Why ArTToys Will Never Belong to Algorithms. The Day Instagram Erased Us #00002 Art toy Gama Diaries

Chronicles & Confesional Legacy. The Story behind Art Toy Gama Collective

Back in August 2022, Instagram wiped out two of our most important accounts. One had approximately 150,000 followers, the other around 80,000. Just like that, gone. Years of work, conversations, connections, and stories disappeared overnight. No warning. No explanation.

Among those followers? Justin Bieber.
Yeah, you read that right.
Back when he followed barely 200 accounts, we were one of them.
When he hit that follow button? Chaos.
Our DMs exploded like we had just become the official Bieber hotline. Messages from fans poured in…asking if we knew him, if we could send him a note, or pass along their mixtapes.

It was funny. Wild. But also... revealing.

Because here’s the real story:
Social media is not our house.
We thought we were building something meaningful, but we were building it on someone else’s land.
We thought our audience belonged to us, but we were just feeding the algorithm.

We realized: if our Voice, our Stories, our Art, our Movement… could be deleted in a click?
Then it was time to build somewhere they couldn’t touch.

So here we are, for the first time ever, on the official blog of Art Toy Gama’s website.

Sharing not just the nuts and bolts of Art Toy Gama, that is the realities of collecting, curating, creating, selling…but the Stories that make us who we are.

The raw stories that define us: The chaos, the near-collapses, the triumphs.

A Movement that began in March 2014 with one bold belief:
We didn’t lose our inner child. We turned it into Art with purpose.

Here, there’s no algorithm deciding what’s worth seeing.
Here, there’s only Memory, Identity, Rebellion, and You.

You choose if you listen, read, or feel.
We share what we’ve lived: the highs, the lows, and the in-betweens.
Yes, we’ll still show and sell the Art Toys, prints, paintings, books that fuel us.
But more than commerce, we want to bring you into our world.

Because despite losing years of followers, Likes, and algorithmic favor...

We’re still here…Yes, also back on Instagram…
→ with our official Art Toy Gama account,
→ and with others that serve more specific corners of this growing galaxy: Art Toy Newsletter account; Art Toy Memories account; Art Toy Files account…

But more importantly, we’re here, on our terms.
Building a space where collectors, artists, brands, curators, gallerists, shops, and art fair visionaries can all show up as they are; not for a Like, but for a Legacy.

No algorithm will ever tell us who we are.
No platform will ever define what’s worth remembering.

If You’re still reading, that means it hits You too.
You’ve felt it.
This is bigger than posts. Bigger than sales.
It’s about Dis(Playing) who we are… before someone else writes our story for us.

📬 Ready to hear more stories they can’t delete?

Join our Rebel Bulletin — straight from the studio, unfiltered and unforgettable.
→ [Subscribe to the Newsletter]

The First and Only Art Toy Newsletter Society in the World here: https://emails.arttoygama.com/l/email-subscription

📓 This post is adapted from an original story first published on our Tumblr blog in February 2015. We kept the truth. We just sharpened the edges.

Art Toys. Paintings. Fine Art Prints. Not what You expect.

The Power of Dis(Play)

Real collectors don't follow trends—they redefine them