Why Instagram Is Burning Out Artists (and What Creativity Actually Needs Instead)
Over the past decade, many artists, photographers, and writers built community and meaning through Instagram. Over time the platform shifted toward performance: short-form video, algorithmic reach, and engagement metrics.
This shift has created a specific kind of burnout: not from making art, but from adapting art to survive visibility systems.
Creative people aren’t exhausted because they lack discipline. they’re exhausted because the environment no longer supports the behaviour creativity requires: attention, slowness, curiosity, and shared witnessing.
How social media changed creativity:
Platforms once built for sharing moments now prioritize attention capture. Artists aren’t just creating, they’re adapting their work to survive visibility systems: trends, video formats, and performance cues.
Instead of noticing the world, creators begin anticipating reactions. Over time this moves creativity from sensory experience to strategic output. This is where the mindfuckery begins.
Why this leads to creative exhaustion:
Creativity relies on curiosity, slowness, and play. Algorithmic spaces reward speed, repetition, and predictability.
The nervous system shifts from exploration to evaluation:
Will this perform?
Will people stay?
Should I change it?
This turns expression into monitoring, and monitoring is exhausting.
What creatives are actually searching for
Most artists aren’t trying to abandon sharing.
They’re trying to return to:
attention
meaning
witnessing
connection without performance
Below you’ll find a personal reflection on that transition, and why many creatives are quietly searching for a different kind of creative home.
This essay explores how algorithm-driven platforms affect creativity, why many artists feel depleted online, and what happens when creative expression is shaped by engagement metrics rather than curiosity.
I hope you see a bit of yourself in it :)
When Your Creativity Says "No"
A note on nervous system care, and creating space for your creativity.
I had a love / hate relationship with Instagram.
And then a frustration / hate relationship.
And then an obligation / hate relationship.
And then a grief / hate relationship.
Until finally, it came to a resting place: an acceptance and release relationship.
Many of us creatives found our community in these spaces. I remember when my world opened up with a simple snap and post of a 1:1 frame. Snippets of light. Flowers sparkling with dew in the morning. A rolling layer of fog stretching across the landscape.
See.
Snap.
Share.
It was simple.
It was grounded.
It was grounding for our systems, having a tool in our hand to wander the world with curiosity, gathering and collecting moments of time to put up on a shelf and say:
“Look what feels meaningful and beautiful to me, right now.”
The love, the connection, the community poured in. Suddenly the human experience didn’t feel so lonely. Suddenly there was a world ripe with possibility and exploration.
A beautiful door that made your heart sing? You shared it. Others chimed in. You felt seen.
There was a simplicity in being in our senses and sharing them in ways that created threads of connection with others near and far.
It was a beautiful time to be alive and armed with a camera.
As with everything, the shift came slowly.
Like the frog that will leap from a pot of boiling water, yet remain submerged until boiled if the temperature rises gradually, we creatives sat in a space that felt cozy and comforting while slowly being nudged toward creative death.
Stories.
A non-chronological feed.
Sponsored posts.
Reels.
More sponsored posts.
Pay-to-play boosting.
Pay-to-play verification.
It wasn’t one thing, but a slew of micro-changes that shifted how we interacted: what we saw, when we saw it, and how we reacted to it.
Friends’ content became buried. The feed became a roll of things you were “supposed to like.” Fast-moving videos, music, and dancing filled the screen. Your own work was pushed out.
“Keep up with trends,” you were told.
“Show your face,” you were told.
“Get on video or disappear,” you were told.
Suddenly the glimmers sprinkled across your day, the magic moments of living didn’t matter anymore. The comments dwindled. The sense of community thinned. You’d create from the heart, share it… and find no one there to share it with you…
Continue Reading
This piece continues into how slow creative sharing became performance, and why some artists are choosing a different kind of creative home.
