What is “content” doing to our sense of value?

In a digital age, it’s all about “content”. The post or tweet or reel or video or pod is nothing without something in it that permits it to be shared, to circulate, to attract attention, to promote engagement. What matters is the fact of circulation, not the usefulness or accuracy or beauty of what is circulating.

In other words, “content” is generated not to last, but merely to attract attention for the time-being; it is designed to be transitory without regard for either epistemic or aesthetic value; it merely fills the void left by the creation of digital platforms; it exists primarily to circulate, which is to say, to go viral; it reduces everything to “fodder”, regardless of the human dimensions or tragedy or seriousness or spuriousness of the story. The perfect encapsulation of “content” is the meme.

The ethical and aesthetic problems this presents are not exactly new, but the scale and speed of the “content industry” — especially in a time of generative AI – invests them with a degree of urgency.