The world today is all about
making things, producing whatever it is you want in the hopes that someone,
somewhere, would want to own in some way, whatever it is you have made. Content
creation is the biggest thing nowadays and the fun part of it all is that the
ones who create that content are not even good at creating anything. They just
grab the best parts of what interests people the most and they mash that up
together in order to create something that will attract people to it.
Usually, content means videos,
texts and pictures, all trying to call your attention into something you are
probably interesting in. There so many things around right now, that we can say
for sure that there is something for everyone. Is not like in the past when
people had to go places to look for what they liked and maybe what they liked
was not widely available or was even forbidden. Nowadays, every single kind of
content is available in your home, without even moving from your bed.
And people complain about that.
Actually, they have two ways of complaining: they want more information, even
easier to attain at every single moment in their lives and every single place
in the planet. But others want the opposite. As always in human history,
there’s always a group, a very vocal one, that advocates for a return to the
old days when everything was done by hand and when people didn’t have the same
freedoms they have today. They phrase it differently but you know what I mean.
I won’t say that these kind of
people want less freedoms and less information, because many of them just want
to be freed from things like social media and the pressures of modern life, but
I bet there are some of them who don’t really like the fact that information
gives freedom, it gives us power to know that there’s something better out
there. Information is knowledge and knowledge is a big power that can never be
underestimated. Just ask the ones that have used it to their advantage.
Of course, not every single piece
of information is valuable; just as not every single piece of content is good
or even worth a look. We are being dumped tons and tons of shit every single
day into our mind, by people and even by computer generated automatic services
that read into what we like and enjoy, deciding then to sell us whatever it is
they are pushing somewhere in the world or maybe closer to home. Maybe they
want us to buy tickets for a sport event, or music from various artists. Maybe
they even want us to buy time with some other person or a game that can shield us
from the pressures mentioned before.
This world is surprising in that
it has some things that are surprising, amazing if you will, but there are
others that have always remained the same. For one, our naiveté is still a big
problem when someone else wants us to believe in whatever it is they are
talking about or whatever they are trying us to do. We are still very much a silly little
creature that had the luck to evolve into something a little bit more versatile
and interesting. And yet, we still like to believe what we know are lies.
Maybe its because people have
gotten used to having everything at hand, just in front of them, so they have
left their defense mechanisms in a dark corner inside their minds, where it
cannot help them when someone wants to take advantage of them. Humans have
decided, actively, to let their guard down and just enjoy all the good things
of being the most evolved creature on the planet’s surface. Sadly enough, there
are bad things too and there are many bad humans around to make our lives not
like a dream.
But we were talking about
content. And how does this all relate to that? Very simple: the content machine
that has been created, where people ask for “community managers” in their
companies, is all about trying to make us thing one thing that may not be true.
Actually, it’s mostly never true. We are now offered various options and we
have to decide which one is the real one, which will make us happy for sure.
And when we decide, we mostly choose the most visual striking option.
That’s because we are humans, we
are attracted to everything that goes inside our heads through our eyes. It has
always been like that, ever since publicity was created and all the attempts to
sell whatever it is they were selling. Because you can better believe that
every single piece of content today wants to sell you something. Only a small
fraction has been created for your pure enjoyment and even that can be put into
question. It’s all about buying, about exchanges between people that can go right
or wrong.
But the truth is that we don’t
really mind at all. We don’t care what it is they want to do with us. We just
conclude that it is all a tale trying to make us feel scared about big
companies and the government and how the mighty God of capitalism works. Our
reaction is one of contempt for the ones that try to warn us about the bad
things behind this society that has become a huge marketplace where everything
is exchanged, no matter what. There is always a buyer and there is always
someone selling exactly what we are looking for, what we want the most.
We don’t know how else to live
anymore. If everything disappeared tomorrow, many people would collapse on the
spot, not knowing what to expect from the world. And that’s very important,
because people feel safe in this huge marketplace, they know how everything
works and they like that. The unknown has only ever attracted a very small
amount of people, the real adventure of not knowing what lies beyond. Most of
us like a good routine and we stick to it even if we complain daily about it.
Well, that’s what content is all about. It’s brings a cozy feeling to
people that sometimes think the world might be going down any day now. That’s
why even the news coverage in general has changed, in order to adapt reality,
those things that we always thought that they couldn’t be manipulated. History
changes or at least the way we look at it. Our perspective is no longer ours,
but someone else’s, someone behind a computer who wrote exactly what we are
going to think about a certain subject.
And I have bad news: they have
succeeded. Because people are not critical anymore, they just listen and
listen, read and read, they think they are building their own opinion but they
are not. They are just choosing what they like from what they’ve heard and
seen, not really digging deep into anything. That’s too much work.
That’s how we live nowadays. So
if we can still fight, making the kind of content that is free from everything
and every form, maybe that way we can still have a little window of hope. Maybe
that way we can actually give people hope for the future and even for a present
that looks like one thing but that is most likely something else.
