Our consumer society has reached a point where all media platforms flood you with content. Original or not, consumers scroll through tons of content daily. Between Instagram, Netflix, Hulu, Disney +, Tiktok, the 24 hour news cycle, your friend’s podcast, the list goes on. None of us can successfully ignore content we do not want to see.
Everything feels as though it is considered content these days. What I considered content is correct, yet it just covers a fraction of the definition. My personal definition of content was anything pertaing or promoting a business or some form of art. When I say business, I discuss platforms that use advertisments to sell a service and/or product. For example, cleaning products, make up, where to file your taxes, stuff like that. Now, the concept of content has grown into encompassing everything that can be manipulated into digestablie content. I grew deeply interested in what can be considered content upon graduating college. As a writer, clearly I needed to learn how I should brand my creative content. That is where I started to dig. Quickly, I learned that practically anything can be content. A picture of yourself doing something related to your field, content. A post workout picture, content. Vacation pictures that people post days, months, and years after, content. Pictures of your pets, content. Hanging out at a party, content. Bonus points if it is a premiere or launch party. It is simply not enough to have your content focus around your work. In order for your content to be successful in the values of views, likes, and followers, you must sell everything that you identify with as your content. Simply put, just posting one aspect of yourself is not enough. A TV series’ social media cannot just post about a new season premiering soon, but also show content that interacts with its audience. It is not enough to follow, or binge, these shows and ingest their exclusive content on their social accounts. People want to click on a profile and see authenticity. Despite catfishing and people embellishing their lives that people seem to keep following and falling for, most people have a good radar for bon afide content on social media.
So, Sabrina, what is it that you really want to say about content. *Deep inhale* I am overwhelmed by the amount of content. It feels wrong of me to start a new show from my queue without giving it my full undivided attention. Life can have us all multitasking when it comes down to the point of the day where I can digest the content I enjoy, the overwhelming amount of new shows and movies causes me stress and indecision that leads to me rewatching a show. This cycle of “I want to watch somehing new” “There is too much to pick” “I’m going to play It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” I love that there is so much content out there for every kind of person. Do not get me wrong about that. I just struggle to find what I actually enjoy while trying to keep up with all the new releases. Maybe, I am oversaturated by ingesting content from literally everywhere. Taking a break sounds easy, but is it today? As a filmmaker, I am super hard on myself for not always staying informed on new releases, films in the festival circuit, and movies I should have already seen. I need to get out of this rut cycle and find more content I enjoy. With more time and motivation, I will prioritze digesting content that makes me laugh, enlightens me on a point of view not familiar with my own, and entertains me. When I take in better quality content, I will also be able to improve my content naturally. Oh, this is exciting stuff. I need to just be a bit harder on myself when I find it easy to rewatch instead of going for something new. I also need to discern better on what accounts I want to follow on my social media accounts. There’s only so much space I can hold for people I only kind of know. So, it is also a mission of mine to find real accounts by real working filmmakers, writers, artists, etc. I have found a couple accounts so far that I really enjoy, and I have so much faith that I will find more.
Thank you for reading my opinion on how I am overwhelmed by the mass amount of content I face daily. All the people reading deserve a cozy night on the couch or in bed watching a new show that has quite literally rock their socks off.
Love And Light,
Sabrina
