Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about content. Great I have this blog, but that’s the easy part. Now I need our little friend the content.
I started writing some blog posts with my reflection on dance and code, and they are all left in draft state. Instead, I wrote (and published) this one. It’s important to create a larger conversation and talk about the process behind issue 02 (for me this whole project is about process, changing as it goes along, still undefined). But I sometimes feel like I’m talking to myself in an endless loop. Do we really need all this content? Who really cares?
Silence is golden. Can we be silent online?
It’s the same with social media. I have to constantly find things for facebook. It’s not easy. I’m critical. But I try and at least ask questions and put some new thoughts there. To keep it out of the like-or-troll loop. It’s not that simple My naive fight from within? I can’t escape, we can’t, can we? I don’t believe in the extremes winning the fight. There must be another way.
I’m the admin to a facebook page that is no longer in use. Facebook constantly tries to suggest I make changes to it, update it, see the views. But why? It’s a dead space. Who needs the useless content anyway. Only facebook to take bit by byte into its gluttonous self and get fatter by the day (and night).
I try to experiment. I’m not sure how I feel. Maybe I seem hypocritical. I use facebook just as everyone else and probably won’t stop. It’s how I reach all of you. I count the likes and make sure I am doing it right. But what can be done?
And still it always comes back to our little friend #content.
We can’t control the structure, the codes, but we can shape the content. How can content then shape the structures and codes in return? Can we start our own virus from the outside in? What do we have in our power?
A lot of horrible things have happened in the world lately that need to be addressed and discussed. They are still happening. Where does my voice go with the content in those? I wanted to write something but couldn’t. How can I use content instead?
There’s the question of surveillance. But see me, the real me. There is nothing to hide behind here.
I propose we at least try. We at least fight back. We can’t escape feeding the belly of the beast, so let’s at least try and break the rhythm, byte by bit.
If you are probably reading this, you probably already know this, think this, question this, but how do we build those audience numbers that facebook so truly desires? How do we put ourselves on the same playing field? Not a for or against, but rather another mouth to feed from within their own belly.
Why did I start a blog in the first place? What even is this blog?
Maybe it’s impossible. But in the end the algorithms are written by other humans just like us. Facebook is run by humans (and a lot of money). And we do have agency, we do have power– we provide the content that makes the dough.
I’m not into small talk, but I can calculate a story. If it’s a numbers game, then I’m here to play. Call me an optimist, but from in-between is the only way I can. It’s the system that’s at the base of it all. Let’s go in depth. Let’s make our content get to the root of it all.
This is just my initial thought processes, rants, ideas. Below are some more links to think about content, and I will update the list as I find more. I’m processing it all too, but now the ‘content’ is out there, exposed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/19/opinion/the-real-bias-built-in-at-facebook.html
http://bb9.berlinbiennale.de/fear-of-content/
http://rhizome.org/editorial/2014/may/01/printing-out-internet/
http://www.devdungeon.com/content/i-know-how-program-i-dont-know-what-program
