my 90 day experiment
Back when I was in my early twenties, I was a professional cosplayer.
For those of you who don’t know what that means: I spent months building elaborate fantasy costumes based on characters from my favorite media. Then, I would attend conventions with other fans of these media. My costume and I were a walking advertisement of my professional artistry. I’d gather clients who would later ask me to make them costumes; and, in some cases, I’d be asked by various organizations to represent them — for example, as a judge in a cosplay competition. When I wasn’t attending conventions, I was extremely active on socials. I’d regularly post WIPs, tutorials, and allow my audience to see the process of creation. It was amazing.
Funny enough, that was the first paycheck I ever got from Riot. They bought the axe from my Woad King Darius cosplay. Over ten years later, in hangs in a massive display in the main walkway of their LAX office.
All of that to say: social media was a huge part of my life and my business.
Fast forward to a few years ago, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. My professional cosplay years were far behind me, though I still had my accounts. Like many folks on lockdown, I found myself too sucked into the vortex of social media. It wasn’t just about the time I was spending on it — it was changing the way my brain worked. I could feel it. The automaticity of reaching for my phone, the compulsive checking for updates…I hated it.
And so, I ripped off the band-aid. I deleted everything. All of it, gone. Tens of thousands of followers accumulated over years of hard work. Hundreds of connections I’d made over my travels. Poof.
It was drastic, yes, and perhaps I could have gotten the relief I needed by simply disabling my accounts for a while. But that radical act of self-care…the intentional choice to walk away from all of it out of sheer dedication to myself and my wellbeing…I don’t regret it. Not even a little bit. It was a choice made out of love.
I was off socials for about a year and a half before I decided to hop back on that train. The pivotal moment was when I spent an evening hanging out with some very cool LA celebrities — and at the end of the night, when we were all exchanging information, they asked if I had instagram. Or twitter. Or literally anything. Needless to say, we left with nothing more than the fond memories to connect us.
After that, with new accounts in-hand, my relationship with social media got a lot better. My time away created fundamental shifts in the way I engaged with the platforms. And since then, I’ve only ever had a few concerns here and there about my usage, which I quickly rectified.
That is…until now.
This week, I started a little experiment: 90 days of engaging regularly on socials. 90 days of posting, commenting, and following through my business account, all with two goals in mind:
To see how many new eyes I can get on my art, and
To see if I can manage it without wanting to throw my phone through a window.
Today marks Day 7 in my 90 day experiment. And oh boy, what an experiment it has been. Instagram has changed a lot in the past 5 years. I am already having to navigate the complexities of a dopamine-chasing brain in a highly dopaminergic virtual space.
I’ll spend the next week gathering and synthesizing my findings, and report back to you with my takeaways.
Wish me luck ;)
Woad King Darius, PAX West circa 2015. Photograph by Martin Wong.
