I have to admit I have a real bug up my ass about people referring to the substance of creative output as "content". I feel like I need to get over myself with this frustration, but it's becoming an unrelenting drumbeat by people and here's why it annoys me: 🧵
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The product of mass media isn't the "content" or the "container", it's the attention of the audience.
This makes social media cheaper to produce, and the degree of audience segmentation possible makes that audience more valuable to advertisers.
I just hope people are more mindful about sacrificing their role as artists - the reason these platforms exist. Not the other way around.
Without the "content" everything would be empty. We'd live in a world of blank rectangles and empty pages. "Content" is the diff between a nourishing meal and an empty bowl.
Also the juice is more important. The pitcher just makes it easier to move around without spilling. It would have to be one ornate pitcher to eclipse the juice.
(I write poetry, make exhibits, watch films, not 'content'; but I do think 'content' fits a very few performance arts — porn for one.)
seriously. what would you call this?
Honestly, "content" is a pretty smart word to use to make it seem like the ads and the art are equally valuable. I hate it, but it's smart.
Art may be sold, but it's not just a simple commodity product. It's more than a widget. The venues you mention know that. Social media platforms don't care.
Prometheus, not so much:
Q: yo Prometheus wassup
A: Oh, you know. Same eagles, new liver.
if you’re not sure but it’s much easier to call it content than say you’re a filmmaker, graphic designer copy writer when it’s all just words and the same in the end
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artist's_Shit
I dont think it was widely called "content" until after YT had its breakthrough.
Monetizing user data without it being personal data seems tonbe the inflection point.
The only time I call something "content", it's referring to my own videos with spite because YT systems and algorimth, or spitefully spitting on my fellow MMo players complaining about they don't have enough "content".
An entire open world, and players are incapable of making shit up.
But what is it that's driving engagement? It's more than your work's ability to be posted. It's something about your work. I guess I'm yearning for a world where we talk about that more than its social media value.
It is perfectly reasonable never to use the word "content" for your art or anyone else's creations.
The overall value of the individual becomes monetary generation and nothing more.
From their perspective, whatever "content" on their platform is irrelevant, as long as they can make bank on it.
And most creatives don't like being used.
realllly helps me clarify, thank you
What this highlights is the fact that the capitalist class looks at virtually everyone the same way you'd see a cow on a farm, or an apple tree in an orchard.
It's really like that.
#thanx4sayingit
it's corporate bullshit all the way down.
When corporations are people, where does that leave the humans?