Follower Count ≠ Expert

Twitter has become a powerful tool with over 145 million users. It's relevant in many industries, including photography. Cross-reference that with a culture that is obsessed with celebrity, fame, social media micro-celebrity and celebrity worship (especially during times of a tough economy--people look for even more distractions) and sometimes innaccurate and even toxic perceptions can surface. One of these perceptions that has surfaced is the equation of a higher number of followers with expertise, and once expertise is declared, blind worship is next. (Certainly followers on Twitter matter, we all are followers and being followed. But the number itself should not be such a powerful currency to the point that when Twitter has a systems error and the counts are all erased to 0, people flip out completely, for example.)

Expertise has nothing to do with follower count, fan/like count, how pretty a blog looks, how well the photographer blogs or basic confidence as a photographer. A photographer can have many followers and fans, have a great design or have hired a great graphic designer, blogs well and have confidence as a human being and artist and still not be an expert. Simply because someone decides that a nice blog and someone who has more followers than them equals expert does not make it so, nor is anyone required to bear the burden of living up to an expert role fabricated by someone else, if that is not who they are--at least not yet.

Naturally, expert is a term that has many definitions. In photography, expertise is associated with both skill and experience, in both the ability to generate fresh ideas and longevity. Some ascribe to the 10 years/10,000 hours theory (though admittedly success after 2 minutes or 20 years is still success, though the knowledge body may differ.) However (this shows my own personal age bias) I do value what older and/or more experienced photographers think, especially about photography as a business (not talking art here because the newbies can photograph as well as the oldbies many times, talking about business--sales, marketing, communication, management, ideas, longevity). When a photographer has 10 years (or more) of successful business (I am not even close to there yet; maybe I photographed for the first time at age 12 but I surely have not run a business since then--new, still learning), that means something to me and they may have something valuable to say. When I suggest younger/newer photographers chat with some of those whose opinions I value, when they ask me a question I cannot answer, some seem offended. (When one is offended, I know that they are stuck on me and not the information. This is annoying to me and unhelpful for them. No one wants to lead a tribe where the excitement is more about the messenger than the spreading the message. They cannot learn to become to be better photographers by over-complimenting me hoping to please me, yet ignoring the information I share or the resources I tell them to check with, sometimes including older and/or more experienced photographers.) I know it's no longer in style to be experienced but in some areas, experience really is a teacher and means something. This doesn't mean that there aren't younger photographers who are artistically and financially successful...of course many are and that is what I aspire to as well. But those two measures of success are not the result of being popular amidst social media. They are the result of hard work, creativity, intuitive thinking and simply sticking with it longer than others. Talent is so relevant. But what seems to be even more relevant is simply not giving up and pushing through The Dip. Sometimes the follower count is a result of that success. Sometimes it is a result of people creating caricatures of the people they follow--envisioning them with perfect lives to emulate instead of accepting them for who they are, how they actually photograph, what their vision is and even the honest words they share via blogs and other platforms. When we lie to ourselves and to others about who someone is in a positive way, it is just as damaging as a traditional negative lie is.

This isn't exclusive to photographers, but a greater cultural issue at large. The hyperbolic idea that everyone is either a god or a devil needs to end. I am not a god when I write a guest article or blog nor am I a devil when I cannot reply to a DM right away. I am human. Just Trudy. And that is enough. Now, naturally there are those who will argue that being worshipped is awesome and why wouldn't I or other photographers who don't desire this not crave even more blind worship? Well...because I know worship doesn't make me a better phototgrapher or person, it won't make the worshipper a better photographer or person, worship doesn't pay bills and really means nothing at the end of the day. I love to be liked and loved, not worshipped or hated, but above all I like to be respected. The desire to be worshipped is for the weak who are too afraid to check and see if they are actually loved or respected by anyone. And no, this isn't about haterade for people who have even more followers, because again, I am not focused on that.

There are so many theatrical issues occurring in photography from faking humility, to hyperbolic (god v. devil) personality assessments, to generating hype over things that do not improve our art, clarify our paths, help us with business or help us help others. I think that the next time I get really excited about something within our field, it will be something that can help me improve as an artist or help others.

Photographers need to be clear on roles. We all need to and should be mentors, peers and students sometime during our photographic journeys, as I mentioned in a previous blog post. But mentor ≠ god. Peer ≠ evil competitor. Student ≠ mindless, hapless worshipping drone. Follower count ≠ expert. Let's get back to the original definitions of these words and phrases.

I am in no rush to be an expert. These awesome words were tweeted yesterday by a photographer I follow and it just clicked in my head. I am taking the journey at a good pace for me. So if photographers (and people in general) can only interact with me if they see me as an expert, or talk about me only if they see me highly negatively, that is their choice. My choice is to be who I am--who I have always been--not an expert but eager to share and learn, not perfect but flawed, a rose with thorns, a person who does not have all of the answers but might have a few of them and often knows of experienced photographers who have some of the answers as well, and can be a point of reference. So people can accept me for who I am, create a false demigod to emulate and worship based on a caricature they made of me, or dislike me altogether. My interest is only in the first group.

Back to thinking about images, viewing images, making images, editing images and sharing images. The good stuff.

Links: Attention Is The New Money, The Medium vs. The Message, Gods, Devils and Men, Late Bloomers: Why Do We Associate Genius With Precocity?

Related Blog Posts: Flattery, Compliments and Critique, I Am Not A Photographer By Accident, A Few Thoughts About Lifestyle, Art - Passion, Hustle and Semantic Warfare, Photography Is Work, Photographers, Be Who You Are

| Thursday, September 30, 2010 | 2 Comments