Fear of Posting

I have this great fear of posting on Instagram, Facebook etc. Even on my own website, hence the lack of blogs this year. But it’s something everybody says an artist must do if you want to find your audience and let them see your work. In my pre-artist days (only about five years ago), I tended to be a social media refusenik, avoiding it because I thought my life was too dull to share with anybody else. I also worried that it would become a great way to waste time. But finally I accepted that I might be able to be an artist after all and quickly learnt that social media was essential for getting myself ‘out there’. Thankfully, the fear of it becoming a time sink hasn’t really happened - I’ve got all sorts of other ways to waste time.

So now I have something worth showing people, why do I still have this fear of putting myself online? There are two main fears, and they are the complete opposite of each other. One is that I will post and nobody will notice, and the other is that I will post and some people will notice. Honestly, you can’t win with me.

I even fear commenting on other people’s posts unless I know them. If they don’t know me, I think they’re going to say ‘Who the heck is this guy? What right does he think he has to comment on my posts?’ Of course, this is another fabricated excuse - most people appreciate a comment on their posts. It’s not like I’m going to say anything unpleasant or controversial.

Another fear factor is impostor syndrome - the belief that I’m not really good enough, I’m making it up as I go along, and everybody else is much more competent and capable than me. It’s a very common affliction, I know, but that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. Or does it? If I bear in mind the truth that loads of people out there who I see posting and painting are also actually full of doubt about their competence, then that should make it somehow easier for me to do the same. Most of us are in the same boat really.

Yet another problem is perfection, the same perfection that haunts my painting efforts. You don’t want to know how long this blog has been sitting on my computer and how many times I’ve edited it. The same goes for social media posts. I think and I fret and I worry about the quality and whether anybody will like it, and tie myself up in knots of ‘not good enough’ inaction.

One approach I’ve read it’s good to adopt is to embrace the cringe. I’ve heard it said that you’ll start off thinking most of your posts are cringeworthy, but the more you do it, the more you’ll get used to it. You’ll come to accept that you are cringey and that’s OK.

I guess it might also be worthwhile seeing it as a new skill or discipline just like any other. Like painting itself, even. You’ll start off slow and faltering and unsure, but the more you do it, the more you get used to it and it becomes easier and more natural. And as you become more confident, people are more likely to warm to you.

It’s also not helpful that I tend to see Instagram like a gallery or portfolio; some kind of presentation platform where every post has to be a perfect image of a painting or drawing. It’s not that at all, of course. It’s where people go to see what you’re doing in a visual way. It’s a visual diary. So I should start treating it like one.

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s best to imagine that nobody’s looking (do I even need to imagine?!). If that’s the case, I can post what I like because nobody will see it. But then I ask myself “what’s the point of posting at all?”. To just open up a bit and say something. Anything.

They say you should dance like nobody’s watching. Maybe I should adopt the same attitude to posting. It’s certainly worth saying that, like painting and drawing, the worst thing you can do is not do anything.