I’ve been writing for a little bit now and like most who create content I wonder how to get my stuff out there. Not just to the most people, but to people who care. Increasingly I’m realising that ultimately there are few out there who my content will reach and of them, few will read, care of engage with it.
When I was younger I benefited from a very different social media landscape. Video content was hard to put together and the internet was slower, so fewer people made it and, and audiences were more discerning with what they would watch. I remember waiting 10 minutes to load up a five minute video on YouTube back in the day. A two hour video podcast? Not an option. If I wanted to watch long from content I’d be limited to broadcast television or DVDs.
Podcasts similarly had too many production barriers to entry and, their market was too small. Although Hamish and Andy rode this wave early, it was teams like theirs – either dedicated or well-funded who could put out quality content regularly. Even so, podcasts were often promotional tools to lead people to their radio show, or passion projects with limited commercialisation opportunities.
Written content too was different. Internet speeds often meant this was the most impactful content for people to consume which helped drive numbers towards the earlier wave of content creators, bloggers. Blogs rode this wave and were powered by two additional forces, the comment ecosystem and the simplicity of early social media algorithms. Even just a decade ago people would comment far more frequently and (by today’s standards) naively, putting interesting and potentially controversial takes out in public across now almost dead platforms including forums and blogs. There seemed to be more patience, good will and discussion, so blogs were able to create a sense of community which strengthened the foundations of their readership figures.
The second force that helped blogs, and all independent media, was the (relatively) simple algorithms which once showed content chronologically, favoured content people actually subscribed to, and didn’t discriminate against content which directed people away from host websites.
Let’s consider the situation today through. The internet is fast and cheap. Previously inaccessible forms of media, notably video were now available to the masses with minimal latency. Streaming rose with this wave, and social media video did too, the process dominating less engaging forms of media including written media and even the (now) frustrating linear broadcast now that viewers could opt to watch what they wanted when they wanted.
Production also became a lot earlier with the proliferation of mobile cameras and editing software, which is increasingly being refined and simplified to make it easier for people to produce content. Aiding this production support were the incentives for creating content. Sponsorship and exclusivity deals fund careers in content production where they once didn’t exist, replacing a production cohort of passionate hobbyists with a production cohort of professionals. This only served to make the content competition for eyes more competitive and more slick.
All of these factors are being driven by the strongest of all forces, the refinement of social media algorithms which minimise leakage from their platforms and maximise engagement. This has contributed to the liquification of video content on Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and more – at the expense of all others. Worse still, the sheer volume of content now available is impossible for humans to comprehend, so that even new content cannot cut through as it once did on novelty factor alone, now forced to compete against a lifetime of extreme, hilarious, dramatic, engaging content. What does this mean? It means that even well-funded productions stand little chance to make an impact. Every broadcast sitcom now needs to compete with ‘Friends’ and ‘Seinfeld’, every new drama film needs to compete with ‘Shawshank Redemption and a million others which are practically available to viewers now.
AI further threatens existing creators by providing new tools to mass produce content, mostly low level, which is engaging enough to click. Every poorly drawn AI photo of Agia Sofia drappd in Greek flags will trigger hundreds of comments, from people who have chosen to engage with it over reading real news about what is happening in the region. AI is now posing a new threat, in the form of AI profiles and commenters. Foreign twitter bots have long been a joke online, but now AI allows for these artificial profiles to spring up everywhere, making whatever numbers creators receive become meaningless, and making whatever comments creators receive feel empty.
So we are now operating in a space where creators need to compete against the most engaging content from all of history for numbers that may be meaningless. Great. So why write? Well, this isn’t the space for that question. What I want to explore is, with all of this going on, what do I engage with and how?
My habits have definitely changed. A typical day involved scrolling through my phone in the morning. I’m on my home page and never click through links or articles – if something is interesting I read the comments. I’m either just scrolling for headlines or scrolling through video content. I like to read a physical book in the mornings, I don’t really read magazines at home. I usually read novels, non-fiction pop-science/business books, or poetry. At work I can’t go on social media so I scan a number of sites directly, The Age, a couple of blogs I like. I sometimes lurk on forums or reddit – and usually the same sub-reddits. I read the comments there, and rarely click through the links. At lunch I might read more or scroll through my phone, message people. On the way home I read or scroll through my phone. Occasionally I listen to podcasts or music on the way home, but this is rare, eclectic and the only habitual listening I do would be Hamish and Andy. Then at home if I have the time, I will go online. On my TV I will usually watch YouTube, flicking through suggested videos on my home page, or I will play FIFA. On my phone I will scroll as described above. When I am on my computer, I will either be working, scanning emails or scrolling social media. On twitter I scan for headlines but don’t click links, I might engage with a video. On facebook I do the same, with the additional note that I can spend some time here in different facebook groups I’ve joined. On reddit I scan the same sub-reddits and read the comments. I sometimes comment, rarely have discussions. I don’t watch YouTube on my computer anymore as I have it on TV now. Additional note, if I play FIFA or have time, I may put on a long form podcast on TV or on my phone while I multitask.
So that’s my pattern. I guess I don’t really engage deeply in any media, nor do I have strong habits – with the exception of multitasking alongside long from podcasts and reading books, I guess I’m not really engaging in the kind of content I’m producing. Now that’s pretty sobering. I here often that you should put out what you want to see, well I clearly don’t want what I am putting out. But why do I do it? Well partly to solidify learning and process content I’ve consume like book reviews, partly to create something and express myself like poetry, partly to explore a topic like these kind of blogs, and partly because I think it’s cool like the South stuff, I think it makes a difference.
I kind of saw this dynamic with poetry. There is just so much of it, but I wonder how many people read it AND write it. The few who read it probably don’t have a network to discuss it, it becomes an individual pursuit, not a communal one. In the social spaces, like poetry readings – and I’ll extend that to open mic comedy – the audience is almost always the people who are performing. How few find an audience that actually cares is amazing.
Is it even worth promoting my own work knowing it can’t compete in the algorithms? Is it even worth putting content out there knowing it may come back and bite me in the future? I don’t know. Sometimes this just feels like the only thing that comes easily to me, even if it’s not valued by anyone else, it’s nice feeling capable at something.
ehhere 
Leave a comment