Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I Stopped “Creating Content”

refactoringenglish.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 249 posts

Re: I Stopped “Creating Content”

#21

Post by cwmoore »

jasonshen wrote: post #16
serhack_ wrote: post #15

after discovering most of my content has been scraped thousands of times, I don't have any willingness to continue posting my blog. Well, yes, I was expecting that (you know.. by publishing content on the net, everyone could read it -- and profit off!). I've some content for some months, including some analysis. I wish somebody could motivate me to publish them anyway.

Would you feel the same way about creating open source software that had been forked 1,000's of times and used without your knowledge? Are you interested in living in a world where everyone only does things if they feel they can directly capture the majority of the value created?

I don’t think it is majority of the value created, but it might have to be a significant portion of the value expended to make it worthwhile at all.

Re: I Stopped “Creating Content”

#22

Post by arjie »

> She said, “Oh, yeah, he always sends me great leads.” I think she meant it as a compliment, but she might as well have said, “Oh, yeah, he’s so good at spotting gullible marks.”

That’s not what it means. It means that the vendor and you are a good fit for each other. The hard part in almost all these things is that two parties would both benefit if they had common knowledge but they don’t have common knowledge. The guy who puts the two together is useful. That’s who you describe as “sending great leads”.

It’s not clear to me why this style of manufactured grievance writing is popular. The world is full of Pareto wins.

Re: I Stopped “Creating Content”

#23

Post by jun_lung »

I think it helps to draw a clear boundary between what is "content" and what is "art", since they ultimately serve different purposes and have vastly different factors that go into their creation. To me, "content" is anything created with the goal of maximizing consumption, whereas "art" is an attempt to express or give form to some kind of idea or emotion. The lines blur when you get to things like film, where those two goals often compete, but it's pretty easy to put things into these two categories.

And this isn't to say that "content creation" is any less valid than "creating art". There are plenty of "content creators" who know exactly what they are making at the end of the day (a product) and don't hide that fact or try to dress it up under the pretense of being anything more.

Re: I Stopped “Creating Content”

#24

Post by abanana »

I'd give this article multiple upvotes if I could.

The first section did a great job of grabbing my attention. It feels like these days, all creative works are lumped together as "content", anything not brand-new and bleeding-edge is labelled "legacy" (I see this more on HN than anywhere), and everything is distilled down to "engagement" and "conversions".

I hate business buzzword-jargon, the corporate in-group lingo, and I've also always disliked this use of the word "content". It's too generic - we might as well be calling it "stuff".

As a child, I used to notice that there were some other kids who, upon hearing a word that was new to them, would immediately start using it incessantly, replacing the (sometimes richer) choice of words they'd thus far been brought up to use. Very often wrongly, by slightly misunderstanding the meaning, the context, or the word itself, and never checking first. It was clear how the choice of words used, or even the meaning of words, could subtly change within a small group. As I grew older I realised these people appeared to be in the majority, and that it showed how, via various methods of trying to sound clever or in-group signalling, changes in speech patterns spread out across the larger population.

Anyway that's my view, now I'll go back to yelling at clouds.

Re: I Stopped “Creating Content”

#25

Post by ryandrake »

sgarland wrote: post #12

This resonates with me. I’ve always found the term annoying, because it felt like it was distilling artistic expression down to its most abstract form: content. If all you’re producing is abstract “content,” why should I participate? What makes it special?

I feel the same way. I want to watch movies and listen to music and read books! I don't want to "consume content." That phrase feels like it reduces my role to just be a generic pac-man gobbling up whatever bland grays dots of vague content are "created" and set down in front of me. That's not what it should be.

Re: I Stopped “Creating Content”

#26

Post by advisedwang »

I believe there is a material difference between "content" and other modes of creative output: content is defined by a pipeline. It is desired for it's recurring revenue.

You could make the tackiest, most commercial and derivative musical, but it's still not content because it's just one.

You could make the most eloquent, poetic and inventive podcast in the world, but so long as you are still doing weekly releases (with ads, plus an ad free patreon, of course) it is content.

The tragedy is that we want artists to have reliable income, but the business models, incentives and consumption habits that come with the reliable output to provide that reliable income lead us to the ugliness that people blame on "content".

Re: I Stopped “Creating Content”

#27

Post by tonyedgecombe »

jasonshen wrote: post #16
serhack_ wrote: post #15

after discovering most of my content has been scraped thousands of times, I don't have any willingness to continue posting my blog. Well, yes, I was expecting that (you know.. by publishing content on the net, everyone could read it -- and profit off!). I've some content for some months, including some analysis. I wish somebody could motivate me to publish them anyway.

Would you feel the same way about creating open source software that had been forked 1,000's of times and used without your knowledge? Are you interested in living in a world where everyone only does things if they feel they can directly capture the majority of the value created?

When those forkers are large corporations then it probably should make most people think twice.

Re: I Stopped “Creating Content”

#28

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

keiferski wrote: post #18

I actually really like the term content creator , because it removes the artificial boundaries that come with being a writer, photographer, filmmaker, etc. and just lets you make stuff. The medium doesn't matter if you're a content creator, to a large extent. The alternative is "art" but that comes with a lot of other baggage that often sounds unintentionally pretentious, especially if you aren't actually creating pa…

As an artist (former, really[0]), I can confirm that the medium really, really matters. It can inform the creation, as much as the creator.

There are top-shelf authors that insist on writing everything in cursive, in legal pads (God help the poor schlubs that have to transcribe it, though). They insist that they can’t be creative, otherwise. There are musicians (like Rhiannon Giddens), that always perform barefoot.

Most of the Great Masters could work in many mediums, and they chose specific media, to do specific works, because they knew that the medium would “push back,” and inform the work.

Michelangelo was quoted as saying something like he “saw the statue in the stone,” and that was why selecting the rock was as important as any other part of the process.

Many folks take great pains, to do their work in specific contexts, as that affects their creativity.

Creativity isn’t something that is easy to commoditize.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40917886

Re: I Stopped “Creating Content”

#29

Post by rc5150 »

catapart wrote: post #19
keiferski wrote: post #18

I actually really like the term content creator , because it removes the artificial boundaries that come with being a writer, photographer, filmmaker, etc. and just lets you make stuff. The medium doesn't matter if you're a content creator, to a large extent. The alternative is "art" but that comes with a lot of other baggage that often sounds unintentionally pretentious, especially if you aren't actually creating pa…

I'm with you. I would prefer to be known as a "content creator" rather than a "woodworker" or "game developer" or "illustrator" or "writer" or "musician". Especially because all of that work tends to overlap all of the time. It feels so limiting to be described by a singular part of what I do. And I'm neurotic enough to want a 'comprehensive' word, rather than to slash myself to death in a description. I don't partic…

Anecdata, but I find it funny you mentioning woodworker and musician. I build guitars and I play them. There is /some/ overlap, but only at the end result of me playing the guitar I have built. If I were to distill either of the two disciplines into 'content' each endeavor would lose its own individual meaning for me.

Being a musician has nothing to do with the output of working with wood, and likewise, my prowess on gouges, chisels, and saws is irrespective of my ability to write an interesting chord progression. Using a catch-all term to amalgamate the output of multiple specializations I think detracts from the results being, well... special.

Just my .02c

Re: I Stopped “Creating Content”

#30

Post by xg15 »

> They can’t do what we do. And they hate us for it.

You could make a plausible conspiracy theory that this was why so much capital was invested to develop generative AI: Maybe the holy grail of tech CEOs wasn't AGI, it was a web full of content without those annoying content creators...

Post reply on HN