Fast Food Media

When I returned from my road trip, I thought it would be cool to share some stuff with my friends and those who follow my account… and that’s when something dawned on me.

I have been a content writer for my clients for years now, and I think, deep down, I knew this already. I suppose it is only now that I’ve realized how big of a problem this is.

FAST FOOD MEDIA.

You consume it within seconds, you get close to 0% value, yet you feel full. Still, very quickly, you get hungry again, and you need more. Not to mention how highly addictive it is.

We only read news headlines, making (often very uneducated) assumptions. Even worse, we then go and spread it around. The videos we watch have to be no longer than 1 minute long. Otherwise, we get bored. Many creators use only trending music for their videos because if they dare try to use something that isn’t already popular, their views will go down. That’s a scary thought for many!

When everything is content, then what value does it actually have?

This is also bad for those true creatives, incredibly talented people, who can actually bring value to the world but get unnoticed in the pool of popularity contests.

I know I sound like a babushka preaching, yet, this is not the goal at all. I don’t want the world to go back to ¨the good old days¨. I want people to be truly free in their expressions without trying to fit in the box provided by the almighty algorithm. Try creating for conveying your message, not for reach. Guess what happens when people like something that lacks value? 99% of them will forget what they saw within less than a day.

Copywriting is a painful topic on its own. It used to be that you had to do research, study potentially complicated articles, be an expert in the field, and then write something that people could understand. These days it often involves changing a couple of words without fact-checking information, quickly putting together a catchy image to go with it, and Voilà! You are in the game! Do you all know what happens during DNA replication? We get old. What is worse is when there is a mistake in this process. We call it cancer. This is what happens with information, slowly and unnoticeably, until it might be too late.

My point is that talented people should not waste their time on algorithms. I rarely meet those who actually enjoy doing things on social media, but they know that they have to. This “have to” attitude is the killer of creativity. IT IS NORMAL to have days when you have nothing to say, and if you have nothing to say, should you be forced to speak just because you are worried about your stats going down?

The solution is not simple, and it requires each and every one of us to consume (and create) media more responsibly and consciously. I dare say even mindfully. When you catch yourself mindlessly scrolling through your feed, think about what value you are getting (or giving) and is it actually worth your time. Incredibly, we live in an age of abundance of information. That being said, it can be a source of opportunities beyond belief OR a fount of ignorance and demotivation.