Social Media and Personal Growth

Reaching Out and Reaching In

Jul 13, 2023

Towards the end of this past school year, my co-teacher and I sat down to write progress reports - the fancy term we use for report cards. There’s a checklist involved, but most of the heavy lifting is writing comments, anecdotes, and descriptions - often multiple paragraphs at a time.

For me, the first report or two had always been a struggle as I “relearned” how to write anything longer than a cartoon caption or an e-mail home to a parent asking them to send in a new change of clothes for their child because there was an “applause incident.” And don’t get me started with editing my own work. But this June, something inexplicable happened.

I hit the ground running. The first couple progress report weren’t the usual slog, and I quickly found my footing. They were by no means the best reports of all time, and I got plenty of revisions from the higher-ups, but my writing was much more fluid and natural. And that’s when I realized.

I had already been writing! By the time progress report season rolled around, I was already knee-deep in Substack, stringing together sentences, writing newsletters, and learning how to use a thesaurus. One unintended consequence of expanding myself “here” was that I got much better over “there.”

Similarly, when I first started posting to Instagram, I really didn’t know what I was doing on social media or as a cartoonist in the non-digital world. Little by little, I experimented. What if I bring back my stick figure? What if I try drawing about current issues and not just penguins with a case of gas?

(Since I know you’re wondering…)

I tried to balance what I enjoyed putting out into the world with what resinated with other people. And here’s what happened.

I drew. I drew a lot. Even more than I was drawing before, and I was drawing a ten-cartoon batch every week to submit to The New Yorker. I was too busy drawing to read anything about that “10,000-Hour” concept, but I improved by putting in the time. (Note that I often felt like I was behind other artist-friends and colleagues, but that’s another newsletter for another time.) And all that new drawing and posting to Instagram fed back into my cartoons. I honed my voice, loosened my lines, and developed just a tiny bit of, if not confidence, then at least a sense of self.

And suddenly, poof, like many of you, I’m am now on this new thing called Threads.

It’s fresh, it’s exhausting, it’s uncertain, it’s fun, it’s TBD. A big question I see floating around the artist-sphere is “what do we do here?” Do we post the same cartoons, illustrations, photographs, etc. that we are posting to Instagram and elsewhere? Do we have to stick to text? Create new art? Do we need to be on Threads? What if we want to be on Threads. What if that’s where everybody is!!!

Here’s what I know, like Instagram did, Threads has already gotten me to experiment. People have been posting chopped up images, that when posted one after another in one thread, and when clicked on to expand to full screen, makes for a smooth continuous transition from one frame to another. Something like this:

But remember, on Threads, you scroll one image at a time. It tells a story. Like this. (Although, I think each frame only connects into one long image on your phone.)

The last panel can be a true punchline, with the setup coming anywhere before that. It’s a slightly new but enjoyable way to present a cartoon. (cropping the large image into individual frames just so is not the fun part.) Well, where does that leave us?

Artists are faced with the task of reaching out to their audience, building their audience, and staying true to themselves, each in their own way. Some artists may not need social media at all. Some artists make their big break from going viral. Who knows! And then, artists are also tasked with reaching within, challenging themselves to create, recreate, and grow as a result of that struggle. I know I struggled, and I grew.

Because it wasn’t the first five cartoons in my batch of ten that I used to draw that I grew from, it was that second five, when I felt like I was just about out of ideas and out of steam. That’s when I found a new reserve, a new idea, a new caption. (That’s also when I crashed and burned or stayed up way to late.) Writing on Substack has opened me up to whole new world of communication and expression as well, and it has not been easy. (So much anxiety! Me? Writing?) But I’m happy I’m here.

But, Instagram, Threads, Substack, oh my…

How much do you create, how much overlaps, and what end result are we all barreling towards? Growth often comes from pushing past ourselves and reaching just beyond the length of our outstretched fingertips, but burnout can come from a very similar place: when it’s all work and no reward, when there is no chance to recharge, and when the goals are lost to us. So, I’m just going to try and enjoy the ride.

I don’t know where I will end up, where we will end up, and where social media will end up. But there can be an element of fun to it. Of connection. Of “I wonder what I will do next!” Some new content? Some double-posting? Some recreating?

I have no answers. Only questions. And maybe a game plan for now. I’m curious what you are thinking about it too, so please weigh in.

And as always, thank you.

-Avi Steinberg