Yep. 52Frames is now officially a “non-liking” environment.
Whoa whoa, what? Whadda ya mean you’re not showing the number?? But I gotta see my numbers, man! I need it!
Well, yea, that is the problem.
Sure, having a “number” is a nice easy way to get some feedback, but so is a short, friendly comment.
Don’t get me wrong, we ARE accepting hearts, and we’ll send you an email letting you know when your photo received some love!
We’re just not going to obsess about the number of hearts a photo received.
Look, I’ve been shouting “IT’S NOT ABOUT THE LIKES” for the last 9+ years that our project was on Facebook. And that’s all I could do, as Zuck wasn’t returning my calls.
I feel strongly that the ‘likes’ metric is not only detrimental to the heart (not a pun) of this project but more importantly to people’s mental well-being in general.
A numbers game will always fall into that dopamine ding in your brain whenever these digits are in your perceived favor. And conversely, more often than not, the feeling of being let down and depressed because the number of likes just wasn’t what you had “expected”.
This is the opposite of creativity.
My 2-year old does not draw rainbows because he knows I’ll tack it to the fridge afterward. He draws because he likes the feeling of the marker on the paper. To create something. He doesn’t even stay in the lines. He doesn’t even stay on the freaking paper!
Creativity flourishes when your mind is open. When there are no consequences, attachments or rules. (OK, some rules.)
Attaching your art to a lazy digital metric will stifle your inspiration.
Let your art free.
So yeah, we ARE accepting hearts, and I think we’ll use this ‘love’ metric for constructive purposes moving forward, like sorting your submissions to see which ones resonated more than others, or charting your improvement throughout the course of the year, but we are collectively disconnecting ourselves from the number.
There is a number, however, that you should be obsessed with connecting to.
This number is called your streak number.
The streak number should be your focus. Your North Star. Your anchor.
Take a photo each week and toss it to the wind. Allow it to be looked upon and studied, and even (gasp!) be commented on!
Let your art free.
Tick that week off your checklist, and move onto the next.
If you submitted you already won.
#thereisnofridge
Happy shooting 🙂
Your Framer-in-Chief,
-Yosef