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

[mdb_talon]

I do think these mediums(and this one to an extent) can certainly cause unrealistic expectations....which may lead to frustration and quitting the hobby.

I know multiple people who have started a tank and had absolutely amazing looking tanks. I try to convince them that creating a gorgeous tank in a week is not that hard if you are throwing money at it. The harder part is keeping that tank looking beautiful and amazing through the inevitable pitfalls.

I mean i can appreciate a beautiful tank full of $10k worth or corals someone put together in a couple months, but it does not impress me. Show me someone who has a 10-year old thriving tank and i am much more impressed.

I also take the approach of never trusting a tank without any algae in it.....

 

[Pearse73]

As a novice to keeping a reef, I have found that YouTube can be a useful tool at times. There are genuine helpful people out there.

Instagram I occasionally look at for ideas. For example, when I was planning my rockwork, potential placement of corals, things like that but in general it’s hateful.
“Look at sexy me and my sexy tank. Like me please please please.”
Not for me.
Fakebook I saw through a very long time ago. I was an early user and an early leaver of that insidious cesspit.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Unfortunately it's a given platform for selling corals.
Easy for ppl to contact each other and meet.

I did start my sw hobby by watching a YouTube video. Guilty as charged back in 09' or so.
Literally a guy mixing sw with his arm in a 5g bucket with a swing arm hydrometer. Talked about cycling and bam I was off running. Lol.

36g bowfront from petsmart and cycled with cuc and 3 chromis. 2 when I woke up the next day as it hard cycled over night. ":*(
I learned a lot that 1st yr lol but I was hooked.

The local forum did disappear and they all flocked to FB. I think it was shut down though recently and a new group was made.
This together ....both the forum dieing and ppl going to the fb group absolutely killed the local club we were trying to revamp.
Although some are still going and have absorbed the area.
All this said I think they are a good thing for the hobby. Think about all the people that don't even think about giving saltwater with there home aquariums... this shows them its a possibility
D

 

[Koh23]

All of stuff find on social media or yt i put in category "sometime fun to watch and kill some time"....

Infirmational aspect of this videos are equal 0. Not that some of those "entertainers" dont provide valid, correct and usefull information, problem is that all of that is flooded with self promotion, misinformation, desinformation, sponsorship and advertising.....

And method is very simple - make it bombastic, "sell" ilusion, like - reef tank in 5 minutes or less, where everyrhing about this hobby is ignored, even common sense, or "look at my 17 minute old tank stuffed with high end corals - you can done it too".....

Or mirracle solution to common problems - "you wont believe how common nail can help you battling aiptasia, dinos, ugly stage, diatoms....."... Key is "keyword"...

So no, all of that stuff is simply for entertaining purposes, fun, and yes, it acctualy do damage to hobby. Not hobby per se, but many people easily fall into that trap - if he can have 2 days 3 gallons old tank, no skimmer, no fancy expensive equipment, filled with pricelles corals, exotic fish - so can i. Never to realise that this setup is buildt for taking pictures and videos, and as soon is done, that setup is dissasembled, corals and fish are returned in big, stable and old systems.

If something died during process, well, clicks and views will ensure some money for replacement.


All for click and likes.... Thats the way world works....

 

[i cant think]

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 completely agree, if people don’t show the ups as well as the downs then it just gives off a curtain look. Where people who’ve been in the hobby for long periods of time usually wonder what actually goes on behind the curtain, newbies often don’t. This is one of the hobbies that I think is a must with needing the balance and not just a curtain showing the ups.
Another thing I have an issue with on some reefers is how they may have a large tank but put fish that need larger tanks into them because they’ve done almost no research. Another thing I find wrong with it is when people give a fish or coral to someone else as a surprise and it turns into a fish that dies within a few days and never gets spoken about again.
And then when they get told how to work around it they just ignore it or on YouTube for example they’ll delete it.

 

[biggjoe8]

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'm not a teenager so I don't follow IG or YT. Or Tik Tok for that matter.

 

[doubleshot00]

IG, r2r, Yt, magazines and FB all do it. How many posts do you see with the light off or why are the pics only when your tank looks perfect? Makes you want it to but it never happens. Always problems. Its just like the IG models that only post the perfect shot.

 

[cancun]

LOL! All great points! I don't have a special camera to take pics, filters, or the photography knowledge to take or edit photos of my tank or corals. The video for my YouTube channel are as is, and taken with my Samsung phone, same with pics, taken with my phone camera. It is a cheap Samsung A71 5G phone, so not a cool camera like the 1K dollar phones. I like saving my money for corals not phones LOL!

It's important to share the ups and downs of reefing, and the work involved with new reefers or potentially new reefers. I just hope I can save some from the rough lessons I learned on my own. That's what we should all strive to do. Not discourage anyone from getting in the hobby, but about being honest about the cost, time, and work involved to have a successful tank. My 2 cents! LOL!

 

[Wasabiroot]

I think it's important to remember that everyone wants to make money. I doubt Julian Sprung did everything in his career just for funnies.

I think that it's important to emphasize that you will screw up in this hobby, you will make a boneheaded mistake, you will kill livestock, you will have an algae outbreak, etc etc. What's more important to me is that someone is willing to admit that it's happened to them before. It's the people who have 'mastered' everything that flippantly dismiss the struggles of newer reefers that drive me nuts. Ok, great, congrats, you figured out reefing and never screw up. That doesn't make you a god, so lose the complex.

It's part of the reason as I've matured as a hobbyist that I find the newer BRS videos a bit less appealing. It comes off as very self help book vibe with a pretentious "I cracked the code" feel.

There's nothing wrong with showing off a pretty tank, but as a viewer, go into it with the understanding that nobody you love will care if your tank isn't looking great. Treat it as eye candy or goals but be realistic with yourself.

As a last aside, what is desirable and the zeitgeist is constantly changing. Different doesn't equal bad...maybe it's just not for you. There's plenty of room for all manner of interpretation of the hobby. As long as the livestock is happy and the user is as well, that's fine in my book.

I don't trust argument from authority any more than argument from tradition. We are all learning




P.s. there are plenty of terrible books on reefing, lousy old photos, and misinformation published in the past that isn't true. I think anything negative to blame is likely more a result of the culture around likes but not everyone subscribes to that or cares about it

 

[biggjoe8]

I think it's important to remember that everyone wants to make money. I doubt Julian Sprung did everything in his career just for funnies.

I think that it's important to emphasize that you will screw up in this hobby, you will make a boneheaded mistake, you will kill livestock, you will have an algae outbreak, etc etc. What's more important to me is that someone is willing to admit that it's happened to them before. It's the people who have 'mastered' everything that flippantly dismiss the struggles of newer reefers that drive me nuts. Ok, great, congrats, you figured out reefing and never screw up. That doesn't make you a god, so lose the complex.

It's part of the reason as I've matured as a hobbyist that I find the newer BRS videos a bit less appealing. It comes off as very self help book vibe with a pretentious "I cracked the code" feel.

There's nothing wrong with showing off a pretty tank, but as a viewer, go into it with the understanding that nobody you love will care if your tank isn't looking great. Treat it as eye candy or goals but be realistic with yourself.

As a last aside, what is desirable and the zeitgeist is constantly changing. Different doesn't equal bad...maybe it's just not for you. There's plenty of room for all manner of interpretation of the hobby. As long as the livestock is happy and the user is as well, that's fine in my book.

I don't trust argument from authority any more than argument from tradition. We are all learning




P.s. there are plenty of terrible books on reefing, lousy old photos, and misinformation published in the past that isn't true. I think anything negative to blame is likely more a result of the culture around likes but not everyone subscribes to that or cares about it

I ike the ones that say I've been in this hobby for 20 years i know what I'm doing. So naturally you just assume all the marine life in his tank is 20 years old. But we all know what assuming does.

 

[kelseytcole]

It's important to remember that creating and maintaining a thriving reef tank takes time, effort, and patience. While it may be tempting to throw money at the problem to make a tank look amazing in a short amount of time, the true test of a successful tank is its longevity and resilience over the years.

 

[kelseytcole]

It's important to remember that creating and maintaining a thriving reef tank takes time, effort, and patience. While it may be tempting to throw money at the problem to make a tank look amazing in a short amount of time, the true test of a successful tank is its longevity and resilience over the years. I believe that this topic can be brought to other people's attention, through the use of social media. You may want to use https://tipsogram.com to do this. As for algae, it's actually a natural part of the reef ecosystem and can indicate a healthy and balanced tank.

And if you want, you can promote it all through various other social networks, but this is already at your request.