I Don't Want to Make Content

You might be reading that headline thinking: “uhh this article IS content broski.” You’re right it is but I didn’t set out to make content. This article was just words on a page until I clicked the little button to put it online. Until that moment it was only art. Surely it still is art but now that it’s visible online it’s content too. My instincts tell me noone can make “content.” Creations of any kind can become content but I feel like content itself is more an idea than a tangible “thing.” For whatever reason I feel like it’s important to me to draw this line.

The truth is I don’t want to make content. It sounds gross to me as if art gets thrown into a bucket of entertainment slop thats sloshed into a algorithmic trough for internet gremlins like me to feed on. Ew. I’ve been making media and posting it online since the 90s. I’ve made web comics, animated shorts, articles like this, and so much more. The first creations I put online were Pokemon fan pages on geocities. I find that funny considering where I’m posting right now (neocities.org.) Sure I was making things to be consumed even then but that wasn’t the end goal. I wanted to make someone laugh, think, or feel. I was trying to entertain and elicit emotions. That’s what I consider art. Art helps me feel human and connect with others. Forgive me for getting poetic but each piece of art is a key on an infinite keyring, each one with the potential to unlock something inside any one of us. Ask someone who felt differently about their sexuality after watching The Mummy (1999) if you don’t believe me. It means something to me for something to be art, but I don’t think I can say the same for content. For instance: if an artist paints a portrait and burns it without anyone ever seeing it can you call it content? I say no, but can you call it art? I say yes.

At the end of the day this word salad is just semantics. It doesn’t matter if my personal definition of content is correct because it’s only an opinion. What matters to me is whether what I create fits my personal idea of “art.” Does my creation exist for reasons beyond chasing the algorithm? If so I can be proud of my creations even if they immediately become entertainment slop in a trough as soon as I hit “send Tweet.”