OK, so I want to start off this review by saying I totally get that currently Cara is in a beta phase, which I think is probably ideal. And I am really excited about the potential for it as a replacement/alternative to Instagram!
however, that being said…
I am a figurative artist. I do a lot of work with the body particularly women. I was frustrated to discover that in posting my first Portfolio image onto the site I was told it was NSFW the work in question features a seated nude female that is not doing anything overly sexual, just sitting. after putting stickers over her nipples, I was able to post the image. as a portrait artist working with a female body, it frustrates me that yet another platform, cannot get the difference between over sexual content and a female nipple. Would we flag Botticelli‘s Venus for having an exposed breast?
I would urge Cara‘s development team to focus a little attention on whatever program or system they have in place for determining what is appropriate and what is not. if we are determining that Female nipples alone Cause something to be NSFW I fear that a great deal of art that could be presented on the site will be flagged. I know there’s a trend among “the algorithms” to target people presenting female bodies in non-sexual art, and I am very much hoping that Cara can break this trend.
Like many artists, I’m very frustrated with Insta. Not only the whole AI thing but being constantly bombarded with msgs offering to boost followers, reels cluttering my feed, messages from the NFT crazies. This app is a ray of light that hopefully will give us a space to post and share art with other artists and keep all the riff raff out. It’s in Beta but seems to be great so far once I figured out how to use it. I know there’s a small team working this app but I really hope they keep it for artists only. I’ve already managed to come across some people’s pages who have comments left that we all dread “great artworks, are they for sale?” Etc. I clicked on the person who commented and no surprise , they are a digital marketer. Ya say you’re an NFTer without saying you’re an NFTer. Please keep these people OUT!
Some bugs to fix, when you’re making a board and you name it there’s a plethora of problems, first, why does the title have to be unique? Am I getting points for creativity? It’s really annoying because no matter what you put as the title it never works, eventually I gave up and started raging. Second, the board actually does save (but it doesn’t tell you that) so now I have 20 boards of just different cuss words. Third, more of just a suggestion but you should make it easier to follow someone. Forth, I pressed ‘sign in’ instead of ‘sign up’ on accident and there’s no way to go back unless you exit out entirely. Other than that it’s pretty great.
If we don’t want our art to be stolen and don’t want to be exploited by major companies, we need to support the small ones trying to actually make a stand for us. I give this 5 stars knowing it’s not where it needs to be but I’m willing to wait for them to figure everything out cause the alternative is having my art fed through AI in this dystopian hellscape. Seeing some of these reviews, people are really being unreasonable when this app is run by a team of volunteers that wasn’t expecting to get almost a million new users in less than a week. If we don’t want to be robbed and exploited by big companies…We need to be patient and support the people who are trying to help.
I just made my account last week and have been on there everyday since. The interface feels like a mash of Twitter, and old Instagram. I dislike other social media cause it feels like everything is catered to businesses and already big creators. On Cara I feel like I’m actually connected to other artists and real people, which I haven’t felt in years on other social media. I made an account just to support other artists and didn’t think much of my own art, but I’ve gotten more traction in a week on Cara than 3 years on my art account on IG. I honestly love the idea of Cara, and wish the best for this platform.
Most of the negative reviews say it’s slow and laggy, but that’s only because they didn’t expect to see so much traffic, and the team has been working tirelessly to fix it. I have not had any issues with that in the last few days.
The app itself is amazing and I think it has so much potential for artists. It balances professional and causal use extremely well, allowing users to both boast a portfolio and make Twitter-like posts to their timeline. It’s easy to discover other artists and interact, and so far the community has been extremely supportive and active. I hope it continues this way and can succeed DeviantArt.
This app is a breath of fresh air. I’ve never had such good interactions with real people on social media. I’m a tiny artist, I’m not bringing a big following with me, so these interactions are genuine and organic. I haven’t had a single post ignored or squashed out of existence by the almighty algorithm, even if it’s just receiving a like or two. There are obviously going to be bugs and issues this early, especially with the massive growth they’ve been experiencing. The team is incredibly responsive to bugs and feedback, so while things might be slow or a post can’t make it through or something wrongfully gets flagged as AI, I can be patient because the rest is so good. And I’d rather have something flagged incorrectly as AI then having lots of AI make it through the filter. There is a lot of room for growth here though, like being more welcoming to other kinds of artists (categories for more visual arts like ceramics, fiber arts, and other 3D traditional arts, as well as other kinds of arts like music and writing), but I’ve seen those suggestions thrown around a lot and I believe they will come with time.
I believe in Jingna’s vision. It’s an absolutely cool social media platform that can benefit artists around the world. People needed to remember that the app is still in Beta mode so there is glitches, bugs, and issues need to be fix. They start out as a small team and if given more time, it will be no problem in the future. I mostly used Cara on browser or my computer which works nicely and fast. To be able to interact with people where I am free from AI images, it’s a heaven where I can finally see the artworks from my favorite artists. Please continue to do the good work, so very grateful we have something alternative as to Instagram or Artstation.
A bit unstable, but I assume that situation will improve. The real red flag is that Cara forces its algorithmic timeline on you, with no way of setting just the people you're following as a default. That is a *really* bad sign. Even Twitter never did that. (It's not possible in the timeline settings to set the "people you follow" to 100% and the junk to 0%.) I was drawn to Cara because they gave the impression that they respected artists and users. Denying me control of my timeline in the name of "user engagement" is a pretty glaring indication of how much the people who run Cara respect their users. Even if they've adopted an ethical stance on AI right now, I'm pretty tired of being burned by social networks that just get more and more awful. The fact I'm already seeing flickers of the usual tech-company user-hostility on a service that's barely just launched gives me real pause about getting too invested in Cara.
I’ve currently no complaints. It’s new and growing swiftly so I understand that has some growing pains that comes when you grow faster than you can keep up between hardware and software updates so the occasional bug isn’t a deal breaker.
A platform for everyone, which respects artists, is really fantastic and I LOVE seeing so much art on my page. While as a realistic I recognize it’s possible for sustainability there could be ads in the future - ground level freedom of that is magical. It’s even easier to find more artists to follow and the way you can set up how you view content is really genius. You can put your percentage of content you follow vs new content shown to you.
I’ve got no complaints. It’s wonderful and I highly recommend it for everyone, especially artists and art enthusiasts 💕
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