The Content of Content
The Death of Original Thought
Have you noticed a disturbing trend in online content? I mean, the content of content. Have you noticed that a fair amount of content is comprised solely of other people’s content? Summaries. Listicles. 5 Things I Learned from this person and am going to quote in the rest of this article, but add nothing of my own.
Some people do this content very well and it can be quite rewarding when done the right way. But just like everything else on the Internet, most of the content is just reproduced from another area hiding in the blindspot of our technologically savvy lives via a WiFi connection.
Sure, free speech. But does that really apply to reproduction with adjustments? I’m not talking about reading something enlightening and then sitting down and writing your own story about the same topic. I am talking about using content to create content. Not research. Not scientifically proven test studies as fodder, but a summary of what other people have said. That’s it.
I remember reading a story that was trending on here last year. The entire story was five quotes. Nothing else. No original thought. No intro to speak of. Frontpage. Zero original content. Is this writing in the digital age? Will we get to a point where there is nothing new to say? The content of content these days is the death of original thought.
I know I can’t represent all readers and their collective preferences, but wouldn’t everybody like to read from the source when possible? When I see a story and it’s about what an author wrote about and the first part sounds interesting, I will go and research the book. Why do I want a review masquerading as a story to act as a spoiler?
This is part of the reason I transitioned so much of my reading to fiction in the past year. There is no subterfuge there. It’s called fiction. It’s made up. Maybe we need a new genre called regurgitated nonfiction so we know that the entire piece is comprised of work from others. Maybe it’s just me.
In an era of clickbait magnetism and headline scores, we all get sucked into the vortex from time to time, only to be disappointed when the story is about another story. And that story was actually about another story. This is nesting table content. Who had the large table to begin with? And why does the smallest table look just like the larger table?
The content of content is also problematic inside of an echo chamber like this. The reverberations just bounce inward until they are recreated to bounce again. It never ends. And it’s not just the use of other people’s content that is the death of original thought, it’s the reproduction of the same topics that are slowly killing us.
The I Made $16.07 last month on Medium and 5 Ways To Improve Your Life. These topical analgesics are the devil babies of the original clickbait format. Focus on something that preys on the insecurity that someone has. They need to make more money. Their life sucks. Write about that. But that is the death of original thought right there. It’s just another piece of ABC gum peeled off from underneath the writer’s desk and popped back in with hopes that it still has some flavor left.
And it’s all of us. I’ve done it. I hope I’ve done it with much more original thought mixed in, but I’ve done it. It’s likely no one on here hasn’t because it’s impossible not to. Even our rants, like this one, have all been done before. Everyone has said everything.
The only thing that hasn’t been said before is our truth. Our honest life experiences. And that’s how we get the content of content back again. So we can read original thought.
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