NO TIPS
Fuck Your ‘Tips and Tricks’
You know what? Fuck your content too
Hi.
My name is Alex.
If you’ve written tips and tricks and describe your writing as content, I’m pretty sure I hate you.
‘Tipz N Trickz’
Your headline is bad and you should feel bad.
I had to learn how to write a feature-length screenplay recently. Turns out they’re quite hard, so I turned to the internet for help.
I promise you I did not google “Scriptwriting Tips and Tricks”. I actually watched Aaron Sorkin’s MasterClass.
When I’m serious about learning something new, I don’t want a fucking tip. I don’t want to trick I want to goddamn master this bitch. Don’t belittle me so much as to imply that your own mastery of the topic is such a caliber that I would benefit from a tip from you.
That’s just arrogant.
I know it’s compelling and tempting to fake it till you make it, and act like you’re already one of the world’s leading experts, but that only works on morons, you should actually make your audience feel heard and listened to by saying:
“I understand you’re having a problem I used to have. I managed to overcome it but my circumstances and rationale were different to yours, so instead of telling you what I did, I’ve created a detailed plan for you to overcome the issue.”
If you can do that, people pay you the big bucks, and you get to feel like less of a douche.
C0ntent
Do you know what’s never happened?
Nobody has ever woken up and thought
“You know what, I really must consume a load of content from a nobody on the internet today!”
Or even,
“I really must devour some content today,”
It just doesn’t happen, mates.
When people describe themselves as a ‘content’ writer I shudder a little bit. When an email pop-up tells me to subscribe for “more content like this” I die quite a lot on the inside.
In this context, content is described as information or material, so why the fuck don’t we call it that?
The word content makes me think of spammy, useless, generic horror designed for search engines not humans, and I want fucking none of it.
I saw a post a little while ago about how hard making a living has become for “content creators” due to competition on the internet and I couldn’t quite believe nobody saw the irony.
It’s like 20 celery soup chefs rock up outside a BBQ restaurant saying:
“You don’t want that, we know what you want. You want celery soup. Specifically my celery soup, not these 19 other assholes’ soup.”
If you until 2 minutes ago thought of yourself as a content person, do the following: (this is not a tip, it’s a fucking commandment) Go read the Associated Press Stylebook, become a copywriter, and profit from improved writing where you actually create useful, valuable resources and persuasive advertising, not cheap content or tips and tricks.
Goddamn.
Now you can read the follow-up:
