Are the Instagram and YouTube cultures bad for the reef keeping hobby?

[Daniel@R2R]

Ok, so let me be clear what I'm talking about. I'm not asking or implying that IG and YT are bad for the hobby. I'm specifically thinking about the temptation toward misrepresentation that occurs in the world where picture perfection is the standard. Let's be honest, on IG the goal is to "stop the scroll" and rack up followers which is accomplished by having a tank that is picture perfect. This often leads people to post when the tank is doing well and avoid talking about pitfalls and issues where the tank is far less than perfect. The same can often happen on YouTube where videographers cover their mistakes before the latest video or choose to use quick fixes or even old footage to avoid showing issues. AGAIN, I am not saying this is true for all IG'ers or YouTubers. Some do take the painful step of sharing us their missteps or simply the normal problems of reefing, but I do feel that many times even those moments can get glossed over because frankly, people aren't drawn to look at lackluster images, so for example, someone might be less likely to show off a tank in a video in the middle of the uglies because it just doesn't seem like something people want to see.

My concern is that this ultimately can lead to unrealistic expectations for the average reefer, especially newer reefers who might get into reefing because XYZ YouTuber has such beautiful tank and makes it look "so easy." Reefing is tough, and a lot of times there are stages that don't get shown off but that are natural parts of tank maturation. Other times there may be set backs that could have been avoided, and a reefer may feel alone when going through those issues. What do you guys think? Is this a problem that happens in a culture that emphasizes perfection and gives less voice to struggles?

Where this line of thought leads me is back to the value of experiencing this hobby in community. It's why local clubs are so valuable and why even developing friendships in online communities that go beyond mere surface engagement can be helpful. It's one of the reasons that I think it's important to have threads (LOTS of threads) that talk about the run-of-the-mill issues that people commonly deal with. It's why I'm so glad that we have people here who don't mind answering the same questions over and over...because sometimes...sometimes it's honestly nice to see that the issues we face have been also dealt with by so many people before us.

Just some musings I've been thinking through today. What are your thoughts?

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Ok, so let me be clear what I'm talking about. I'm not asking or implying that IG and YT are bad for the hobby. I'm specifically thinking about the temptation toward misrepresentation that occurs in the world where picture perfection is the standard. Let's be honest, on IG the goal is to "stop the scroll" and rack up followers which is accomplished by having a tank that is picture perfect. This often leads people to post when the tank is doing well and avoid talking about pitfalls and issues where the tank is far less than perfect. The same can often happen on YouTube where videographers cover their mistakes before the latest video or choose to use quick fixes or even old footage to avoid showing issues. AGAIN, I am not saying this is true for all IG'ers or YouTubers. Some do take the painful step of sharing us their missteps or simply the normal problems of reefing, but I do feel that many times even those moments can get glossed over because frankly, people aren't drawn to look at lackluster images, so for example, someone might be less likely to show off a tank in a video in the middle of the uglies because it just doesn't seem like something people want to see.

My concern is that this ultimately can lead to unrealistic expectations for the average reefer, especially newer reefers who might get into reefing because XYZ YouTuber has such beautiful tank and makes it look "so easy." Reefing is tough, and a lot of times there are stages that don't get shown off but that are natural parts of tank maturation. Other times there may be set backs that could have been avoided, and a reefer may feel alone when going through those issues. What do you guys think? Is this a problem that happens in a culture that emphasizes perfection and gives less voice to struggles?

Where this line of thought leads me is back to the value of experiencing this hobby in community. It's why local clubs are so valuable and why even developing friendships in online communities that go beyond mere surface engagement can be helpful. It's one of the reasons that I think it's important to have threads (LOTS of threads) that talk about the run-of-the-mill issues that people commonly deal with. It's why I'm so glad that we have people here who don't mind answering the same questions over and over...because sometimes...sometimes it's honestly nice to see that the issues we face have been also dealt with by so many people before us.

Just some musings I've been thinking through today. What are your thoughts?

I do agree with this, but also feel it happens on R2R as well. We will not get into FB lol.

For example, there are build threads with no issues encountered, like none at all. Or people that just post awesome coral pics and do not have a build thread and there is no background on their tanks. I get there will be tanks from experienced reefers that do not have an issue. We are all human though and do mess up. I have been doing this for 40 years and still let things slide. The only difference, I post the pitfalls and opps as well. I figure if some one is looking at my build threads, they should be able to see the good and the bad.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

I do agree with this, but also feel it happens on R2R as well. We will not get into FB lol.

For example, there are build threads with no issues encountered, like none at all. Or people that just post awesome coral pics and do not have a build thread and there is no background on their tanks. I get there will be tanks from experienced reefers that do not have an issue. We are all human though and do mess up. I have been doing this for 40 years and still let things slide. The only difference, I post the pitfalls and opps as well. I figure if some one is looking at my build threads, they should be able to see the good and the bad.

YES!! Agreed! I labeled it "IG and YT cultures" bc (at least in conversations I've had) there seems to be a lot of pressure in those venues to the point that it's kind of known as a part of the culture, but I definitely agree that it spills over into other social media platforms and R2R is one as well. I do think the value happens in the number of posts and threads about struggles and problems that helps to offset the balance, but, yes, many build threads seem to focus on only sharing the good (and I get the temptation), but I feel that the most valuable ones are like yours where both ups and downs are shared. This is super valuable because it allows others to truly share in and understand the journey we're on. After all, it's hard for anyone to share my joy in the victories if I never shared the struggle to begin with.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

After all, it's hard for anyone to share my joy in the victories if I never shared the struggle to begin with.

This right here lol.

And I get what you were doing with IG and YT cultures. I have only an IG and not on it very much, but when I do look, it is a ton of super awesome tanks, but no road to how they got that way.

Even after all the time in this hobby, I screw up, forget something, or learn something new. Those things should be shared with the masses. Well at least I think they should lol.

 

[afrokobe]

I dont really browse instagram, but the one social media that really grinds my gears is facebook. I absolutely hate all the reefing facebook groups doing "wraffles". I am in reefing because I like to look at nice corals and fish, not because I want to gamble.

 

[ilikefish69]

I look at my roughly 7 month tank, with a few little baby zoa frags and a couple clowns and my red slime algae, and LOVE EVERY SECOND OF IT!!!!!!!!

I know someday it will look like the Instagram posts, but I definitely am going to continue to post my pictures of my 17 polyp mandarin orange frag when it turns to 18 polyps... and 19... and 20...

Jealousy of other's DT is the first step towards making irrational decisions, purchases, and additives, and will just create a longer waiting period until you get the DT to look like theirs

I'm still patiently waiting for that first little spot of purple coralline...

 

[gbru316]

Long before social media existed, there were fish mags that did exactly the same thing. And we see it here, too. How many TOTM features really discuss the daily challenges and struggles that the reefkeeper has faced?

The format may have changed, but the content hasn't.

 

[undermind]

I think that the 'general' negatives about IG and YT cultures – the ones we associate with self esteem, beauty and perfectionism actually apply to our hobby as well.

I also think that the rapid emergence of IG and social media in general has brought with it a rapid influx of new people, like we've never seen before in the history of the hobby.

I think both of these things are caused by what @Daniel@R2R has at the heart of his post: showing the most extreme, top fringes of what's possible. What that does is shows the masses the top 1 percent of 1 percent of what the ultimate achievements are in the hobby.

Another way to put it is... Most people outside our hobby are absolutely aware that saltwater tanks are a thing (and a hobby)... They've seen them at restaurants and their uncle's house. They're often covered in algae and overgrown with palythoa grandis. But then they bump into an amazing image on Instagram and click on it. Now that triggers the algorithm and they start getting fed the most extreme beautiful color-enhanced images. And they think "OK I didn't know tanks could look like THIS! I want this too."

I think that scenario brings in lot of new people. And then there's 2020.

Now this part is up for debate, but I don't think we NEED this many new people in the hobby. The growth is not resulting in a better hobby for all. I recall Ryan from BRS on a few occasions saying that less than 5% of new reefers stay in the hobby for more than a year. That's not good. There's a lot attached here that we don't need to get into, but IG is not helping with that.

 

[AydenLincoln]

Ok, so let me be clear what I'm talking about. I'm not asking or implying that IG and YT are bad for the hobby. I'm specifically thinking about the temptation toward misrepresentation that occurs in the world where picture perfection is the standard. Let's be honest, on IG the goal is to "stop the scroll" and rack up followers which is accomplished by having a tank that is picture perfect. This often leads people to post when the tank is doing well and avoid talking about pitfalls and issues where the tank is far less than perfect. The same can often happen on YouTube where videographers cover their mistakes before the latest video or choose to use quick fixes or even old footage to avoid showing issues. AGAIN, I am not saying this is true for all IG'ers or YouTubers. Some do take the painful step of sharing us their missteps or simply the normal problems of reefing, but I do feel that many times even those moments can get glossed over because frankly, people aren't drawn to look at lackluster images, so for example, someone might be less likely to show off a tank in a video in the middle of the uglies because it just doesn't seem like something people want to see.

My concern is that this ultimately can lead to unrealistic expectations for the average reefer, especially newer reefers who might get into reefing because XYZ YouTuber has such beautiful tank and makes it look "so easy." Reefing is tough, and a lot of times there are stages that don't get shown off but that are natural parts of tank maturation. Other times there may be set backs that could have been avoided, and a reefer may feel alone when going through those issues. What do you guys think? Is this a problem that happens in a culture that emphasizes perfection and gives less voice to struggles?

Where this line of thought leads me is back to the value of experiencing this hobby in community. It's why local clubs are so valuable and why even developing friendships in online communities that go beyond mere surface engagement can be helpful. It's one of the reasons that I think it's important to have threads (LOTS of threads) that talk about the run-of-the-mill issues that people commonly deal with. It's why I'm so glad that we have people here who don't mind answering the same questions over and over...because sometimes...sometimes it's honestly nice to see that the issues we face have been also dealt with by so many people before us.

Just some musings I've been thinking through today. What are your thoughts?

This is so true and applies to everything on Instagram not just fish tanks.

 

[ReefLife_Guy]

Yeah I keep meaning to make some "struggle" threads for this reason. One of the hardest things I think in this hobby is knowing when you need to do something or when to seek out help. Like what issues are truly emergent and which might correct themselves with little intervention. I do a lot of documenting my tank with my phone, especially when I'm having issues so that I have them if I need to post a help thread or just for my own personal record keeping to see the progress and changes my corals and fish have. One very specific example is how bubble tip anemones look when they excrete waste. If you don't have experience with anemones and haven't seen them deflate and inflate you would probably see a deflated BTA and say its dying but then 10 minutes later its inflated again looking completely normal. I almost posted a thread about my green BTA the first time I saw it deflate but then decided to give it some time and sure enough it inflated back to normal. But I remember thinking are mine the only ones that do this or do others see this too and just don't talk about it on the forums.

I'm convinced a lot of these "HELPPP" threads that are posted and receive several responses but then become abandoned by the OP are because the issue the OP had resolved itself on its own and they did not go back to update everyone. I try to follow-up with posts that I have provided advice to but sometimes that becomes too much.

I remember being dramatic and thinking I was going to have to start over with my tank after I got back from vacation and it was drowning in GHA. But instead of freaking out I just did some research and reduced feedings back to what I was doing before vacation and started manually removing some GHA every couple of days and eventually the issue resolved on its own.

A similar phenomenon occurs in science and referred to as publication bias. This is also getting worse these days with the competitiveness of acquiring research funding. Publication bias is basically the idea that journals and researchers are more likely to publish manuscripts with data that has positive results instead of negative results. This creates an issue where you have an accumulation of unanswered questions on a topic because it is not seen positively to publish results of an experiment where your data rejects your hypothesis. While this may not be helpful data to you it might be helpful to others in the future who need this data to answer more novel questions. This also means that a lot of researchers repeat the same experiments and work just to answer the same questions someone else probably already answered but did not publish. It is something very frustrating but is part of the culture now in the publishing of scientific literature.

 

[HuduVudu]

Ok, so let me be clear what I'm talking about. I'm not asking or implying that IG and YT are bad for the hobby. I'm specifically thinking about the temptation toward misrepresentation that occurs in the world where picture perfection is the standard. Let's be honest, on IG the goal is to "stop the scroll" and rack up followers which is accomplished by having a tank that is picture perfect. This often leads people to post when the tank is doing well and avoid talking about pitfalls and issues where the tank is far less than perfect. The same can often happen on YouTube where videographers cover their mistakes before the latest video or choose to use quick fixes or even old footage to avoid showing issues. AGAIN, I am not saying this is true for all IG'ers or YouTubers. Some do take the painful step of sharing us their missteps or simply the normal problems of reefing, but I do feel that many times even those moments can get glossed over because frankly, people aren't drawn to look at lackluster images, so for example, someone might be less likely to show off a tank in a video in the middle of the uglies because it just doesn't seem like something people want to see.

My concern is that this ultimately can lead to unrealistic expectations for the average reefer, especially newer reefers who might get into reefing because XYZ YouTuber has such beautiful tank and makes it look "so easy." Reefing is tough, and a lot of times there are stages that don't get shown off but that are natural parts of tank maturation. Other times there may be set backs that could have been avoided, and a reefer may feel alone when going through those issues. What do you guys think? Is this a problem that happens in a culture that emphasizes perfection and gives less voice to struggles?

Where this line of thought leads me is back to the value of experiencing this hobby in community. It's why local clubs are so valuable and why even developing friendships in online communities that go beyond mere surface engagement can be helpful. It's one of the reasons that I think it's important to have threads (LOTS of threads) that talk about the run-of-the-mill issues that people commonly deal with. It's why I'm so glad that we have people here who don't mind answering the same questions over and over...because sometimes...sometimes it's honestly nice to see that the issues we face have been also dealt with by so many people before us.

Just some musings I've been thinking through today. What are your thoughts?

The problem with all social media is the issue of reputation. This is why licensing is wrong and counter productive. The free market of ideas will win every time.

I would posit that the problem is self correcting in that the person that does not dig in to do skeptical follow up and thereby inform themselves will burn themselves out and fail. They will then exit the hobby and their views and interest will be removed from the reputation of the social media content creator. Eventually that creator will dwindle to nothing.

Sadly this process is happening constantly and the churn will always be there to trap and entice the new aquarist and sometimes even the novice and advanced, but as it moves up the chain the less of the effect. They will be pulled in and then the failure of what seemed so logical will push them out. Leaving them left with abysmal failure and all that accompanies it. This is the inflection point that I have seen on this board and IRL. The only escape is to quit or to understand. This fork happens over and over again, until some base layer of sucess or end of trying happens.

 

[HuduVudu]

The growth is not resulting in a better hobby for all. I recall Ryan from BRS on a few occasions saying that less than 5% of new reefers stay in the hobby for more than a year. That's not good.

The 5% number has been around for a mighty long time. The number that I usually hear is average time in hobby for new aquarist is 8 months.

I am not thinking this will really change.

 

[rtparty]

Short answer: yes

Long answer: We can thank IG and YT for the ultra blue BS we have to look at these days.

 

[undermind]

The 5% number has been around for a mighty long time. The number that I usually hear is average time in hobby for new aquarist is 8 months.

I am not thinking this will really change.

Well I'm not sure how anyone could really know the data on new hobbyists

...that is unless they ran the biggest store on the web

 

[HuduVudu]

Those things should be shared with the masses. Well at least I think they should lol.

Well intentioned. But how do you share something when someone can't even understand that they don't understand? This is the question of the ages. I have seen so many ideas absolutely mangled because many people think they understand and they don't but they feel because of anonymity that they can interject. The flip side is when the interloper with a different view that is true but foriegn get their idea out.

All of this played out with Copurnicus, and from time immemorial.

Here is an interesting take down of social media. Lots of good points.

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

There are for sure a lot of unrealistic expectations that set up people for failure. I wish more people showed thier badges of honor. Scars used to be cool. Dents and dings on the old truck, charm and patina. Life happens. Not everything has to be perfect. I agree with others that it’s everywhere, including here and with vendors. I look at the BRS xxl750 series for example as I followed that to a tee with my latest build. Man did I struggle. Every problem known to man. Yet the BRS setup was going strong. What did I do wrong? Well, a year later they were finally honest and came up with the mistakes video. In it Ryan admitted the pressure of not showing the failures as they happened as it wouldn’t look good on him. He also stated that he felt it was time to show those mistakes as it would be better for people to understand that things happen to everyone. He did mention that if you were on his personal fb that some things were shared. I’m happy they did come out with the mistakes as I had every single one they did and it made me feel much better. I’ve been in the hobby for a very long time and have been successful but when I thought my methods were outdated and I better follow the new methods it bit me. I can totally see how a newbie could see ig, snap, fb, or yt tank and think that they could have the same thing in a month! Note the other side….. stop flaming people that make mistakes! I totally understand people not showing any mistakes or issues as the trolls come out from under the bridge and put you on blast! Every single person makes mistakes, big freaking deal, it’s part of the gig.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Well intentioned. But how do you share something when someone can't even understand that they don't understand? This is the question of the ages. I have seen so many ideas absolutely mangled because many people think they understand and they don't but they feel because of anonymity that they can interject. The flip side is when the interloper with a different view that is true but foriegn get their idea out.

All of this played out with Copurnicus, and from time immemorial.

Here is an interesting take down of social media. Lots of good points.

Very very very good point lol.

One thinks they understand, they do not understand, etc. etc. lol.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Every single person makes mistakes, big freaking deal, it’s part of the gig.

We are human, poo happens lol. Well, maybe most are human..........

 

[A_Blind_Reefer]

We are human, poo happens lol. Well, maybe most are human..........

Ha! Follow a few threads….. there’s a lot of Superman’s out there!

 

[rtparty]

The 5% number has been around for a mighty long time. The number that I usually hear is average time in hobby for new aquarist is 8 months.

I am not thinking this will really change.

It's closer to 50% of new hobbyists don't make it 12 months but no one has ever actually proven that number to my knowledge.

BRS has found that well over half of their customers have been in the hobby longer than 5 years.