There used to be actual reasons to go to your city's galleries and studios and basement concerts. You couldn't see what was happening in New York or London or Tokyo unless you were there or you subscribed to magazines or you had friends sending you stories. So artists built locally. They had galleries three blocks away. They knew the other artists personally. There was scarcity, but also genuine community.

Now every artist worth their salt is building an Instagram presence instead. And I get it - visibility, reach, income potential. But what died in the process is that every regional art scene started looking identical. Same aesthetics, same references, same desperation to appeal to a global algorithmic audience. The weird stuff that used to flourish locally - the art that was only interesting to your specific city's specific context - got optimized out.

I moved back to my hometown after living in Brooklyn for a decade. I was excited to see what the local art world had become. It was depressing. The same three galleries were still operating, but now they were just Instagram outposts for artists who'd relocated or gone fully digital. The basement venues were gone. The weird experimental stuff had migrated entirely online.

What bothers me most is that this is supposed to be democratization. Everyone can reach everyone now. But what actually happened is that gatekeeping just moved to a different venue. Now it's the algorithm and the follower count and whatever the TikTok algorithm decides is aesthetically coherent this quarter. At least before, you could build something weird and niche and have it matter locally. Now you're either playing the Instagram game or you're invisible.

The irony is that the artists I know who've actually figured out how to build sustainable careers are the ones who treated Instagram as one tool among many, not the main event. But they're increasingly rare. Most of my peers are just chasing the algorithm.