Producing poems layered on top of film photos for the Instagram grid – was harder than once imagined. But throughout the last semester, I have really enjoyed putting myself into this project, where my passion for film and poetry have come together. In real-time, I have been sharing the stories of my life with my audience on @2000slovepoetry, and aiming to create small windows of connection in an increasingly lonely world.
2000slovepoetry concentrates on delivering personal poems that tell human stories. With the creation of this Instagram poetry account for audience members, I have sought to encourage sentiment and story on a platform that can be sometimes used to numb users, while giving us fake internet hits of dopamine and instant gratification. I’ve been aiming to move my audience away from endless scrolling through fashion trends, beauty trends, weight-loss trends, and workout trends – to give my audience something good for them. I feel confident that my ‘Insta poetry’ is one part of my audience’s online consumption that doesn’t rely on their insecurities or guilt (taught by society), to get them to spend their attention and money unhealthily. Instead, I show that our stories – all of our stories, yours and mine – are important, they live inside of us, and cannot be purchased at any online store.
I will be the first to notice that consistency producing content over the course of my DA has been absent. When trying to perform my online persona, I have not posted regularly enough in the week to achieve the results I could have. However, I have always believed in and been supported by my quality of the content. Through feedback in the prototyping stage, I have learnt that my audience feels connected to my poems which achieves my overriding goal.
The main foundations of @2000slovepoetry and some of how it presents today were built early on, even before our first pitch. I had a clear vision of how I wanted to use my poetry passion for a DA, and I produced lots of content early on (build early, build often). I gained over 100 followers within the first two weeks, but only recently leveled out in the last month to sustain a gradual following, coming to a total so far of 144 followers.
The feedback loops I have received the most help from have been Instagram direct messages and Instagram comments. Comments that appreciate the honesty and creativity of my work while recognising my stories as true and touching, have meant a great deal to the outcome of my project.
I’m proud to bring about connection in feedback loops when talking about the unglamorous parts of our lives.
To increase more interactions on 2000slovepoetry, I did my first ‘photo drop’ post (without a poem) and in the first few hours, it already saw almost 30 likes. It’s the perfect kind of content to post to divide my theme and show more of my personality/persona for the audience to engage with. I’ll definitely be doing more photo drops in the future!
Making and breaking my DA has meant I’m continuously reflecting to be better, and building more engaging content than my last DA structure. While it’s always been 2000slovepoetry, as I iterate, evolve and keep performing the persona of my project – I’ve adapted to some changes.
The changes I’ve adapted to:
– I’ve deleted and archived content when I wasn’t happy with the quality of poetry or photo posts (17 posts). In the beginning, I would try to churn out as much content as possible, but have since realised that quality over quantity is better.
– 13 poems remain and I continue to add poetry posts regularly when I am happy with the quality. I am still engaging by posting stories a few times a week, and replying to comments and DMs.
– By Week 6, I had run out of high-quality film photos to edit poems onto, and I worried about ruining my aesthetic. Soon, I found that editing a long poem against a blank colour tile was a sustainable and minimalist solution. The coloured poetry tiles created a divide in the Instagram grid which bred a new, equally pleasing aesthetic.
Something I had not accounted for would be my feeling of needing anonymity with the account. I’ve been a performing spoken-word poet for 5 years and have never had any trouble with hiding my poetry or censoring content. But when it comes to the internet, I am fiercely aware that the whole world could potentially be watching. This anxiety held me back with posting, in the promotion of my DA in my personal platforms, and I censored the content of my poems. I’ve gotten more confident now, and feel freer from these anxieties, but I still operate with a degree of caution for my identity and do not include my face or name.
Making and breaking could also speak to my wellbeing and trouble with mental health nearing the end of semester; my issues and trouble with productivity, unmotivation and lethargy whilst balancing four different subjects and life itself. But that’s okay! We are here now.
I’m finding strength in the FIST principle coming to the end of my DA journey –
Fast: Once a poem is written, it takes about 30 minutes to edit onto a film photo.
Inexpensive: Free! No cost to editing apps, equipment or platforms. Paid only $8 once to boost a post in my first week. 2000slovepoetry is only a labour of love, and dependent on my own time.
Simple: I am self-sufficent, a capable instapoet and it’s not hard to
Tiny: Micro producing more content with photo drops and daily stories. The poetry is digestable and accessbible all through my one 2000slovepoetry Instagram page.
Today, heading into the last leg of the DA, I am grateful for comments like these that let me know I’m doing a good job at inspiring and connecting people, even in a small way:
internet kid 