Into The Pool

Most content I post online is ignored. This post, for example, will probably only be read by a few regulars. A typical graph of blog page view activity might look something like this. Ho-hum, poking along. 3:00 AM and all is well.

It's the same with my photos. I post new ones every day on Tumblr and they too are generally ignored, and I guess I've made my peace with that. I realize I suck at social media, and the fact is I don't even try. My philosophy is sink or swim. I throw the content in the deep end and it's up to that content to survive on its own. Quick drownings are common, but some live. The fact I can never predict which will do what is tantalizing, and usually frustrating.

Of course this is the exact wrong approach online. Content generally cannot survive on its own. Without a boost it's probably going straight to the pool bottom. The next Robert Frank could be out there today posting the next The Americans on Tumblr. Without tweets, relinks or influential plugs, no one will give a shit. Welcome to the pool drain, Mr. Frank. On the other hand, a short plug from Martin Parr can sell out a book in days. Any book at all, it doesn't seem to matter. 

Fine. We all know the game and its benefits and deficiencies. Sometimes the wrong stuff gets promoted, or the right stuff goes unpromoted. And much of the time there's a good match. In any case, the visibility/popularity of online content generally has more to do with platform/promotion than quality. For example this photograph by Zach Klein currently has 233,000 notes on Tumblr, and counting.

Is that a good match? Does the popularity match the quality? I don't know. At least she's made it to the surface. I guess it's a nice photo, but...I just don't know anymore.

This picture by Ansel Adams is one of the most popular photos of all time. It's been transformed into calendars and posters and tote bags and it's everywhere. Many people who know nothing about photography know this image, and they know the name Ansel Adams. Does that mean it's a good photo? I don't know.

Seeing hyper-popular photos like this used to bother me more. What's the secret formula? How do I tap into that? Now I'm ok with it, sort of, but I still wonder. Last week I asked Alec Soth the question directly:

Do you think popularity can tell us anything meaningful about a photo or piece of creative content? If a song is #1, does that mean anything? Or is there a complete disconnect? 

I think we can learn a lot from analyzing popularity. Of course it doesn't mean something is "good". But if provides information.

And Shane Lavalette a few weeks earlier:

Can popular opinion convey any meaningful information about a photograph? Or about any piece of art? 

Art is a subjective experience and things that may not have value to the art world or culture at large are not necessarily insignificant objects or ideas. That said, there are a lot of things we can glean from popular opinion, even just in the basic sense—for example, the way that images or videos go viral or are understood as controversial, problematic, or meaningful by a culture at large. This is a very interesting phenomenon which we are able to watch more rapidly and globally than ever before.

Um, OK then. Neither answer tells us much. Maybe what they tell us is that this is a difficult subject to address without sounding whiny or elitist. But seriously, why do some things become popular while other things don't? Record company executives are paid millions to figure this out, and they still can't. With photography it's even more mysterious.

I saw the film Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me recently. #1 Record and Radio City were as good as any albums made in the 1970s, but no one bought them. Why not? Fuck if I know. But it must've hurt to be Big Star in 1975, to watch Elton John and Peter Frampton run laps around their album sales. It killed Chis Bell, spiritually and later literally. What's in that Frampton and John? What have they got they I haven't? 

Looking around online I'm usually left wondering the same thing. But once in a while I hit paydirt unexpectedly. That's what happened with Monday's 10 Rules of Street Photography. I sent it out there as usual, sink or swim, then didn't think more about it. 

The next day the page views went haywire. I'd hit some kind of nerve. Within two days it received more traffic than any other post on B in eight years. All of this without any help from Martin Parr. Instead of Ho-hum, poking along, the graph made a beeline to the surface. Spike!

May 6th shows a burst of popularity. Popularity! I've joined the cool kids temporarily. Now if only I could figure out what I've done. I've mixed the formula but with no recipe, and I can't repeat it. In a few days the buzz will die and the hump will pass left, leaving a curve something like this.

The graph above describes any viral activity online. The exact quantity is unimportant. Whether it's a jump of 20 notes or 2,000 notes, the pattern is the same. There is a sudden rush of interest, the attention peaks, and then slowly fades into a long tail. 

Sometimes the spike is preceded by its own long tail. Shit My Photography Professor Says, sat quietly ignored for three years before it was reblogged recently by POTB, and then leveraged into popularity by content scavenger PetaPixel. Spike! It has ten times the notes it did last week. The content is unchanged. So can notes tell us anything?

I guess the lesson is there's always hope. Things last indefinitely online. Something might sit there for a while before it's noticed. Maybe it hits just the right place and moment. And when that does happen, it's just as if it was created yesterday. The buzz spikes immediately, then fades, leaving a warm glow on everything. 

Photo by Larry Clark

I've never shot heroin but I imagine the pattern is similar — the sharp rush and gradual descent. And in the long run, just as addictive and ultimately ineffectual. 

Come on, regulars. Do you think the shape of that graph is an accident? There are no accidents.

When I started this essay I had no idea I'd write about heroin. Heroin? That's an insurance policy against popularity. What is that doing here? What's in that Heroin? What has it got that I haven't? And should I even worry about it? 

Photo by Ken Josephson

In the end all of the spikes and record sales and dirty needles, and the notes and swimming pools and Parr and the Grand Tetons —especially the Grand Tetons— are beyond my control. I can't worry about any of it. I've just got to poke along, Ho-hum.