2024, for me, was the year of observing and analyzing the world with the objective of curating a more present and grounded experience of our physical reality. In other words, it has been a desperate attempt to avoid chronic existentialism that worsens in your late twenties. One roadblock through this intuitive goal has been how content and consumptions patterns have drastically changed, making it very difficult to avoid being online and falling into the pattern of consuming short-form content which does not require active attention. Of course, not all content available online is short-form content but being online requires more intentional consumption of content to avoid falling out of the habit of indulging in content that demands your attention.
Growing up content meant books, comics and magazines. The excitement of a new month meant getting your hands on a new copy of Tinkle and spending time narrating stories I would read in Amar Chitra Kathas to my grandmother. It meant going to a bookstore and perusing all the various Enid Blyton, Ruskin Bond books and begging your parents to buy you all of them because one would simply not satisfy you. Once internet became a household tool, what we defined as content expanded. Books and magazines continued to have their place in our day to day while blogs, whattpad stories, YouTube videos also started carving an unforgettable place for themselves. A commonality between conventional content and developing modes of content was that they demanded attention and engaged our critical senses, often encouraging imagination. Naturally, when I started to define content it is inarguably a means of improving one’s ability to make sense of the world around us. This meant that I was initially open to creative and new formats of contents, especially with the burst of social media and the pandemic that confined us physically but let us go around the globe twice virtually. Whether it is in the form of TikTok’s, reels, podcasts, shots or even viral memes (everyone needs their daily dose of MooDeng), shortform content primarily available on social media became inescapable. However, as someone who has been described as “chronically online” consuming a lot of short-form content this year has brought me to the uncomfortable realization that “successful” content is now based solely on 2 characteristics:
- If the content is able to convey its message to its audience and move on in less than a minute and;
- If such content is capitalizing on the virality of issues.
Now, this is great especially if it is working in favor of the audience, but do you see the issues I see?
When we discuss a subject fleetingly, we avoid getting into nuance. When nuance goes amiss from conversations, opinions tend to become black and white, and we stop seeing shades of grey, which are often subtle, beautiful and necessary. The need to deem everything black or white, societal color blindness as I see it, has heavily polarized the world today. It has brought us very little good as a collective, as we now struggle to navigate divide and hate. Content is meant to help us understand each other, not create barriers to connection and cooperation. Also, the absence of pursuing nuance in thought reduces the need to critically examine issues. To decide something is black or white requires a snap judgement. To decide something is eggshell white, ivory, ash gray, smoke gray, charcoal black, vantablack requires holding your attention to one thought for more than a second. Attention also paves the way for perspective, and it builds tolerance to ideas that seem to be on the opposite end of the spectrum from our own.
Moreover, when we discuss issues for the sake of their popularity, we barely scrape the surface of what an issue at its core represents. Behind the veil of virality, there is usually a larger systemic or societal issue that remains unaddressed. Viral issues tend to bring out strong but fleeting emotions in us which aren’t actionable in the real world and often do not lead to any manifestable change or reform. Good content must encourage introspection and actionable steps towards changing what needs to be changed.
I have to therefore painfully declare that successful content is not good quality content in that it is not helping the consumer become a better version of themselves. Or at least, continuously consuming short-form content has not made me a better version of myself. So as I start of this new year, I want to mindfully incorporate more long-form content into my own life. I am going to try to read more books, pick up the newspaper more often, watch full length feature films while my phone is turned off. But I am also keen on creating long-form content, not in a renaissance attempt but to protect my own critical thinking from flat lining. I may not be able to bring critical thinking back into the pink of its health, but I can try to continue keeping it on life support! Again, I do not think I am a messiah who is here to find a cure for chronic onlinity (I made that word up), but in fact it is to find a community who shares these opinions I have or better yet, challenges them. My goal is to write. But it is to write on matters I have had the time to ruminate on to arrive at societal commentary backed by lived experiences and scientific evidence. It is also to bring long-form content to the internet, specifically to social media and see if it can be a positive disruptor. I will actively seek to not write on what’s going viral at the moment but might come back to a viral issue once it is out of sight (out of mind) in an attempt to re-ignite a more tempered conversation.
In retrospect, my intention is to take a step towards my writing journey this year!
In Retrospect, 