Media

Making No Choice In An Age Of Many

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

How do you make your media choices?  As Serdar notes in an excellent column, choices are complicated; we often have so many we play it safe.  A thousand movies present options so overwhelming we go with a sequel.  The next One Piece episode will deliver something you liked ten episodes ago.  Choice makes us flee to safety too often – and our existing technology and culture encourage it because it’s profitable.

Our media diet is poorer for this paradox – I’m tired of all the sameness even when it’s good sameness like Marvel.  Anyway, the post is excellent, go read it.

I relate to this subject as I’ve been cultivating my reading lately.  I wanted to read new works – or ones I missed – and re-read beloved books from my past to ground myself.  Thus I’m going through a delightful mix of Taoist mysticism, writing advice, informative non-fiction, novels I loved, and fiction that I selected carefully.  One week I’m reading about breath meditation, the next is re-reading Asprin’s “Another Fine Myth.”

I found this cultivation takes continuous effort.  Do I really want to read this book?  Will this book provide a benefit for me?  Have my priorities changed?  Am I the kind of person who will spend $16.00 on a fascinating translation of a short, obscure document on health practices of centuries past (answer: yes).

I’ve realized that cultivating our reading – or any media consumption – takes effort, discipline, and practice.  It’s also something no one taught us how to do – and why would we they?  People assume you pick up media selectivity somewhere, and isn’t all this choice a good thing anyway?

We’ve been thrust into a world of choice we never expected with little training to deal with it.

Sometimes I speculate, “could someone write a book or teach a class on media selectivity?”  Is there a way to get people on board with more careful media choices?  Of course, we know that would just be another work viying for attention; what are the odds someone could be the Marie Kondo of media choice?

Right now all I and my friends can do is encourage people to make choice, share our findings, and go on.  If you’re doing the same, please share – maybe we can cultivate our media diets together.  Perhaps that’s the best – or only – way.

Steven Savage

Empty Content

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, Steve’s Tumblr, and Pillowfort.  Find out more at my newsletter, and all my social media at my linktr.ee)

I hear about “Content” constantly, and I’ve grown tired of it.  People need Content for their YouTube channel, to keep an audience, fill books, etc.  I finally realized why it gets up my nose – because the focus on Content doesn’t consider meaning.

Too often, when people talk about Content, it’s about needing to have it for some reason.  The channel has to have Content for the algorithm!  The blog needs Content to keep people’s attention.  The Podcast needs Content because you’re on a schedule and people expect it.  The existence of Content matters more than what the Content is.

When we speak of Content, we mean writing, discussions, videos, etc.  We’re talking about something that is meaningful or should be.  It may be a good chuckle or a life-changing revelation, but Content is about something supposedly that has value in itself.

The demand for Content makes our creations secondary to mathematical formulae and marketing calculations.  Content is just something we use to fill a space, the packing peanuts of the soul.  The meaning of that Content is secondary to just having something to pour into a container.

That’s what irritated me about the constant chats about Content – the value, the importance of the creative work wasn’t relevant.  You could boost the YouTube algorithm with a picture of you shirtless and silently reading Terry Pratchett or a detailed guide to creating resumes, and the result might be the same.  The idea of Content these days flattens the value and meaning of creation itself.

This situation makes it harder to become better at what you do.  When your critical goal is creating Content, then shoveling works out the door takes priority over making better works.  It’s all attention or meeting a wordcount, or whatever first, the work is secondary.

There’s a soullessness to it all and I can now put words to it.

For me, I think I’m going to think over what I make and why a little more.  I can see where I’ve fallen into the Content trap and where I’ve sought depth.  I also see where I may get distracted by “shiny Content” and not ask if it’s something I care about.

But for now, when I cringe at yet another discussion of Content I’ll know why.

Steven Savage

The Transformation Conundrum

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Not a week goes by where there’s not some question of why a big company/author/etc. doesn’t do something innovative and transformative.  Usually, it’s Disney, at least as of late, but I’ve been seeing this question for years.

Why doesn’t this big company/important person who could genuinely engineer culture do so for good?

Sure we’ve seen some good, along with a lot of evil from media companies.  But they’re in a prime position to change the world for the better, and they don’t!  That’s because sometimes being big and powerful is the very thing that keeps you from changing.

Giant organizations depend on many, many things – cash flow, supply chains, media deals, etc.  Just keeping something like that running takes a lot of effort, but it also means that such organizations are risk-averse.  When your entire giant communications colossus is a huge juggling act, the first thing to do is not drop any balls.

Changing the world means not just risking dropping the balls but throwing them.

Large organizations are also distributed.  They’ve got multiple physical footprints, studios, deals, and clients.  Distribution of resources is often a key to security and stability but may also make you vulnerable due to various dependencies.  It’s hard to change the world when your world is so complex.

Stability can be stagnation.

Finally, imagine if a big media company decided to change the world and engineer a better culture – they’d probably have to work at their own destruction.  Large, monolithic organizations with a lot of power controlling culture aren’t good for long-term social and cultural health.  If they truly innovated and improved culture, the stockholders, board members, etc. might not go for the results.

Honestly, except for one or two Big Media Companies, we may be doing better than we could be due to constant activism, pushing, and some well-meaning people.

If you wonder what kind of media company landscape I’d want to see, I’d probably say “distributed network.”  Many media organizations (sometimes cooperating) and multiple distribution systems (sometimes cooperating) to allow for innovation and opportunity.  Such “best-sized” organizations could survive and prosper, but neither could seize control of too much, and the loss of one will see it replaced in time.

Perhaps someday. Until then, don’t let up on them.

Steven Savage