I Stopped “Creating Content”

stopamertime

A good point overall. It's skin-deep, though. Do you think a catch-all name is useful for something like content? Is it only distasteful on the internet/TV/etc. because of the negative impacts of mass-production and commoditisation, or is the idea itself inherently distasteful?

pinter69

For me the term users sometimes sounds similar to traffic. I prefer customers - that you serve with your product.

neochief

I feel that all the terms mentioned are useful in specific contexts. Web traffic brings visitors to your resource. If they read your blog, they become readers. If they use your products, they become users. When someone buys something from you, they become a customer.

miyoji

The first paragraph seems to insinuate that "content" is replacing "art", but that doesn't seem at all related to what the author's actual work looks like, nor does it seem related to the thrust of the argument, which is about how descriptions of your work influence how you think about it. The entire blog looks more like "content" than David to my eyes, but maybe that's because most of the blog predates this shift in the author's thinking?

inerte

Related, Patrick H Willems did a long video about it and I recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAtbFwzZp6Y

sgarland

This resonates with me. I’ve always found the term annoying, because it felt like it was distilling artistic expression down to its most abstract form: content. If all you’re producing is abstract “content,” why should I participate? What makes it special?

m0llusk

Ironic that this piece is mostly discontent.

serhack_

after discovering most of my content has been scraped thousands of times, I don't have any willingness to continue posting my blog. Well, yes, I was expecting that (you know.. by publishing content on the net, everyone could read it -- and profit off!). I've some content for some months, including some analysis. I wish somebody could motivate me to publish them anyway.

keiferski

I actually really like the term content creator , because it removes the artificial boundaries that come with being a writer, photographer, filmmaker, etc. and just lets you make stuff. The medium doesn't matter if you're a content creator, to a large extent. The alternative is "art" but that comes with a lot of other baggage that often sounds unintentionally pretentious, especially if you aren't actually creating paintings/sculptures/traditional/contemporary studio art. The word creative used to serve a similar purpose, but nowadays I think it sounds both blasé and pretentious. Yes, content does come with an expectation that you're creating things for an commercial audience; however, I think content is tied to media , and not merely any sort of created object. And so by extension you are participating in the global media sphere by making content, and not just painting for your own enjoyment. It’s also worth pointing out that while Michelangelo did think of himself as an artist and a sculptor and painter, those professions were basically tradesmen at the time. The concept of high art, in the purely non-economic way we think of today, didn’t come for centuries after his life.

arjie

> She said, “Oh, yeah, he always sends me great leads.” I think she meant it as a compliment, but she might as well have said, “Oh, yeah, he’s so good at spotting gullible marks.” That’s not what it means. It means that the vendor and you are a good fit for each other. The hard part in almost all these things is that two parties would both benefit if they had common knowledge but they don’t have common knowledge. The guy who puts the two together is useful. That’s who you describe as “sending great leads”. It’s not clear to me why this style of manufactured grievance writing is popular. The world is full of Pareto wins.

jun_lung

I think it helps to draw a clear boundary between what is "content" and what is "art", since they ultimately serve different purposes and have vastly different factors that go into their creation. To me, "content" is anything created with the goal of maximizing consumption, whereas "art" is an attempt to express or give form to some kind of idea or emotion. The lines blur when you get to things like film, where those two goals often compete, but it's pretty easy to put things into these two categories. And this isn't to say that "content creation" is any less valid than "creating art". There are plenty of "content creators" who know exactly what they are making at the end of the day (a product) and don't hide that fact or try to dress it up under the pretense of being anything more.

abanana

I'd give this article multiple upvotes if I could. The first section did a great job of grabbing my attention. It feels like these days, all creative works are lumped together as "content", anything not brand-new and bleeding-edge is labelled "legacy" (I see this more on HN than anywhere), and everything is distilled down to "engagement" and "conversions". I hate business buzzword-jargon, the corporate in-group lingo, and I've also always disliked this use of the word "content". It's too generic - we might as well be calling it "stuff". As a child, I used to notice that there were some other kids who, upon hearing a word that was new to them, would immediately start using it incessantly, replacing the (sometimes richer) choice of words they'd thus far been brought up to use. Very often wrongly, by slightly misunderstanding the meaning, the context, or the word itself, and never checking first. It was clear how the choice of words used, or even the meaning of words, could subtly change within a small group. As I grew older I realised these people appeared to be in the majority, and that it showed how, via various methods of trying to sound clever or in-group signalling, changes in speech patterns spread out across the larger population. Anyway that's my view, now I'll go back to yelling at clouds.

advisedwang

I believe there is a material difference between "content" and other modes of creative output: content is defined by a pipeline. It is desired for it's recurring revenue. You could make the tackiest, most commercial and derivative musical, but it's still not content because it's just one. You could make the most eloquent, poetic and inventive podcast in the world, but so long as you are still doing weekly releases (with ads, plus an ad free patreon, of course) it is content. The tragedy is that we want artists to have reliable income, but the business models, incentives and consumption habits that come with the reliable output to provide that reliable income lead us to the ugliness that people blame on "content".

xg15

> They can’t do what we do. And they hate us for it. You could make a plausible conspiracy theory that this was why so much capital was invested to develop generative AI: Maybe the holy grail of tech CEOs wasn't AGI, it was a web full of content without those annoying content creators...

hyperpape

Different people should use different words. I don't think a content creator would naturally describe themselves as a content creator. The word is useful for contexts where you need to generalize over all the different types, but that's not useful when speaking about yourself. So a writer says "I'm a writer", not "I'm a content creator." But writing this paragraph, I needed a word to generalize. P.S. The closest alternative word might be artist, but it's not quite right--some writers are artists and some aren't.

glial

I appreciate this push-back. I keep a running list of words like this...content, product, device, experience, space, vehicle, resource, etc. I can't put my finger on why, but all of these make me distrust the speaker.

firefoxd

Content used to be a bad word, now kids want to become content creators when they grow up. I was hired at a job the very same day Google released their first Panda update[0]. This was the update that nuked all content farmers from search results. It was complete chaos, I sat in an empty cubicle, not knowing if I should stay or leave while the manager cursed and paced. Our ad revenue went from millions to zero, overnight. Unfortunately, they figured out a trick to game google. Which I guess meant I remained employed. [0]: https://idiallo.com/blog/content-is-bad

podgorniy

Digital marketing creative investment into audience experience with goal of subsequent monetisation. Like and subscribe. -- I could not resist playing this game of words...

sajithdilshan

Surprisingly it was quite easy to read the blog post and well written. However, the author definitely has the gift of gab in writing in terms he can write about anything, but at the same time convey nothing meaningful

seydor

"content" is meant to trigger the novelty reward , thats why we don't get classics among content creators. But i think we all agreed that AI has put an end to this content-monetization era.