Hello, here's why you can't find me on social media

Hey, thanks for visiting my website.

I bet you came here after first trying to find me on a social media platform.

Yes, there is an account on IG called @cammietoloui, but that's a woman in Russia who uses my name as her alias and posts pictures of her cats. It's a long story...

Like lots of photographers, I joined IG as a fun way to show my daily snaps, connect with friends, see what they were shooting and perhaps what they were eating for breakfast.

I don't need to tell you that social media is no longer fun, because I think we all know that.

But what I do want to discuss is what it's done to photography. For me, it has cheapened the experience of creating new images. Once I would post a photo on IG, it's like the image became dead; just another thing to scroll past, or maybe look at for a few seconds and then forget about.

Also, people started seeing other people's art as something they could take for free and use without asking

Once that image is posted, it's as if it becomes public domain. If, like me, you don't like that, good luck. You'll find it's a huge social offense to say that you don't want it taken and used in a way that you have no control over.

Somewhere along the way, I also started feeling that my work was only worth the "likes" that it received, and one day a few years ago

I realized that the joy I once felt for taking pictures had been hollowed out by the online experience.

It's like I forgot that photography is more than just a square that you looked at on a small screen, and I forgot that there are other ways to show, share and talk about my work.

I tried talking about this with other photographers, but I ended up feeling like I was in a minority.

As with other addictions, no one wants to look closely at the rotting core of the thing that they obsess over,

and many people rely on and consider IG a necessary evil, even though most of us know that it's killing photography, and very possibly killing us all too.

I started to become more and more aware of the ways in which social media is a tool that is being used against us. Like in the film They Live, once you put on the magic sunglasses that cancel out the shiny-happy veneer of social media, you start to see it for what it really is.

Every post that you create with your art is a free gift to a billionaire -

a trump ass-licking tech bro who not only makes money off of you and your friends, but also allows it to be weaponized against you.

Every comment, DM, like and share is now readily available to law enforcement / ICE. Even if you think you are not a target now because you are, for instance, a white American, just know that this could change.

If none of these things bother you, then at the very least

the degree of censorship on the apps must be a consideration when it comes to art.

Maybe it feels normal to you now that you have to obscure certain words and images for fear of being shadow-banned or shut down, but I'm here to slap you across the face a few times to bring you back to your senses. This is NOT OK.

Every time you self-sensor, you are supporting and re-enforcing this opaque system of puritanical rules that decide what is acceptable and what isn't. Is that the kind of artist you want to be?

Where do we draw the line? How do we take our power back?

The government is too slow, or too complacent or too much in collusion with the tech industry to help de-enshittify social media.

The answer is that there must be a critical mass of people like me who become disgusted by what social media has done to our art, our discourse, our privacy and our society.

We all have to decide that the price of using the apps is too high

and we must find better ways to connect and share our art.

I know this is unpopular, and deleting my accounts was hard at first. But let me tell you what else has happened.

I have been working on a new photo project for the past 18 months. I haven't posted it online except in one or two small instances to find new subjects or promote a show of the work. When I had that show, I put up signs saying that taking pictures of my work was not allowed,

and boy were people upset.

They wanted to take pictures of my work so they could post it and forget about it, but instead, being denied this created a feeling of scarcity. Numerous people approached me saying

they desperately wanted to buy a print.

It was remarkable to see this shift happening before my eyes!

I know, I know. Publishers, galleries, employers...they all want to know that you have thousands of followers before they invest in you. I am painfully aware of this. But also

I know that I had to take a stand for my sanity

and in hopes that it would inspire others to do the same.

In December 2025 I decided that I could no longer offer myself, my work or my privacy to the tech companies and still feel that I was being true to my values. I felt dirty, I felt addicted and I felt manipulated, so I deleted all of my social media apps - and I feel so much better.

I joke with my friends that I have become the vegan in the room, reminding people of the uncomfortable truths that no one wants to hear. So be it.

If you've read this far, thank you.

Are you with me?