Death By Content: An Introduction

I’d like to pose a question: have you ever thought about the universe of useless shit we all create on a daily basis? I’m not talking about plastic or Styrofoam cups. I’m talking about content. With the rise of social media and platforms like Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook — portals into new worlds have been opened. The space doesn’t seem “real,” but that doesn’t stop people from doing what they do best with clean new spaces: fill them with waste. 

I’m going to be honest, I feel very conflicted about writing this post. On the one hand, giving a voice to everyone levels the playing field. Back in the 1500’s very few people had a voice — and they used their voice to sell “Indulgences” to poor illiterate dumb-shits who thought they had to cough up money to the Catholic Church, otherwise they’d go to hell. That’s bad. But here’s the rub: all these idiots who were dumb enough to believe that they had to buy their way into heaven? Their great-great-great-great grand-kids are now on YouTube making SHIT like this.

This sucks. Big time. If you think this is good, I’ve got bad news. You suck too. Sorry.

Despite the above atrocity, there is currently an ungodly amount of great content out there—why is this a problem? I don’t know… Why is cocaine a problem? It’s called too much of a good thing. The amount of time spent consuming media and pop culture in the ever-expanding quest for the iPhone dopamine drip is a problem. It’s synthetic purpose. There are dollars to be made by shoveling sludge into a bottomless pit — what do you think people are going to do? They’re going to grab a shovel. These are the makers. Hours and hours are spent just generating cloud based content, and it’s all on tap, all the time. From Twitter to Hulu to Instagram — our phones and televisions have become portals into alternate realities. All of our most ambitious and artistic minds are in a constant frenzy to maximize output and flood the ether before the canaries start singing. Meanwhile, everyone else stares, drools, repeats as the world outside burns down around them. Is this really time well spent? No. it’s a cycle of nothing. Then again, it’s cheaper than cocaine. 

I grew up with CDs and VHS tapes (yeah I’m old — eat me). Those are scarce and finite goods. THERE IS VALUE IN THAT SCARCITY. People are no longer going to have favorite albums, or favorite movies. These days, it’s an all-you-can-eat content buffet. Your eyes are far bigger than your stomach, and the result is dissatisfaction, dystopia, and a dash of dysentery. Without scarcity, we’ve lost a checks and balances system of impactful art and just turned media into a high school talent show. For every “Mozart” who brings the house down, there’s 15,000 kids who are destined for the middle. 

Remember those sludge shovels? Not everyone who grabs one is a certified shoveler. The rise of the binge watch has birthed a two headed identical conjoined twin demon, with one head being the trending content, and the other head being a swamp full of liquid shit. 

I know what you’re thinking: “Why not just ignore it? You don’t have to watch anything.” Yeah — wrong. Do you know how much society revolves around this stuff? The content through YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and HBO goes viral. It takes over social media (which is just…a whole other nightmare I’ll try to unravel in a later post). If you do not engage, you become a pariah. People define themselves by the content they ingest. A job and a family is simply something you do between the content. I work in advertising. If I don’t understand what a fucking Khaleesi is, I may as well line up for food stamps. 

So why is all of this happening? It’s a perfect storm. A time in history where the American dream is lying on the ground like a prized fighter — and even though the crowd is screaming for him to get up, down he stays. Media, a once temporary escape, has now become a replacement for the dream. A synthetic life, where you can be who you want to be and live a full and vivacious life from a studio apartment. As long as you have a flat screen, a smart phone, and the internet, the world is your AR oyster. The real world and real relationships come with problems. They come with risks and flaws. If you don’t have to endure those… why would you?