Vs. Performing For The People
I will never know why going through the drive-thru 1000 times in a row has reached over 100 million views.
I will never understand the ‘pretending to get shot’ TikToks. With all the shootings that happen in America, this seems slightly alarming to me.
Content out on the world wide web for all to see has definitely developed over the years, but somehow; honesty, integrity and authenticity still seem to be on the lower end of the trending list.
Back when the internet needed dial up to connect you, it was an exciting place; new and full of possibilities, Tim Berners-Lee was the father of the Matrix and it was as naïve then as a humble library, just there to guide and provide information and entertainment.
Then slowly but surely people saw a way to leverage the WWW, and the internet gave birth to content creators — and they came in their droves.
It became more than just blogs about cooking, cats and corporate jobs, by 2006 the social media empire was in its stride and everyone wanted to make money from it.
Now there are endless videos, pictures and posts from all corners of the globe and it begs the question; how do you stay authentic to yourself as a content creator?
Giving the people what they want is indeed a great way to make easy money, analytics are more accurate than ever and so it’s even easier to see where you’re hitting it right or going wrong. However, when I see these people I can’t help thinking they’ve sold their soul to the devils.
‘Pretty accurate right?
In my mind though, specifically when it comes to creative business and content creation, it should be about
business, and what we are willing to provide for the people, otherwise where’s the limit? How much of a dancing monkey performance is enough to satiate the hungry appetites of those that represent, well Boh from Spirited Away comes to mind…
The unfortunate and quite sad thing about social media is that authenticity and staying within the boundaries you set for yourself are rarely a trait people admire. Losing yourself because of the pressures that come from this kind of work happens more often now than it ever did before — at least 5 YouTubers that I’d grown to admire over the past month had posted goodbye videos claiming that it no longer served them in a healthy manner, and it’s so sad to see those out there are struggling to express themselves, or go through personal development without people wanting them to do what they watched 6 years prior — the whole ‘people change’ thing doesn’t sit well with OG fans. Before you know it you’re performing ‘Blinded by the Light’ on TikTok just to boost views because the painting you spent 3 weeks on got no more than 49 likes and all your socials reach count is steadily declining because of this.
So where does all this lead us? Well I don’t know. This post, like many I’ve put out there on the internet, is a documentation of my thoughts and feelings based on how I refuse to change for clout. Even now I could make this post more seamless, raise more POV, and pad it out with wordy jargon. Or I could just leave it here, will it do as well as a post written about making $3,600 dollars in one month doing XYZ? Well, that’s up to you.
