So much content, so little time. Content just after you wake up, content before you fall asleep. Content while you eat. Content when you go to shit. Content when you take a work break. Content that fills the void after a heartbreak. Content while you are waiting for someone. Content after someone leaves - whom you don’t want to leave. And yet, it keeps coming, a bit more every new second.
There is so much content that reality itself is afraid of being mildly interesting.
Take someone’s phone away and you can’t predict how the events will unfold. You will have to do it to see it.
Why are we creating so much content? Why are we tweeting so much? Why are we watching, and sometimes making so many reels?
The answer is simple. Amusement is our first and foremost priority. I don’t know about you but I live for all kinds of amusement. When it comes to setting boundaries with amusement, all hell breaks loose. I could be 10 levels deep in despair and one funny reel can make it all go away in a poof. Yup. Sadness gone, in a poof. This is why we are addicted to content.
Sometimes I think the universe was born of cosmic boredom. Billions and trillions of celestial cuties but not a word of fun. Huh? Of the very void that you are feeling in your chest right now (it’s a very common phenomenon in your early twenties, so chill). In my microcosm of opinions, Big Bang was the most banger content that has ever been produced. I seriously did not need to put this lazy pun here.
Until very recently, very few people dreamt of exploring the whole world. It was too impossible of a dream. Now every chapri wants to travel the world. Who lifted these ambitions? Content. Content normalized imagining things that would have been impossible to imagine.
You would not believe it but as I’m writing this, I’m thinking of how much I’m missing on Twitter (a bit exaggerated but on a subconscious level, is it?). There’s so much drama, for free. Drama that used to be an art form. Not it’s just daily mundane life.
Content creation is so native to our instincts that we want to make something out of nothing. Although, there is no such thing as nothing. The most nothing thing is regularity which casts its evil shadow on everything that is interesting.
Instagram is not popular because it’s addicting. A lot of things in the world are addicting. Cocaine is addicting but as a sane person, you don’t do coke every day. But you watch reels every day. Why? Because content is not a purely biological coping mechanism. We really, deeply love to amuse ourselves - to no end. It is popular because it broadcasts amusement (and hope that there is humour in the tiniest bead of existence) at supernatural speeds.
We are glued to our screens not because there is something significant to be benefitted from it. It’s because it’s so palatable. Good art requires mental investment and only privileged people have the time and money for that. The rest of the world is still in survival mode. They simply don’t have the energy to consume intellectual shit. Give them the most basic stuff in a nice presentation and they are yours. Which is fine really. Whatever keeps running the cultural engine in the post-scarcity world. They just want what they already think told in a funny way. That’s why memes are so popular.
Memes are popular because they remove the barrier between mundane thoughts and funny reality. People keep rediscovering how a random low-quality JPEG can convert their deepest emotions. You think you shouldn’t say something online and then you find out that someone has already gone viral saying the same thing in a completely unexpected way. Content is unstoppable because it’s shockingly surprising what can hit the right spot.
So…my dear anon, you are not addicted to social media. You just can’t forcefully put your mind to overcome this innate desire to create and consume entertainment.
It’s so naturally coded in our genes that we literally invented memes to say the same things in a hundred different ways. We made thought transmission so low-bandwidth and scalable because we don’t want to leave the last drop of consciousness that can be turned into amusement.
You are literally content created by your parents. Society will tell us the easiest and most rational purpose of reproduction but when it comes to our day-to-day reality, when the honeymoon period is over, your parents must have thought “What are we going to do with ourselves”. They didn’t even have the internet at that time. You were born simply because you could. In the most absurdiest of senses, you filled a void. Contents fill the void that is our existence.
Oh anon, did you just say for the 100th time how much you love your partner? But tell me secretly in my year - didn’t you really give up on generating enough entertainment in your life, by yourself, that you needed another person to amuse yourself? Isn’t your girlfriend a walking stream of content? Despite the nuisance, you love the entertainment, don’t you? I know it sounds reductive but I also know some of you are doing more reductive things in bed. So please…
It’s not attention that drives people to create random, non obvious content. It’s the question of how something could be enhanced. It’s the possibility of altering the narrative when you don’t like what has already happened. What if your monthly trip to Goa wasn’t really a blast? So what? You can always remix the events and memories. You can always make things look different. You can always think about things differently. Isn’t everything, literally everything, a narrative in your head?
I don’t know if it’s good or bad. I think it’s a false question. In the group chat of amusement, morality is not welcomed.
Content is a drug that no law prohibits. We secretly want something interesting to happen every new hour of the day. Why? Because we know in our guts that whatever you throw at your brain, it will process it. Everything we do, we do so that we can have a fun time. Every hard work, trouble, sacrifice, crisis, suffering and pain that we go through is due to the innate fact that there are a lot of things in life that are fun. Way lot more than the bad things. And content is its main ingredient. We don’t like to accept what happens. We like to say this is how I want to see it.
A good analogy that I’ve been thinking recently is this. Imagine a party that is teeming with interesting and witty conversations. And everyone is invited to take part in it. Everyone is encouraged to contribute to the conversation. Everyone has the opportunity to be seen. That is exactly what social media allows us but more on a subconscious level. Our brains act in the same ways as if being part of this global digital party. We just don’t see the glitter while participating in it.
So, ladies and gentlemen, my theory is that we never ever want to leave this party. We just keep reinventing the wheels of participation, whatever makes sense according to the times. However grim it feels to us on an individual level, the core nature of things is sort of the same. Everything we do is to keep this party alive. To keep imagining ideas, actions and behaviours out of thin air and have fun while creating and consuming them. This is the cosmic dopamine that we are perpetually high on. It’s subtle but it’s in every particle of the stardust.
So, the next time you find yourself grinning at a reel, don’t be guilty of wasting time. Every new exciting medium of entertainment is addicting at the start. But reality has also given us this potent power to normalize anything that threatens our need to function. Sooner than the sun sets, the medium becomes pervasive and blends with our daily lives. The important thing to remember is that someone made that reel by thinking that someone else might find it interesting. So, content is a cosmic cope in the sense that it seeks to lift someone else from their boredom, even for a little while. It’s a different form of shared care.
Think about this. When you watch a great movie, you feel understood. You feel that you were being expressed through that movie. The same goes for any piece of art. Content creation comes from the roots of the same desire. It’s the ability that grants an average user to make a little part of their lives cinematic. They don’t have the time or budget to make a movie to convey their thoughts. Which is fine. Among the intricate web of our emotional landscape lie very simple feelings. When a reel or a tweet goes viral, they are tugging at those simple feelings. And you don’t need a movie every day to keep going, and to keep wondering. You just need to be lifted from boredom, in this little moment.