When did we become so consumed by content?
I remember when I was still a kid and boredom was still a thing, how I used to call my mom to complain and persuade her to take me to one of my friends to spend the day. I remember the days before the smartphone and social media, when instead of spending an hour on the toilet seat doom-scrolling, I just read everything I could lay my eyes on; the soap’s contents, the brand names of the various ceramic installations in the bathroom, or even count the tiles on the floor. At a certain point, I turned it into a song, where I used to sing what I was reading – that I had memorized at that point – in a certain repetitive order, which time after time became a ritual. Until it stopped.
I do not like social media, but I understand its importance; in a way, we are all forced to use it for many purposes—whether to keep up with friends, meet new people, work, or start a business. It has become the new agora of the 21st century.
I find myself deleting Instagram occasionally to clear my mind from all the noise, only to find myself locked in for hours of doom-scrolling through YouTube Shorts.
The emergence of the short videos model – whether TikToks, Instagram Reels, or YouTube Shorts – only exacerbated the problem, which, added to an algorithm that shoves upon us what it calculates to be suitable content to keep us hooked, plunged us into an endless loop of consumerism at the tip of our fingers.
Content creation has become an economy on its own, valued at over 250 billion dollars in 2024, and is expected to more than double in 2030, according to Goldman Sachs. Countless people are seizing the opportunity to enter the game. Of course, this has given the chance for a lot of aspiring artists and even businesses to showcase their talent and products to the world when they had no other option to do so.
On the other hand, plenty of truly talented artists and creators find themselves at a disadvantage facing an algorithm that favors controversial, eye-catching, traffic-inducing content, let alone the growth of AI and its ability to constantly come up with new and appealing content. This creates the need to emphasize the presentation of the art more than the art itself, to make use of the algorithm to one’s benefit. In other words, if an aspiring musician or painter wants to promote their art, they will need to put a lot of effort into how this art needs to be presented to the world. Even if they were the best artists or creators that ever lived, the algorithm’s current state would never reward them for it unless they manage to create traction on their posts. And nothing attracts traffic more than mediocre content, which with all honesty, we all laugh at and consume, but at the end of the day has nothing of value to add to our lives.
When I first started planning for Basamat Fikria, I was terrified of becoming one of the many many creators in this endless sea of noise. Does the world need more content? What am I going to present that will stand out in front of all this nonsense? How will it affect how I see myself? Will I succumb to what the people want to read about the most or will I stick to what I want to say?
In a world overflowing with content, I find myself wondering whether it still has a place for curious people such as myself, wishing to share their ideas and thoughts with the world. People who do not want to sell any courses or products, do funny dances or join in on the latest trend. People who just want to start a conversation about what’s important, or even what’s not important, and share ideas with others to create a culture of substance.
Does this world still have a place for such people?
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