The constant creation of content

[karamuki]

I should start by saying that I'm a graphic designer. I do a lot of social media work due to this as well.
This is a thought that came to my mind many months ago while working on an Instagram post and I thought I'd like to share it here.

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I find it seemingly overwhelming that my occupation is to create 'content.' That I am to add to massive pool of already massive amounts of content seemingly with an end goal in mind of influencing a viewer or consumer. It is not that it is not meaningful content but that it is more...adding more files to someone's limited hard drive space or internal system memory, using up more of a person's internet bandwidth, and to what end?

I'm being paid to take up someone's time, I'm being paid to add more to the ever increasing amount of content being created every single day around the world. It feels...wasteful. I no longer go on social media anymore (except YouTube) as it is clear to me there is no benefit to me or to anyone anymore and the Instagram content I make as a job is so worthless.

Where is the ceiling of this content pool? When will it start overflowing and content creation just dies out? When will we, as an internet collective, decide, in marketing, design, and internet culture, to remove content instead of generating it?

I made up a term for myself. "Digital sustainability" is my idea that maybe there is too much content out on the internet and that it is still growing and growing. At what point will the world think "this is too much content" or that it's all meaningless and then the internet or the digital world transition, and what would that world look like in a response to the overabundance of content and media? When will we run out of servers and computers to hold all our data? When will the world's electrical and water infrastructures not be enough to sustain the machines? Would social media die out? Would everybody just abandon computers? Will tech literacy be at an all time high or low? Will sections of the internet fracture into intranets? I don't know.

The words that come to my mind as a response to this question is "digital sustainability" although I do not know what that means yet. Maybe it means an openness to sacrifice content for the sake of saving space, but I support preservation of the internet and its history. Maybe content will transition into something more meaningful.

 

[MorphedSnowman]

I had something like these thoughts too. And I feel I have some hatred of things being "content". There's some not-so-subtle connotation around it that it should be produced on mass and quickly. Something like a factory product. I even personally became friends with an artist on instagram too, and I heard the same story. With schedules and what not to stay relevant. And to me that's a shame. We used to treasure art of all kind and it's production was based around "when it's done it'll be done", not to make as much of it as possible in shortest amount of time. I like the idea of digital sustainability too. I think something that's slower, but way more personal and high quality could have potential to be meaningful and actually be more than just "content".

 

[handoferis]

Content has a connotation that your work is content for some other platform. Fuck content. I want people to make shit for themselves, not the vagaries of some disgusting piss platform. I almost always enjoy stuff more when someone's made something for their own pleasure, rather than trying to make something "for" me

 

[thewhiterose]

As a freelance illustrator I feel sick to my stomach some days knowing that I'm slaving over something someone is going to glance at, briefly decide whether to click "like" or not, and move on to munch down the next french fry in the pack without another thought. I've legit sat up at night sobbing over feeling totally worthless and feeling sorry for myself over this.

I guess I'm kind of coming from a different angle but it's just crazy to see how it's absolutely quantity over quality when it comes to art on social media. It's a really rough time to be an artist who likes to take their time on things. I know a girl who posts little quick fanart sketches 3 times a day and has insane engagement and even deals with big gaming companies, and it totally comes down to her knowing how to manipulate the algorithm and fire her art into as many eyes as possible. Meanwhile I know tons or artists who are insanely talented (like, doing digital paintings using renaissance techniques, that kind of thing) that have maybe 500 followers and piss poor engagement.

It's turned online artist's lives into a grindfest of carpal tunnel, depression, and burnout.

Luckily I have several dedicated clients so even with low engagement I do make a decent living.
I try to remind myself that I'd rather have 100 dedicated "fans" of my art than 100,000 randos who never engage (and are probably robots).