real life. Things feel much more consistent, positive, and upward moving. When I need a break in real life, I start back where I left off. This is not the way with the algorithm.

 

While I can understand why IG would want to have people fully immersed in their world, pumping it full of content, I can't get on board with it as a human and musician. The word dystopian comes to mind very quickly. The moments where I felt the most success with IG also felt like it was demanding my soul. Replying to every single comment on posts. Sending voice memos to every message I receive. Posting multiple times a day. Making banks of content to try and find some personal space away from my phone but never really getting ahead of it. Having my hands hurt because they are constantly on the keyboard or holding a phone. Getting headaches from looking down and focusing on a screen all day. Feeling like my playing is getting worse and losing my sound on my horn because I have to create music in a different way for the algorithm. All these things get to me.

At the moment I know the thing I'm craving the most is some sort of regular jazz gig. Over the winter, I played a weekly gig in Astoria and regularly subbed on two other jazz gigs around town. It felt great. The weekly gig has ended and the subbing opportunities have been fewer this spring. This stuff is normal. And it's time to try and make some real-life performing happen again. I also know that IG reacts to how well I'm playing so it's important in that regard to get some real-life gigs. 

But the demands of being a saxophonist and the demands of the algorithm seem pretty counterintuitive. IG demands all your time. I've hardly had focused productive practice sessions in the last four months. I knew going into this that I would be sacrificing some of my playing to build an audience and reach but I'm still not sold on whether it's worth it. Quantity over quality is the name of the game with social media. And that is completely antithetical to being a high-level musician. In turn, it seems the posts that are the most successful are those where my playing is the best. (But also the ones where I just play the fastest with the widest range.) This seems to be quite the catch-22. With all that, I was enjoying my life the most when I was playing more in-person gigs. The only problem is they all pay 50-75$. And social media is the game today. 

Going forward I have a large Youtube series that I'm about to release and I'm going to get back to my month-long roadmap I created to help with the IG posting schedule. I've put many, many hours of work into creating all this content and I want it to succeed. I'm very curious about the results after this next round is released. But I'm very unsure of how much more content I can create while feeling like my soul is being eaten. Perhaps once I cross 10k follows the algorithm will be less punitive. Hopefully, all of this begins monetizing in some way so I can hire others to help with all the computer time. Which will allow me to get back to being a saxophonist again. 

All of this is in hopes that it elevates my career so I can play more jazz gigs and make much more than 50$ for them. NYC, my school loans, and my health insurance demand it. Also, nothing felt as good as playing a ton of jazz every week and getting better at my instrument. But social media is the world today and music very much lives there. We'll see how things go on this next huge content dump. But if my soul is completely devoured I'm logging off and heading back to the scene.