Are you content?

2023-02-04

I can’t escape the word “content” lately.

Maybe because I’ve been listening to a media podcast for the past few months.

When journalists, PR people, social media companies refer to stuff on the internet, they usually call it “content”.

Every single time, gets my blood to bloody boiling levels. What is content? It’s this blog post I spent so much time writing, reading and re-reading. It is a video game several people spent several years working their ass off to get it into a playable state. It’s music, video essays, fun, human emotions.

“Content” strips all those things of their worth and interest. “Content” is just a row in a database, some bits on a server. Yet those bits exist because they have a meaning beyond the magnetization of Ångström-sized mechanical pieces.

Talking about human creative output as “content” is not just reductive, it’s destructive.

If journalism is content, your newspaper is just a bunch of pulp with ink on it. And your journalists are a mean for you to make sure there is the correct amount of pulp and ink. As if people “consuming” newspaper were literally eating them.

A piece of investigative journalism is not “content”. Labelling it “content” only serves to destroy meaning. “Content” erases that critical property that helps us place “investigative journalism” in our society and understand its purpose.

You know, the actual purpose of a newspaper!

People don’t consume¹ newspapers for calories (nor fibers), they inform themselves to know what’s going on around them, and if (for example) important people keep their word.

From the point of view of a social media owner (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) “content” makes sense. “Content” in the sense of an object being contained is what the page contains, I would use that word if I were writting some code.

But outside of the very narrow domain of programming, “content” breaks appart. Even for Facebook. Facebook is careful as to what “content” to show to whom, to maximize the amount of ads shoved into your face. It’s not just about the bits, it’s about everything else than the bits, in fact: The metadata, the information about the text, picture, video.

Now people who should know better are obsessed with “content” and are debasing their own creative output.

When talking about your work, don’t use “content”.

You ain’t making a social media website, you are just using them, your “content” has value beyond being an ordered collection of bits.

Your post is not just filler to get people to waste time on Facebook (or your own website for that mater), it’s a piece of yourself, twisted so that others may enjoy it and welcome it in their heart. A lovingly backed cake, that an infinite amount of people can eat.

Your creative production is more than a collection of bits to trap eyeballs to sell to Coke. It’s something meaningful or beautiful that can change the world. You wouldn’t be creating it otherwise.