Back in the day, I used to write various series of of posts, articles and even short stories. I haven't done it for a long time and have instead focused more on the article side of things, though I am not sure why, as there was an immense amount of value to write across different content structures, and they often fed into each other, and off each other. They also tended to inspire other articles to be written by people who were interested in fleshing them out further, or in a different direction, broadening the ground they covered.
While I love to write, sometimes I feel like I have painted myself into the corner, where each thought has to be more fully considered, rather than give them some light, and let them grow and evolve a bit. So, I think I am going to try to return a little to some of these habits, which might also be a relief for those who want to read some thoughts to reflect on, but don't necessarily always want a complete wall of text. Not that these types of posts are necessarily going to be short.
What got me thinking about this was a discussion I had with a colleague over lunch, when we were talking about standup routines. He had gone to see Louis C.K. at some point and while he thought it was good, he mentioned that a lot of it had been "recycled" from past shows, so the audience had heard at least some of it before.
Recently, I have been discussing how medium affects outcomes, looking at for instance, how we might interpret the same content differently, depending on the source, like whether we read digitally or in paper format. Similarly, standup has been greatly affected by repeatable media and the internet, where for example, back in the 60s, comedians would tell other comedians jokes, and compete on the delivery. People didn't mind the repetition in the same way, because the way the joke was told differed across comedians.
And then, an individual comedian would move from night to night and club to club telling their "tight ten" set. The audience didn't have a recording of it and would change nightly, so the material seemed fresh for longer. But even then, they would be asked to tell particular jokes that the audience may have heard before, because they like that delivery. However, these days, if we like a comedian, we have all of their material on demand and can watch it over and over, so that when we go to a live show, a lot of it isn't new to us at all - it is stale.
And, this doesn't just affect standup, as we have created a world of on-demand, but we also demand constantly new content, fresh material. Gone are the days where people would buy an album and listen to every song on repeat for months on end, now it is all disposable, replaced by the next version. It is no wonder that the youngest generation's humor is so nonsensical, because they have to pump "new" material out constantly, regardless of quality or relevance. It is just a mess - in my opinion.
What happens though is that rather than refinement of ideas where depth is added over the space of a million iterations, it is a race to the bottom for new material to grab the attention of people with very low attention spans and wide interests with little experience. The content algorithms favor volume, not quality, which means volume is incentivized and rewarded, but because it doesn't encourage growth, the careers are short, because new runs out fast from one source, and if no one is interested in the depth, they just move onto the new source.
We see this in media for example, where content is there for clickbait to drive ad revenue, not for quality of information to drive improvement in understanding and subsequently, improvement in people's lives. And, as some people might have recognized and stated, if it doesn't improve us, why are we doing it? This in itself is an interesting question that deserves an article, because what we have been convinced and conditioned to favor, is attention, as if that translates into life value.
The on-demand world and economy we have supported has made not only content creators more disposable, but also us as people, because we have been conditioned to always want new, including what we are getting from each other. Rather than improving together, we are looking for people who have what we are looking for already - a better version, or something new completely.
But new inevitably gets old and that lifecycle is decreasing rapidly, so people are becoming bored faster, demanding even more. This means that the rate of creation has to increase and it is like the adage of a tradesperson -
Quality. Cheap. Fast. - Pick any two.
You can have Quality and Cheap, but it won't be Fast. Cheap and Fast, but it won't be Quality. Fast and Quality, but it won't be cheap.
The more our content appetites grow, the faster the rate of supply, but the lower the quality. And, because the internet is driven by the ad model, the feeling is that it is free, so we aren't weren't even willing to pay for higher quality content - though hopefully, that will change more with Web 3 development.
And as you can see, based on the entry paragraphs, you might have thought this was going to be a shorter article, but once I started diving in, I couldn't stop, and I am only scratching the surface of my thoughts on this. However, I am going to put more thought down and hope that other people will pick them up and add their own perspectives, broadening our collective understanding and deepening our knowledge together.
Quality content isn't about the length of an article, or the images used, it is about how it impacts on our experience. Does it help us reflect on our lives, improve our processes, or encourage us to get better at something? Or is it there just to consume, to eat up our time, and make us feel like it was worth it, even though nothing changed in us at all?
If the only condition we demand is "new", we are going to lower the value significantly of what is actually produced. So, for me, some reflective posts on topics that come to mind, help me evolve my thinking and in time, bring clarity to my world, and hopefully take others on the journey too. So, I think I will return at least partially to my roots and dive a little deeper, even if not fully baked. Improvement is a process, a refinement, and exploration of possibility and a development of skills to make it happen.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
