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BS Online: Why Does So Much Content Suck?

Hiya,

today, I’m covering:

• why so much content online is repetitive, boring, and downright shitty

• 3 key challenges in content creation

• how to solve content marketing problems and stand out

Let’s get into it!

A Cascade of BS on the Internet

Have you noticed how much content online is formulaic and trite? On social media, it seems like tribes of people talk to each other through similarly designed and worded posts. I’m frustrated about the bare-minimum articles that quote Twitter and spin pieces from that. It’s le boring. Yawn. And lazy. I want to see more content that’s informative and worth our time.

You may imagine that I was relieved and felt seen, when I stumbled upon a delightful article on bullshitting in the online world. The Creative Industry’s Bullshit Industrial Complex explains SO well what’s going on online, when the comment on the comment on the comment of somebody doing something is still passed off as “original” content.

What the article describes about the creative field applies to other areas, as well. It’s worth your time.

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What stood out most to me about this piece is this: we’ve grown used to several models of content creation and distribution on the internet and now we follow them on auto-pilot.

Content creation works a lot like this:

1. First, there are people doing original things

2. Then, there are people aggregating and commenting on the original doing.

3. From there flows a cascade of several tiers of derivative content until the copy of the copy of the copy of an idea boils down to the equivalent of less than “live, love, laugh” in each industry.

All that PLUS doing what we think we need to do in order to be perceived in a certain way by others. It’s an ego game, too.

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I see 3 main challenges in content creation:

1. Too high of an incentive to choose convention over originality, because of the pressure to keep churning out posts

2. Established tropes of high performing content that are being repeated over and over again that lead to an endless sea of derivative content and a sea of relative sameness

3. AI is fuel to the content bullshit fire, because it makes producing more bullshit more easy.

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Saturation and the Future of Content Marketing

With all this, I do wonder about the future of content marketing. I doubt that the way it’s been will continue much longer.

In my perception, there’s a saturation point in minds as well as markets.

“Good stuff” will come through, always, but lazy content will fall mega super duper flat.

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How I Think About “Content” Creation

First off, I don’t enjoy calling it content. I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean on a philosophical or deeper level.

I see my work as digital publishing.

As such, I give myself an editorial vision, consume very, very little around what’s going on in my industry and jot down whichever intuitive downloads I have.

It’s an intuitive process - and also one that’s working best for me presently. I’ve already been through the loop of my own version of live, love, laugh on social media. I’ve done it once, it was profoundly unfulfilling, now I’m doing things in my own non-linear, creative ways.

I’m writing what I feel like writing about. My intention is to produce original work, so I look very little to the left and right of what’s going on around me. We’re always a product of what we consume and others around us. That’s part of being human. Where I can, I monitor my input closely.

A Tip For Your Creativity

If you’re not sure how and what to make, give yourself a total blackout on input consumption for a week. No podcasts, emails, socials, etc.

See what your mind comes up with from that profound sense of boredom.

If nothing happens, you’ll at least have had a really calm week with a lot of time ;)

Happy Marketing,

Johanna 📣

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