Social Media and Its Impact | Emily May | Episode 503

Emily May | Episode 503

Emily May is most at home while she is in the studio. Emily is an emerging, multidisciplinary artist from Vancouver, British Columbia who communicates her ideas mainly through ceramics but will also include sculpture, painting, film, performance, and collaborative work. Emily’s love for clay came accidentally when she enrolled in art school with the hopes of becoming a painter. In April 2016, Emily received her Fine Arts Diploma from Langara College and she is currently residing in Halifax, Nova Scotia where she transferred to NSCAD University. Emily is hoping to complete her BFA with a major in Ceramics this year (2019).

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Emily Asking Paul:

When you are looking at maker profiles, especially on Instagram, do you see that they market themselves in ways that reinforce certain cliches or stereotypes that might make you cringe?

I have never seen that. But I have seen that people don’t use their bio up at the top properly. I think that one thing that we have to be really careful about is that social media is that it is only a footprint it is not ownership. Because someone else can come along and wipe that footprint away. For instance, the algorithms, whether it is Facebook or Instagram, they are always in control. So we need to use their platform to try and build our platform and build a relationship with our customers.

Do you think a website would be more important or better?

That’s a great questions. Yes, every person should, if they want to have a business, build a website that they can direct everybody back to. Some place where traffic is driven to. Somewhere where you can develop a relationship. Somewhere where you can give them something and develop an email list. Now they can break up with you any time they want to but it us a relationship not based on the rules and demands of social media platforms.

Where do you imagine the ceramic community may or may not be headed in the future with regards to social media?

Well, it’s the gatekeepers. It used to be that there where people who would determine who would be the voice of the community and that has disappeared. In fact we are having a problem with subscription based magazines losing revenue because there is not as big of a need to advertise in those places anymore. So it will open up opportunities where average potters can get sponsored for themselves if they build up enough audience. So I think the future with ceramics with social media is that the sky is the limit.

Paul asking Emily in the Mud Meets the Bat round:

Why are you so fascinated with social media?

I am so fascinated with social media because I think that it is a tool that in the academic world we are not necessarily discussing enough, mainly because it is still relatively new. And we are figuring out what to do and how to use it and understand it so that we can reap benefits from it. Especially with people like me who dabble in both pottery and sculptural ceramics. I want to know how to market my ideas for shows for exhibitions, not necessarily marketing for money making. So I started this as an investigation towards that and I figured it would be awesome to hear all these different perspectives.

How important is it to separate our interaction on social media and our self-worth? For instance if we post something and we don’t get a lot of likes.

I think that is a really tough question. I think that it is important to remember that social media does not reflect who you are as a person or how you are as a maker. I know that from personal experience, as a young impressionable girl, it is so easy to fall prey to beauty campaigns and stuff like that and compare myself and my appearance that way, I have so much to say but I do not know how to fully articulate it. It is so important to know that yes, there are so many good makers out there, but there are also some not so great makers out there, that might have a huge following,or might not, they can just market themselves in a way and know how to attract people. I do not mean to offend anyone, it is just good to be aware of.

Can you tell me in a couple of sentences what do you think that balance is of social media and good mental health?

I think that no matter how much you engage on social media, whether you are putting your post out there or whether you are consuming other people’s posts you, have to be really cognizant of your emotional levels at the time, because if you start to compare yourself to these other makers that is not really healthy. But if you use it as inspiration as a point to maybe achieve that same level, then that is different.