For a long time, merit and visibility were not the same thing, but they were connected by time. In the 1980s and 1990s, quality rarely exploded overnight. Cinema, music, photography and art emerged slowly, through repetition, failure, refinement. Access to the system was limited and often unfair, but once inside, the work itself mattered. Recognition was delayed, sometimes frustratingly so, but it followed a path that could be read. If someone reached a certain level, there was usually a body of work behind it.
The early internet and the 2000s marked a transitional phase. Access widened, platforms promised freedom, and for a while quality and visibility were still loosely aligned. Many creators believed—reasonably—that if they worked seriously and consistently, they would eventually be seen. That belief shaped an entire generation. Then the system changed again.
Today, in the algorithmic age, visibility and quality have largely separated. On social platforms, visibility is no longer linked to depth, coherence or long-term vision. It is linked to immediacy.
The algorithm does not ask whether something is good, but whether it interrupts the scroll. And the scroll itself has become the real issue. We are no longer encouraged to look, but to move on. Even when an image is interesting, there is an underlying anxiety: stay too long and you miss the next one.
In this environment, the act of lingering on an image—observing it, letting it unfold, thinking about it—has become difficult. Not because we are incapable of it, but because the system actively discourages it. Carefully built images struggle not because they lack strength, but because they require time. And time has become the rarest resource.
This is why viral AI-generated videos and images fit so well into the current ecosystem. They are designed to shock, surprise or confuse instantly. They require no duration, no contemplation, no memory. They burn fast, circulate intensely, and disappear just as quickly. Their success is spectacular, but almost always temporary.
The same logic applies to photography. On platforms like Instagram, many images succeed primarily because of the subject. An elegant body, a cinematic pose, a provocative suggestion—whether achieved with intention or through visual noise—often makes little difference. The image is consumed as stimulus, not as a space for thought. Composition, light, atmosphere and narrative become secondary, sometimes invisible. A photograph built with restraint and coherence can easily be outperformed by something louder and simpler, not because it is weaker, but because it asks the viewer to slow down.
Viral success, in this context, is often mistaken for quality. Yet viral success is by nature volatile. What explodes rarely lasts, and what lasts rarely explodes. Cinema, music and photography all tell the same story: many works initially ignored become references over time, while others that dominate the moment quickly fade from memory.
Quality has not disappeared. But recognizing it requires recovering something we are rapidly losing: the ability to give time to an image. To look without urgency, without the constant pressure to move on, without the anxiety of the next stimulus. This is no longer a passive habit; it is a conscious choice.
The real challenge today is not competing for attention, but reclaiming attention itself. Not adapting every image to the rhythm of the feed, but protecting spaces—mental, creative, personal—where slowness is still possible.
In an age obsessed with speed, choosing to look slowly is no longer nostalgic.
It is a position.
And perhaps the only one that allows images to remain.
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Agree on the point 👍