WHY TAGGING PEOPLE DOES NOTHING

It’s been exactly two months since our last lecture together – this was intended to be a weekly thing, but clearly that’s not going to be possible. So how about we NOT discuss the frequency of these lectures and just enjoy them whenever I have the chance to connect with y’all.

I like to refer to myself as a professional observer – I don’t say too much about the behaviour and activities of others, but believe me I see everything. One thing in particular that I have been monitoring is the use of the tagging feature on Instagram. Whether it be directly inputting someone’s username in a caption or tagging them on the picture itself – it’s fucking pointless and useless.

Like most creatives, I too would love to receive credit for the things I create and have as many people as possible visit my collection of work; however, I no longer care to be tagged anymore because simply PEOPLE DO NOT GIVE A FUCK WHO CREATED WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING AT.

Nothing is absolute of course – yes there is a select sample of people that truly appreciate the mind behind finished products, but that is a very rare group of individuals. I wanted to see if my theory held true by checking out a few photographer pages that were tagged in or on some celebrity photos. The following on those pages as well as the engagement was very low compared to the person who they had shot. Why is this? BECAUSE TAGS DON’T MATTER.

This is not to say to stop tagging people that you work with, but if you really care about growing THEIR audience as much as your own, you need to restructure how you credit them. Simply tagging the bottom right corner of your photo for example will not do shit for them. People will like the work on your page.. MAYBE click to see the name tagged.. then leave and carry on with their day. Think about your favourite movie right now – you LOVE that movie and the actors and scenes in that movie right? Do you have ANY CLUE who produced or directed that movie? Some may answer yes, but most of you have no idea stop it.

Listen, there is something that exists called fake support – this is a thing. If you really care about supporting someone you believe in as much as supporting yourself, reassess your method of how you support that person.

If you guys don’t mind, can you just remind me when I’m overdue for a lecture – I don’t even know how two months passed.. I could have sworn I dropped a lecture last week.