The lukewarm feeling in my gut after 4 weeks of relentless, late-night edits was a familiar one. It wasn’t the satisfaction of completion, but the sour echo of something diminishing. I’d just poured every ounce of my experience into a mini-documentary – 24 days of research, 14 interviews, 4 days on location, meticulously piecing together a story I believed needed to be told. Then the first comment rolled in, a marketing guru, no doubt, from somewhere in the ether: ‘Great content! You should post 3 times a day to optimize reach.’
Great content.
The words hung there, innocently, like a freshly laundered sheet, yet they felt like a tiny chisel chipping away at the foundation of what I’d built. Content. As if it were a generic, amorphous blob designed merely to fill a void. A beige, tasteless paste to be spread thinly across the internet’s vast, hungry maw, optimized for consumption, not resonance. This isn’t just about semantics; it’s about the very soul of creation.
We’ve allowed the platforms, the algorithms, and the metrics-obsessed industry to redefine our output. They call it ‘content’ because it levels the playing field, making a meticulously crafted film indistinguishable from a fleeting meme. It’s an industrial-age word for a digital-age reality, a term that benefits the container, not the creator. It’s the ultimate victory for the system: everything, reduced to a uniform substance that can be weighed, measured, and, most importantly, monetized.
The Language of Craft vs. Content
I remember Hazel G.H. – a brilliant sunscreen formulator I met a few years back. She spent 24 years of her life perfecting a single, broad-spectrum SPF 44 formula. Her lab was a sanctuary of precision, every chemical weighed to 4 decimal places, every new iteration tested for 4 consecutive weeks on human skin. She spoke of her work not as ‘product content’ to fill a shelf, but as a delicate balance of science and art, a shield against the sun, a protector of health. If you told Hazel her life’s devotion was just ‘skin stuff’ or ‘product content,’ she’d likely politely, but firmly, educate you on the intricacies of photostability and emulsion technology. She knew the language of her craft mattered, because it dictated its value.
And yet, we creators, we often willingly adopt this language of devaluation. We internalize the pressure to generate ‘content’ on a schedule so aggressive, it leaves no room for true incubation, for the slow burn of an idea that transforms into something genuinely meaningful. The goal shifts from impact to output, from depth to frequency. I’ve been there. I’ve caught myself scrolling, calculating, thinking, ‘I need 4 more pieces of content this week.’ And each time that thought flashes, a tiny part of me winces, a self-betrayal.
The Algorithmic Treadmill
It’s a subtle shift in perception that has profound consequences. When we call it ‘content,’ we tacitly agree to its disposability. We accept the idea that our painstakingly assembled narratives, our deeply researched insights, our vulnerable expressions of self, are just fodder for the algorithm. It becomes less about the message and more about the channel, less about the art and more about the engagement rates. The expectation for consistent, high-volume output means we’re often chasing numbers, looking for ways to boost visibility quickly.
It’s not uncommon to see creators, exhausted by the relentless demand, seeking external ways to manage their presence, sometimes turning to services like Famoid to try and maintain traction in a system that often feels rigged against them.
This isn’t to say I haven’t used the word ‘content’ myself. I have. It’s a convenient shorthand, a ubiquitous industry term. But every time it slips out, especially when referring to my own or another’s deeply personal work, it feels a little like I’m betraying the very essence of creation. It’s a contradiction I live with, a testament to how deeply ingrained this language has become. But acknowledging that slip, that internal cringe, is the first step toward reclaiming our narrative.
Visibility
Impact
Elevating Our Language
Because what we do isn’t just ‘content.’ It’s storytelling. It’s filmmaking. It’s design. It’s poetry. It’s education. It’s advocacy. It’s the late nights, the early mornings, the obsessive attention to detail. It’s the 4th draft that finally clicks, the perfect shot captured after 44 attempts, the subtle nuance in a voiceover that required 14 takes. It’s the emotional resonance, the intellectual challenge, the human connection. It’s the thing that keeps us up at 3:44 AM, not because we *have* to, but because we *need* to get it right.
Consumption
Resolution
Consider the raw, visceral experience of fixing a leaky toilet at 3 AM. It’s messy, frustrating, and often involves contorting yourself into uncomfortable positions. But when that drip finally stops, there’s a distinct satisfaction, a tangible problem solved. You don’t call it ‘bathroom content’ to be consumed. You call it *fixing* it. You call it *repair*. There’s a directness, a purpose to the language. Our creative work deserves that same respect for its process and its outcome.
We need to push back, not with anger, but with precision. We need to articulate what we do, what our fellow creators do, in terms that honor the craft. We need to stop allowing others to define the value of our work through their convenient, generic labels. It’s not just about what we call it, but what we believe it is. If we elevate our language, perhaps we can elevate the perception, and eventually, the valuation, of our creative output.
What would change if, instead of asking for ‘more content,’ we asked for ‘more stories,’ ‘more insights,’ ‘more art’? What if we measured not just engagement, but the depth of impact, the lingering thought, the provoked emotion? What if we understood that true connection is often born not from relentless quantity, but from profound quality?