The video, shot on a cellphone from a first-person view, takes place in a bathroom. Embedded at the bottom are the words “what every teenager hides from their parents.” The person holding the phone takes a golf ball and briefly runs it under water from the sink. They then rub the golf ball against a roll of toilet paper, leaving a light impression of moisture. And that’s it; the video ends and starts over again, an infinite empty loop. If you’re wondering what exactly it is that “every teenager hides from their parents,” the answer is nothing. The video is nonsensical, not in some avant garde way but to fulfill its economic purpose. Leaving the viewer confused as to what exactly is being conveyed is a feature, not a bug - the more people are baffled by the video, the more they’ll comment on it to register their confusion, the more times they’ll send it to friends to try and figure out that which cannot be figured out. It is “content,” to use that wretched term, that is devoid of content, a human centipede of virality, monetizing fleeting interest. It’s the inevitable outcome of every bad incentive we’ve created online.
Agreed. And I note, this is why I came to Substack. Almost everywhere else, it is hard to follow creators rather than content. Most of the social apps want their algorithm to control and will feed you want they want to feed you regardless of whom you chose to follow. Publications will leverage the creator with a loyal or large following, and therefore, will not often give you the option of following a creator without subscribing to the rest of their offerings.
I feel somewhat frustrated when I read complaints about bad content polluting one's life. We do not have to pay attention. Often the platform will allow you to tailor your preferences. There is a responsibility here which is surely ours too.
My Reels are mostly delightful and - dare I say it - wholesome. They're snippets of dogs, musicians, street performers and things that remind me how the internet can reveal nice things in the world. To get there I just exercised the options available on each Reel to show me more or less of this kind of thing.
More ‘evidence’--if that were needed--of the shallow, superficial, sad, narcissistic world we inhabit in the first phase of the third decade of the twenty-first century. Everyone should get off all social media; world would be a much saner place.
Freddie, what's good content? I note a lot of your book recommendations. But I wonder what you think more broadly about "the classics," as palliative if not curative of the modern condition. I took a lot out of Romeo and Juliet, recently, for example. Juliet was so young and imaginative and brilliant. There was something quite moving about her character, and it took me out of "the internet," so to speak. I appreciated the book club as something that took us all out, but I stopped participating after The Cement Garden, so I, as a stand-in for your audience, am to blame! Apologies.
I listened to a Freakonomics podcast awhile ago and this particular episode was about how ineffective advertising actually may be and how there isn't any good data to determine its effectiveness. Most of the reasoning is that companies spend billions each year on advertising so it must be effective.
The big takeaway was that so much of what we consume is supported by advertising, if companies decided it wasn't effective and quit, it would have huge consequences.
"The internet is like a person you know who you think can’t possibly stoop any lower, and then manages to pull it off, over and over again."
The internet is a mansion with many rooms. Some of them, after a while, you just learn to not open the door any more. You know, 4chan and its progeny, and Zergnet, Cafemom, TMZ... no one is making you kick that football.
Thankfully, nothing will happen to your access to the largest treasure trove of information in human history. The Internet is worth it for Inter-library loan ordering alone.
As for the Worst of the Internet, the bonehead deadfall traps that most of us occasionally blunder into are nothing compared to some of what social media monitors get paid to review, in order to keep it offline before anyone else even sees it.
“I got detention for writing this in cursive class.” The letters being written spell out "ligma". "ligma" is commonly understood to be the setup to a joke where the punchline is "ligma balls".
For all the reasons you discuss here and more, I've always thought it both pretentious and pathetic when people refer to themselves as "content creators." "Content" is too generic a term to be of any real use.
I've followed Reardon's channel for a very long time. She used to be a regular food channel, designing and baking some really inventive cakes. I loved watching her process and seeing how much work went into her creations. Some years later she made a big announcement video about how YouTube changed its algorithm to favor "content farm" channels over everything else. It caused her channel to stop showing up under suggested videos. She couldn't reach new viewers and her numbers and ad revenue tanked.
I noticed it as a viewer, too. Instead of seeing suggestions for an 18 minute video on how to make a layer cake that looked like a giant Ferrero Rocher, complete with proper editing, high quality narration and camera work, YT would push generic stuff like "100 AMAZING cake decorations YOU'LL LOVE" from channels called I Love Cake, Happy Cake Love, or whatever. They were just low quality reels of cakes being frosted while a crappy song played over it.
I like her newer debunking videos because she puts the same amount of thought and effort into them since she's a quality YouTuber, but it does make me a little sad knowing she switched to them (in part) because her usual baking and food science stuff wasn't reaching anyone anymore.
"A good excuse to withdraw deeper into books, movies, albums, and art, stuff that was created for a deeper purpose than mining fleeting bits of attention for fractions of a penny."
Yes. Just consume normal things, normally. Read a book, listen to an entire album, go to a gallery (or buy a book of art). Get off 97% of the Internet (Substack excluded, ahem). If you engage with "content" on the web, make it extremely narrowly tailored: Your favorite chef on YouTube, say, who teaches you how to cook things of real value, or a Twitter account that provides actual engaging observations or reporting about important things. Subscribe to a message board of narrow focus regarding a worthwhile and meaningful topic. Beyond that, abandon the Internet. It's awful and it has essentially failed.
Freddy, don't you remember these?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_soap_radio
“The internet is like a person you know who you think can’t possibly stoop any lower, and then manages to pull it off, over and over again.”
I would replace “Internet” with “media” and put the big tech industry in the same jail cell.
The Internet is really just a bunch of wires, fibers and integrated circuits.
Agreed. And I note, this is why I came to Substack. Almost everywhere else, it is hard to follow creators rather than content. Most of the social apps want their algorithm to control and will feed you want they want to feed you regardless of whom you chose to follow. Publications will leverage the creator with a loyal or large following, and therefore, will not often give you the option of following a creator without subscribing to the rest of their offerings.
It’s frustrating, but worth it.
I feel somewhat frustrated when I read complaints about bad content polluting one's life. We do not have to pay attention. Often the platform will allow you to tailor your preferences. There is a responsibility here which is surely ours too.
My Reels are mostly delightful and - dare I say it - wholesome. They're snippets of dogs, musicians, street performers and things that remind me how the internet can reveal nice things in the world. To get there I just exercised the options available on each Reel to show me more or less of this kind of thing.
We do not have to be victims of content farms.
More ‘evidence’--if that were needed--of the shallow, superficial, sad, narcissistic world we inhabit in the first phase of the third decade of the twenty-first century. Everyone should get off all social media; world would be a much saner place.
Michael Mohr
‘Sincere American Writing’
https://michaelmohr.substack.com/
Freddie, what's good content? I note a lot of your book recommendations. But I wonder what you think more broadly about "the classics," as palliative if not curative of the modern condition. I took a lot out of Romeo and Juliet, recently, for example. Juliet was so young and imaginative and brilliant. There was something quite moving about her character, and it took me out of "the internet," so to speak. I appreciated the book club as something that took us all out, but I stopped participating after The Cement Garden, so I, as a stand-in for your audience, am to blame! Apologies.
It's bad on purpose to make you click https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/its-bad-on-purpose-to-make-you-click
I listened to a Freakonomics podcast awhile ago and this particular episode was about how ineffective advertising actually may be and how there isn't any good data to determine its effectiveness. Most of the reasoning is that companies spend billions each year on advertising so it must be effective.
The big takeaway was that so much of what we consume is supported by advertising, if companies decided it wasn't effective and quit, it would have huge consequences.
"The internet is like a person you know who you think can’t possibly stoop any lower, and then manages to pull it off, over and over again."
The internet is a mansion with many rooms. Some of them, after a while, you just learn to not open the door any more. You know, 4chan and its progeny, and Zergnet, Cafemom, TMZ... no one is making you kick that football.
Thankfully, nothing will happen to your access to the largest treasure trove of information in human history. The Internet is worth it for Inter-library loan ordering alone.
As for the Worst of the Internet, the bonehead deadfall traps that most of us occasionally blunder into are nothing compared to some of what social media monitors get paid to review, in order to keep it offline before anyone else even sees it.
The joke, it is ancient:
"How do you keep a moron in suspense?"
Warhol was way ahead of the curve here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_(1965_film)
i.e., "it's been filmed, therefore it must be more interesting than real life somehow"
“I got detention for writing this in cursive class.” The letters being written spell out "ligma". "ligma" is commonly understood to be the setup to a joke where the punchline is "ligma balls".
For all the reasons you discuss here and more, I've always thought it both pretentious and pathetic when people refer to themselves as "content creators." "Content" is too generic a term to be of any real use.
I've followed Reardon's channel for a very long time. She used to be a regular food channel, designing and baking some really inventive cakes. I loved watching her process and seeing how much work went into her creations. Some years later she made a big announcement video about how YouTube changed its algorithm to favor "content farm" channels over everything else. It caused her channel to stop showing up under suggested videos. She couldn't reach new viewers and her numbers and ad revenue tanked.
I noticed it as a viewer, too. Instead of seeing suggestions for an 18 minute video on how to make a layer cake that looked like a giant Ferrero Rocher, complete with proper editing, high quality narration and camera work, YT would push generic stuff like "100 AMAZING cake decorations YOU'LL LOVE" from channels called I Love Cake, Happy Cake Love, or whatever. They were just low quality reels of cakes being frosted while a crappy song played over it.
I like her newer debunking videos because she puts the same amount of thought and effort into them since she's a quality YouTuber, but it does make me a little sad knowing she switched to them (in part) because her usual baking and food science stuff wasn't reaching anyone anymore.
"A good excuse to withdraw deeper into books, movies, albums, and art, stuff that was created for a deeper purpose than mining fleeting bits of attention for fractions of a penny."
Yes. Just consume normal things, normally. Read a book, listen to an entire album, go to a gallery (or buy a book of art). Get off 97% of the Internet (Substack excluded, ahem). If you engage with "content" on the web, make it extremely narrowly tailored: Your favorite chef on YouTube, say, who teaches you how to cook things of real value, or a Twitter account that provides actual engaging observations or reporting about important things. Subscribe to a message board of narrow focus regarding a worthwhile and meaningful topic. Beyond that, abandon the Internet. It's awful and it has essentially failed.
My Reels is dog memes, "that's what she said" type jokes and girls doing PG level naughty things. I giggled.