Dying From Exposure
Graphic by Nicole Whitted for Jr Hi the Magazine
⤏ WHY THE ERA OF INTERNET ART THEFT MUST END
⤏ BY SARAH DAY
⤏ PUBLISHED OCTOBER 2020
The exact scenario has played out countless times: I open Instagram, and I’ve been tagged in a post.
The post is from a “mental health” influencer with 45-thousand followers. Their entire page is a bright collection of artwork and infographics — they would probably call it “curated.” They aren’t following me. I check my DM’s just to make sure I didn’t miss a message (I didn’t).
There it is, a piece I spent hours on, being used out of context and without my permission, for $0. If I am supremely lucky, they will not have filtered or edited my original artwork, and my watermark will still be intact. I send them a message, asking if they would kindly pay a modest licensing fee for use of the artwork, or remove it completely.
If they reply, the conversation will usually end with them refusing the fee, and removing the artwork at their leisure, generally after it collects likes and boosts their algorithmic potential.
Oftentimes, the reposter will tell me that I am the one in the wrong (I’m not), that anything I post publicly is fair game for them to use (it’s not). Sometimes, they will tell me that copyright law doesn’t apply to things posted on Instagram (it does).
Once in a while, they will say something snide about how I should be grateful that anyone likes my ugly-ass art at all, or how I should be open and receptive to the high honor of being “featured” on their grid. How I should thank them for even looking at my work in the first place.
If you’re someone who hasn’t spent a lot of time thinking about Instagram (in which case, good choice) you might be wondering why this is such an issue. You may be wondering what the real harm is in this kind of behavior. After all, isn’t exposure a good thing? Shouldn’t I be happy, as an artist, that people are interested in my work and want to share it? On the surface, those would be fair points — if Instagram weren’t a commercial platform.
“Shouldn’t I be happy, as an artist, that people are interested in my work and want to share it?”
Even pages that aren’t official “brands” can still become paid advertising platforms, or platforms that sell products. It’s basic influencer math: every page has the potential to become a business with enough followers and enough engagement, and in order to create engagement, you need a constant flow of content.
We know from basic demographic data that the vast majority of people on Instagram use the app (at least in part) to shop or connect with businesses. Facebook (Instagram’s parent company) reports that 83% of account-holders use Instagram to discover new products or services. This provides a tremendous opportunity for businesses, influencers, bloggers, podcasters, and brands of all sizes.
The only catch is, Instagram is a visual platform. Any business that wants to use Instagram to sell must have a constant influx of images, and not just any images, but high-quality and on-trend images that fit a defined aesthetic, but vary enough to keep a viewer interested and engaged. These images can’t always be trying to sell a viewer something, oftentimes they need to be images that uplift, entertain, educate, or advocate. The ideal Instagram strategy will intertwine inspiring and powerful images that shape a brand identity with products and services that people want to buy. Rather than budget and plan for these expenses, many businesses (big and small alike) have opted to simply pirate whatever artwork or photographs they want. There is a truth: that most of these folks simply don’t see taking artwork without consent to be a problem. And then there’s the narrative they push to obscure that truth: that in this theft there is symbiosis,. Artists must want their art to be shared, otherwise, why would they even post it? They should be grateful.
This sounds like an innocent enough problem at first glance, and for my first couple years on the platform I treated most art theft infractions as simple mistakes. But after seeing the same patterns repeated again and again, I realized there’s actually something far more insidious happening here. What actually exists is a deep-rooted (and well-precedented) disdain for artists who insist that artwork is actually work.
And this is where I start to see internet art theft—which on its own appears to be something niche and isolated—intertwine with much larger ideas about consent, access, wages, and the nature of capitalism. This leads me to the ultimate question: whose art gets to matter? Or rather, whose art gets to matter enough that they might actually be treated like a person?
“There’s the narrative they push to obscure that truth: that in this theft there is symbiosis. Artists must want their art to be shared, otherwise, why would they even post it?”
It’s no surprise that the artists who rely on Internet platforms the most are also the artists who are seen in galleries, museums, and other traditional art spaces the least: gender diverse folks, people of color, disabled folks, and queer people. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that while non-cis-white-male voices are excluded from brick-and-mortar galleries and museums, those same voices are told over and over again — both overtly and implicitly — that our art work is not actually work. In fact, it’s not even ours; we don’t own our work and we certainly don’t deserve control over it.
I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that the language employed by reposters to gaslight artists into thinking we deserve to be treated like content-factories is nearly identical to language used by other types of abusers. The idea that artists should be flattered that anyone is even looking at our work, that we should be glad to even be noticed, that we literally don’t deserve to be asked for consent.
“What actually exists is a deep-rooted (and well-precedented) disdain for artists who insist that artwork is actually work.”
The worst part is, we convince ourselves it’s true. We convince ourselves that exposure is payment. But then what happens when it’s time to pay rent, or invest in my business, or cover the cost of a doctor’s visit? Follower counts are important because they create opportunity for a market, but they do not pay bills all on their own. Having a large platform presents tremendous advantages, but, at the end of the day, if you can’t control your own content, what are you left with?
And here’s the part where I am reminded why I’m willing to die on this particular hill: because our future as artists online depends on our ability to protect our work, to safeguard our time, and to make others see us for what we actually are — professional creatives. I wonder, in the time of COVID-19, as more and more galleries and art businesses move online, will the moment finally come when online art spaces are treated with dignity and sanctity? Will the cannabis bloggers and “Girls supporting girls!!” repost accounts of the world finally come to understand why what they’re doing needs to stop? Or, will they, in heightened states of desperation and desire for relevance, elevate their campaign to delegitimize the most basic of consent practices? Truthfully, I’m not exactly sure. In the meantime, you know where to find me — ready to die on this hill.
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⤏ SARAH DAY (SHE/HER) IS AN ARTIST, ILLUSTRATOR, WRITER, AND EDUCATOR BASED IN MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE. A MULTIFACETED CREATIVE, SARAH MANAGES HER OWN DESIGN BUSINESS SERVING A WIDE VARIETY OF CLIENTELE, WHILE ALSO PRODUCING A PERSONAL LINE OF ART GOODS, APPAREL, AND ACCESSORIES. (HER SIXTH GRADE STUDENTS WOULD PROBABLY WANT YOU TO KNOW SHE'S A HEBREW SCHOOL TEACHER AS WELL.) HER WORK CENTERS AROUND THEMES OF EMPOWERMENT, RADICAL EMPATHY, AND FINDING THE MAGIC WITHIN ONESELF. WITH A BACKGROUND IN JEWISH SCHOLARSHIP AND COMMUNAL LEADERSHIP, SARAH’S WORK IS DEEPLY INFORMED BY HER HERITAGE AND HER CONNECTION TO JEWISH VALUES AND RITUAL. SHE AIMS TO MEET HER AUDIENCE WHERE THEY’RE AT, WITH HONEST MESSAGES OF COMPASSION AND HEALING. SARAH EARNED A BA IN JEWISH STUDIES FROM UC SANTA CRUZ IN 2013.