The Truth About “Content”
One of my upcoming pre-scheduled YouTube videos
I’ll be honest with you: every single one of the posts you’ll see from me going forward, from my Insta to my YouTube, will be queued up and scheduled ahead of time to release without my having to hit “post” myself. I will never be personally online while my posts are shared again.
The single most effective tool in your arsenal, especially if you maintain anything of a “voice” online (I applaud you if you don’t)— is preserving your sanity. On the day to day, this is done by protecting your energy and attention. The visceral experience of digital “brain rot” is so commonplace that most of us joke about it, or treat it as unavoidable and just part of “staying connected,” which too often is a bullshit phrase that means nothing beyond digital overwhelm— but it doesn’t have to be. Why are you online? What benefits you, and what aspect of you? I.e.— your intellectual interests, your spiritual interests, your friendships, your professional field?
I know what doesn’t benefit me: watching the same reheated, rehashed, drivel “content” about the same nothing topics, nothing opinions and nothing value. I put “content” in scare quotes because I can’t stand it; it is perhaps my most-hated piece of modern terminology. I think its sterile, neutered, flattening quality indicates the sterile, neutered, flattened media it typically refers to. We should be insulted at the prospect that half this shit is even “passively” suggested as being worth our time, let alone pushed in our faces at this level and velocity. I detest the term beyond that, though, because it lumps in all online media with the nothing-drivel churned out by professional posters for their useless spam presence online.
In a world where you can listen to deep, mystical Catholic theology, study the pre-Socratic esoteric philosophy that inspired Nietzsche, and listen to hours upon hours of lecture from one of the greatest Jungian analysts who ever lived and so much more: how dare anyone even passively categorize all online media as merely “content.” Fuck you— we are not all alike. The disassociated “shopping haul” videos, mukbangs and celebrity gossip videos might all be accurately lumped into the same nothing “content” category: but not what’s worth my time, or yours.
I’ve not given up on the internet entirely: there is so much genuine wisdom and knowledge to be traversed here, but we can only see and value that if we value our own time. Be the salmon that swims against the current; buck off the “content,” and keep your eyes open for the deeper conversations that some of us are still having.
In short, the most powerful tool we have online is conscious moderation— and when it comes to social media, being intentional about the time we spend, and the way we spend it. Scheduling posts and minimizing excess time on socials is one of the simplest, most effective ways we can achieve that. That doesn’t mean I’ll totally ignore everyone else’s writing and photography and do 100% drive-by posts, but I know what I do and don’t care about— and I have the self-respect to maintain boundaries on it. I hope you will, too. “Doomscrolling” is not a necessary part of modern life, and allowing it is a choice. It’s a choice I will not be making.
So when it comes to posts from yours truly, what I currently have queued up at this exact moment is two videos a week on my YouTube channel for the next few weeks. If you subscribe to my channel, I can promise you I will never pump out vapid “content” for its own sake— I only ever put out videos and writing on topics I consider to be genuinely meaningful, and have likely been poring over, researching and reflecting on for an extended period of time myself.
I sincerely hope they inspire thought in you, that you enjoy them, and that you share those thoughts for viewers to consider as well!
Now outside and go do some magic,
Awen