Handles with care
At a time when our lives have become siloed, a spirit of social solidarity persists online thanks to a wave of thoughtful illustrators getting to the heart of our desire to connect. By Jen Nurick.
of photographs of the sunset and outfits of the day, a woman, roughly drawn in pen, is trapped between a glass pane and a curtain. Crouched on the floor, she appears to be using the tension of the pane against her body to lift the curtain or break through the glass, but her efforts are in vain. “The glass is called the past and the curtain is called the future,” explains Liana Finck (@lianafinck), cartoonist, author and New Yorker contributor, who posted the illustration to Instagram in January and has amassed more than 11,000 likes. “You can walk through the curtain, but you can’t see through it, and you can see through the past [but you can’t access it anymore],” she says. “That felt like it explained something to me when I made it, even though it’s obvious.”
As we face up to our new normal, our lives upended by a global pandemic, we’re seeking solace more than ever from Instagram. Without real life interaction, our online consumption has spiked, punctuated by a desire to experience something that is not aspirational but shared. In March, Facebook reported a 50 per cent increase in messaging on its apps, and with handles like Finck’s gaining thousands of followers at this moment, a timely value shift is underway as we look to those uniquely able to acknowledge and articulate what goes unsaid.
Look closer at Finck’s Instagram feed and you’ll find similar simplifications of the existential – and mundane – thoughts and feelings we reckon with, but often struggle to crystallise into words. Think Venn diagrams of relationships at their beginning and end stages. Line graphs mapping dwindling small talk at parties against rising levels of awkwardness, and cauldrons bubbling away, filled to the brim with other people’s feelings. The majority of her followers will never meet Finck, yet her observations possess a firm enough grip on human idiosyncrasies that it feels as if she’s found a portal into people’s innermost imaginations, spelling these out without giving her subjects away. “It’s like how people get poetry; it kind of gets through without the exact words,” she says. “I’d love to learn how to channel that more.”
With more than 460,000 followers, Finck is one of a number of illustrators who have mastered the art of taking everyday minutia and sprinkling them with laughter. In place of gallery
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walls, their illustrations hang on Instagram for free; they are made to fit the photo-sharing platform’s specifications, and don’t require an adjacent plaque to offer further explanation. Like a natural vista or breakfast still life, they demand the same attention to digest but feel more relatable – and so have been embraced on an app ironically used for lighthearted distraction, even if they linger longer in the mind.
“Outward life is less relatable than inward life,” explains New York Times bestselling author and illustrator Mari Andrew (@bymariandrew), whose contemplations on love and loss have gained her 1.1 million followers. “It’s easy to compare with or project upon, whereas inner life is the raw truth.”
Remote holiday destinations, luxury hotels and retouched celebrity selfies have peaked, and since dipped, in interest, but grief, bad dates and politics (social, professional or romantic) cut through to everyone’s emotional core. In one post, a familiar tableau of Andrew’s home is re-spun to reflect the strange sterility of our houses during coronavirus. A sofa of safety, as she calls it, sits adjacent to a stack of books and puzzles, balanced under the weight of a hand sanitiser. In contrast to the filtered realities we have become accustomed to – and, increasingly, alienated from – the reflections offered up by these modern-day social whisperers more closely resemble our own.
“It suddenly becomes imperative to draw a possum wearing a small hat and holding an aperitif,” explains Julie Houts of where she finds inspiration for her Instagram account (@jooleeloren), beloved by 250,000-plus followers.
A former designer at J. Crew-turned-satirical illustrator, her posts poke fun at the Instagram tropes we’ve subscribed to in order to self-identify in our search for meaning. Nothing is off limits: multi-step skincare routines, workplace anxiety and habits of flaking on friends are mined, no holds barred, for comic relief. Shortcomings are transformed into shticks. “I think there’s some appetite for snark and cynicism and criticality,” she says. “That feeling of: ‘Wait, I think that’s fucked up too!’ can be kind of cathartic and community-building.”
It’s a far cry from the digital landscape we once knew and wanted to belong to when Instagram launched in 2010. On the eve of its 10-year anniversary, we are shut indoors to flatten the curve and using Instagram more than ever, but a disconnect between what is real and staged online has meant many of the app’s one billion monthly users are shifting gears. In unforeseen times, we’re reassessing how we want to share and what we
“It’s given me a feeling of being listened to, which is all I’ve ever wanted, and of being understood”
value. Finck says: “It fits now with the pandemic, to be turning inwards and self-examining a lot … We’re all trying to take up less space and gouge the Earth a little less than we’re used to.” But change has been building for years.
“There’s been a well-established move towards performing ‘relatability’ or ‘authenticity’ in Instagram land,” reflects Houts. “For many, that constructed, filtered Instagram reality doesn’t square with their actual reality.” Instead, Houts’s musings on the courage we muster to unpack a suitcase or the dangers of rage texting resonate instantly. To achieve a similar effect, Andrew pretends she’s talking to a best friend. She says: “It’s so cathartic to hear someone else express a feeling we haven’t yet attended to, which is why we turn to artists when the going gets tough.” At the touch of a button, these illustrators can feel like confidants; they evoke an experience we can share in but remain detached from, laugh about but don’t have to claim as our own. Then we can slip our phones back into our pockets and carry on with our day.
“People appreciate consistency and ritual even on Instagram,” says Andrew, conscious she’s become a trusted voice for her followers. “There’s something really nice about that familiarity, even online, when everything else feels unpredictable.”
Earlier this year, she posted her thoughts on the Australian bushfires from her home in New York. “People had used my words on signs at the Sydney climate march and I was surprised and amazed they resonated that deeply, from so far away,” she says. Houts echoes a similar community spirit: “The best part of this is occasionally seeing a connection sprout up in the comments section between a group of internet strangers.” For Finck, finding a likeminded audience online has helped her navigate feeling like an outsider in the real world and the cartooning realm, given it has traditionally been dominated by men. “It’s given me a feeling of being listened to, which is all I’ve ever wanted, and of being understood,” she says.
Yet what of the mental costs right now of seeing sunsets we can’t enjoy or outfits we can’t luxuriate in in real life? Many have bemoaned the ways the platform has conditioned us to keep scrolling to the point of Instagram fatigue – the feelings of jealousy or loneliness it has aroused. Some forces, like the app’s algorithm, remain out of our control. But maybe in the works of these illustrators lies an antidote, peculiar to these strange times – a familiar anecdote, at once impersonal and shared, that makes us feel like we belong.