One of the crazy things about right now is that we live in the age of “content creation”.
Growing up, writers were writers, painters were painters, musicians were musicians, etc. But today a teacher can be a blogger, a mortician can be a youtuber, a college drop-out can be a podcaster. If you take the time to create something, someone will consume it.
We have youtube EDU creators interviewing the president. We have comedian/kickboxers pulling in millions of podcast downloads per month. Facebook can effectively test in 1 day, groups larger than the largest sociological survey in history could have, hypothetically, extrapolated to test in a millennium. Seriously, the highest rated TV shows of my youth touched a tiny fraction of the average popular podcast or youtube channel now.
And the true beauty of it is that content creation is virtually free for the consumer as well as the creator (please note, I said "virtually"). For the price of a few simple digital cameras you can offer up something everyone wants to see. For the time it takes to follow a few links, you can see something that makes you glad you woke up today.
{I will pause here while the perverts make their porn jokes.}
Done?
Good.
Now sets in the reality that for years the “content “ we consumed was designed by rooms filled with creative people paid to design stuff to amuse the masses. I got divorced about 14 years ago and one of the things I used to pass the lonely, lonely times with was buying seasons of TV shows, watching them, and then listening to the commentary tracks. I heard directors, producers, writers and actors talk endlessly about what it took to bring me the 26 episodes of that 22 minute comedy that made me, momentarily, forget how heart-broken. These people are content creators but they worked for companies that made shows, sold those shows to companies that advertised them, who worked for companies that broad cast them, who worked for companies that owned the rights, who worked for companies that took all the money.
Today is different. Today I watch real people pour their hearts out to me in a non-reality TV format and I get to appreciate their work.
This brings me to what I’m doing here. First of all, I have no internet presence anymore. I came to the internet as a forum participant/troll in the mid 90’s. I met interesting people from all around the world and I flamed them after they flamed me. It was a very “show me your tits” time and I’m glad it’s past.
When “social media” popped up a few years ago I saw it as an opportunity to be in contact with people I loved. Unfortunately, the internet doesn’t work that way. I ended up with worthless “facebook friends”. After a year, I un-friend-ed everyone who hadn’t said anything interesting in that year. Some of them couldn’t grasp this and were horribly offended. A year or so later I realized that people who said “I think blah-blah-blah” didn’t give a flying f&^k what I thought unless it was also what they thought. They weren't willing to talk it out rationally or even argue it out like int he good old days. They just wanted a "like". Not to dredge up old scars but it's a lot like when I was 12 and "didn't fit in". Screw you hateful people who watch 16 hours of FOX news every day and "know what the real problem is". That being said.....
I deleted my account.
A month later I opened a new account and added no friends. It remains thus until today.
I have realized that this blog will be read by no one until I make it known that it is here. So I have hatched my own Content-Creator-Plan.
Step #1: find time to write what you are thinking about (this is proving tricky for 2 reasons. #1 there's so much good content to consume. #2 I want to write in the morning but I have to go to work and make decisions about stuff that affects other people and they don't care what I think about non-work stuff)
Step #2: see what that turns into (very good chance most of it is ridiculous drivel but some of it will, undoubtedly, be solid-gold. )
Step #3: create new social media accounts and begin pointing people to what you’ve done. I hope I come to my senses and skip this step. But we shall see.
3 steps is as far as I’ve thought since, honestly, step #2 is a tough one. My personal goal is for therapeutic, one-sided, conversations. But right now, I’m reticent to talk about everything that crosses my mind and I’m a terrible typist.
the quick nbrwpm gp[v jumpes pvber tjhe4 ;acu dog/
the quick bnrom gox jumps pover thje lasy fos
the quicl btpwm fpx umps pver thje ;awdcuy dpg/
(couldn't do it without looking)
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog,