I’ve just realized that I've never been a working artist in a time before social media. So. What does discovery feel like when it isn’t mediated by scrolling? I'm not interested in 'how to sell things' here. I'm interested in what it felt like. From the discoverer's POV. - ThreadSky

byzantienne.bsky.social • 670 days ago

I’ve just realized that I've never been a working artist in a time before social media. So.

What does discovery feel like when it isn’t mediated by scrolling?

I'm not interested in 'how to sell things' here. I'm interested in what it felt like. From the discoverer's POV.

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fade.bsky.social•670 days ago

What a fascinating question. I remember poking through genre-divided shelves in libraries, trying to find something with an interesting cover/title/description, and then hunting down more from the same series/author when I hit a read I really liked. It was so... haphazard.

sigridellis.bsky.social•670 days ago

I looked at what was on shelves in friends' homes. Asked people what they were reading. Asked the clerks at bookstores, asked librarians for recs. For non-books, I went to dealers' rooms at conventions. It felt like a slot machine, sometimes I hit, sometimes I missed.

mattdaw.com•670 days ago

Book-wise, I depended on Hugo, Nebula, etc shortlists. And recs from friends.

turhansbeycompany.bsky.social•670 days ago

It felt like it took more effort. The social media firehose gives me more things to look at than I've got time. Individual discovery was more like prospecting. More joy in finding something, but that was a product of scarcity.

staceyberg.bsky.social•670 days ago

It was easier than now. Less overwhelming and more purposeful. You’d talk to friends. Go to the bookstore. Judge some books by the cover, or publisher. Buy the zines. Read reviews. Check out Usenet newsgroups. Go to the bookstore again.

jcsnow.bsky.social•669 days ago

Wandering in a bookstore picking things up and flipping through pages. Wandering in a library seeing whole series right in front of you. Those circular things in stores that had books on them. Garage sales. Thrift stores. Adventures everywhere.

steffi.bsky.social•670 days ago

Fragmented, slow. You had to actively look for it, offline and online. Word of mouth, recommendations in magazines, the accidental find in a library or on a website. People inviting you to small communities, and from there, the expansion to broader or smaller, more exclusive/niche circles happened.

steffi.bsky.social•670 days ago

But finding something that resonated with you was much more fulfilling. Today you look at Instagram and see a thousand artist's work in 5 minutes. Back in the day you met 10 people who loved to paint in a small forum and you cherished each picture that struck a chord and the conversations around it.

jefflake.info•670 days ago

It was like movies instead of TV. You had to actively seek info/entertainment, instead of more passively receiving an endless stream of it.

devinsinger.bsky.social•670 days ago

Honestly one of my favorite channels for discovering books right now is getting recommendations, mostly in-person, mostly physically passed back and forth, from my much-younger friend. She's got good taste! And she reads what I hand her in return!

brian.gawalt.com•670 days ago

One big vector for me: Artist A would take a vacation for a week or two, and so bring in Artist buddies B and C and D to do little one-off substitute-teacher entries on the website

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