X now shows me nothing but video clips. A kind of TikTok for people who claim they're too old for TikTok. Car crashes, AI-generated disasters (cracked rooftop pools sending water and swimmers cascading down a skyscraper), silly teenage stunts now called "pranks" to make them sound more important. All sorts of rubbish I have no interest in seeing. Have you noticed this too? These algorithms have absolutely no idea which bubble you actually inhabit. Or maybe they do, and they simply don't care.
Facebook isn't any better. I spend three weeks shooting on Fuerteventura, and suddenly my feed is nothing but holiday photos from complete strangers who visited the island. Why, exactly? Because I was geographically there? I photograph there professionally. I'm not on holiday. But the algorithm apparently can't tell the difference between work and leisure, between genuine interest and mere coincidence.
So off they went. And honestly, it feels good.
But Instagram… I'd love to get rid of that too. I just can't. And Instagram would probably love to get rid of me as well, if I'm being honest. Because I'm a nude photographer, which makes me unwelcome, even though I don't post any nudity. Somehow they just don't like the taste of me. But I'm staying for now. Because that's where the models are. For them, it's unfortunately the mecca, the central hub, the digital marketplace. And that's thoroughly annoying.
I can't filter by availability, can't search by location, can't communicate properly. And since I'm not allowed to show nudity (what a contradiction on a platform overflowing with bikini content), the models don't even realise I'm not a fashion photographer but someone who's been shooting for Playboy for years. So the whole situation is, let's say, complicated.
What did I do? Unfollowed as many accounts as humanly possible. I'm down to just over two hundred now. Sounds simple, but it wasn't. Instagram really doesn't want you to unfollow people. I had to confirm each one up to three times. And I couldn't go too fast, not too many per day. Absolutely unhinged, how this platform tried to keep my following count inflated, as if it were some kind of score in a game nobody can win.
Well, I've managed it now. Except it also means the platform has become essentially useless for me. Slapped with a shadow ban (that semi-official state where you exist but don't really exist), hardly any new models find me. And when I discover them myself, my messages end up buried deep in some "request" folder alongside clumsy come-ons from various "men" (yes, the quotation marks are very much deliberate).