Zed A. Shaw, Painter

Models are the worst. So obviously fake, constant drama, constantly promoting their model friends, and really nothing interesting. I frequently unfollow them when I can, but instagram pushes them hard. I'd say if you feel unhappy on social media, unfollow models.

Actors are usually alright, but they are--by definition--full of drama and promotion of random things. That's fine but then once in a while they just explode with some kind of personal depressing angst. 1.5mil followers, tons of money, beautiful, and still depressed.

Artists though at the top levels are just posting paintings to sell them. Photographers too but usually it's to sell courses. I don't know many photographers selling on instagram like artists do. So they're posts are always upbeat, happy, and casually selling. It's nice.

But, I also follow a lot of artists who are amateurs and just posting their attempts at art. These folks are just normal people posting things they make, and not really selling anything. The art is all over the place and a lot of times they're doing it as a therapy of sorts.

So even though a lot of these amateurs (say <400 followers) are also depressed they also don't really throw up insane drama like actors do, and they aren't frequently incredibly fake like the models are. It's usually just earnest people trying to express something in art.

I decided about 4 months ago to do an experiment and follow a TON of amateur artists. Just finding hashtags and looking for beginner art and follow. Tons and tons of beginners all doing wacky stuff. Acrylic dog paintings, bob ross landscapes, pen and ink malformed faces.

And it's the best thing ever! I open my instagram and it's a bunch of beginners really trying hard and earnestly just posting art they tried to make, and a lot of it is really original and fun. My feed is a bunch of people playing and having fun and being weird.

Then I go through and I like as many as I can, and honestly I do really like a lot of it. I see how much they put into it and how they're at least trying something new. Some folks I DM and talk to them about their art. It also washes out a lot of the model/actor garbage.