Where can artists hang out?
The exodus of artists from Instagram to Cara, and alternative suggestions
If you follow professional artists on Instagram, you may have noticed an uproar this week regarding Meta’s announcement to update its EU & UK privacy policy to allow AI training on your data & content (for USA folks, it’s likely already happening and there’s no way to opt out).
Unless you’re an artist using generative AI, you probably don’t want all the artwork you’ve uploaded on Instagram over the years to be used to train AI models so they can mimic your art style. You surely don’t want it happening without your consent.
Cara, an alternative social media platform for artists
Instagram continues to be a hellscape (they’ve also been beta testing unskippable ads?!) so what’s the alternative for artists seeking jobs & community?
A bunch of artists and illustrators I follow are moving to Cara, a social media platform for creatives that protects artwork from being used for AI training and filters out any generative AI art.
At first glance, Cara reminds me of other artist social media platforms such as DeviantArt, ArtStation, and ArtFol. I have never made accounts on any of these sites since they skew towards fan art and concept art, neither of which align with my practice. But Cara could be different—over the past week they’ve reached 500K users, and from my personal observation, editorial illustrators, children’s book illustrators, and cartoonists are also jumping ship.
I respect Cara and its founder Jingna Zhang, a Singaporean photographer who is passionate about artists’ copyright protection (she won a court case against a painter who plagiarized her photograph!) However, I’m personally not joining Cara until I see how they are able to maintain their platform at scale.
Cara currently has no ads or subscription costs, but with the increase in server costs from user growth they now have to pay $13,500 per month just to keep the site running. How are they going to afford to keep this up? Will they stay afloat through ads, user data mining, subscriptions, VC funding, or donations? If they are raising funds, what are the underlying interests of those funders and do they have artists’ best interests at heart?
Make your own internet home
Rather than replacing one social media platform for another, I recommend artists use this opportunity to reduce reliance on social media platforms. Maybe you don’t want to delete all your accounts just yet, but what if you post less frequently or not at all? Note whether you see an immediate dip in your sales or client inquiries. Perhaps things will remain the same since the algorithm wasn’t surfacing your post anyway!
If you do not yet have a personal website, please create one! Make a home for yourself on the internet and have fun styling it and making it your own. Use it to show projects and tell stories and invite others to connect with you.
Unfortunately, leaving social media does not mean your art or writing is safe from being used for AI training. AI models train on all public web data, and only certain AI tools respect settings to block training on your content. Platforms like Squarespace and Substack have this setting available for users to toggle on and off (which is better than what Meta offers, at least).
Sharing your artwork privately on the internet is always an option, whether it’s through a newsletter, Patreon, or social media. But we make art so that it can be seen, and who’s going to see our work if we never share anything in public?
Choose the real world whenever possible
Social media may be an “easy” way for artists to gain a following, but it comes with ethical implications that get harder and harder to ignore. Websites and newsletters are a good way to have internet presence outside of social media, but are still subject to web crawlers for AI training. What’s an artist to do?
Artists have existed long before the internet, or even the printing press. Artists will continue to exist no matter what else shifts in technology. I want you to take a moment and let that sink in. We will always find a way to connect & share our work, even when our current reality seems dire!
Meeting fellow artists in person this week lifted me out of the helplessness I felt around social media & AI. I arranged a casual gathering of ten strangers to make drawings based on Lynda Barry’s Making Comics prompts. We laughed, we marveled, we swapped recommendations, and we felt so much joy leaving our lonely desks behind to commune with each other.
Here are some ways you can connect and promote your art in the real world:
Attend, vend, or volunteer at art markets, fairs, and festivals
Collaborate with a local small business—design some merch, ask to stock products or display your work for sale, or host a shopping & drawing event
Organize co-working hangs and carve out some time for everyone to share their work
Teach an art workshop at your local library
Host a drawing event—you can sketch outside, set up a still life, take turns posing as models, or bring some drawing prompts
Have an open studio or participate in an art crawl to invite people into your space
Join an artist collective and brainstorm ways to collaborate and exhibit your work
I recognize that city dwellers have many more opportunities to connect than suburban or rural folks, but don’t underestimate the potential of creating your own community events or collaborating with local businesses! You can also expand your scope and look for regional opportunities, and travel to fairs and festivals if timing and budget allows.
Share in the comments 💭
Are you trying out Cara? What are your thoughts on AI being trained on your art or content? Has it changed how you show up online or in the real world?
I signed up for Cara but much like Threads I forget about it. It just feels like *one more place* to check/post to, adding another thing onto my already plenty full list of things to (outside of actual work). I’ve been seeing people posting to their stories about not using their content for AI training and wonder why, because if know meta like we know meta they won’t listen. I tried finding that opt-out option in my settings but couldn’t find it. (You are the first person to mention it’s not possible to opt out in North America!) Of all the places I’m present right now, I am really loving Substack! I find the community here to be really lovely and supportive, and I like the deeper/longer content being shared - like blogger way back when, but better! Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts!
I'm on Cara and it's pretty cool! Though I don't get many interactions. Personally I moved away from social media more for my personal art journey and less for AI for me I get why Ai is bad but I don't let it bother me. I honestly have found in the recent years that doing local events have become more popular which is great because I would rather connect with people in person than online!