Nick Miko
The Book of KelsContent is corporate.
Don't be corporate.
The only way left to combat the algorithms is being aggressively human.
Hyena šļø Town@Nezchan I've been saying this shit for years and it's bringing me to tears that there's at least one person out there saying this too.
The worst lie the algorithm was ever told was calling human creativity "content".
@Nezchan Sadly it was never an algorithm. It was a person. Sometimes, many persons. People with a bleak, oppressive outlook on art, literature, music, software, and hell, sometimes porn.
I'm not content with blaming a concept, personally. I want names, and faces to place those names to.
Dani į“sį“@hyenatown @Nezchan SAME, I hate the whole "content" thing.
Simone Silvestroni (M2M)@hyenatown @Nezchan to me it was part of a process. Many people fell for it: the idea that people should sell themselves as if they were a brand. I wrote about it here: https://minutestomidnight.co.uk/blog/de-brand/
Kevin RussellCall it information dialysis.
Bater Kari@Nezchan I am a photographer because that is what I do. I am a visual entertainer. I capture the moment as it happens.
Frostć
ļ½
ļ½éć®ē¼ļ½äŗŗé¢ē£åæćšŗāļø@Nezchan Or nonhuman. Not everyone's human and humanity isn't some superior thing.
Virginicus@Nezchan Remember when PowerPoint had a button you could click for āAuto-Contentā?
Frankly no, since I never used PowerPoint. But I get it.
Stefan Rother-StĆ¼bs
korin š kodi@Nezchan i've seen people speak about this before and it reminds me how restaurants call food "product". which is the goal of capitalism, to commodify and reduce everything into "product", rather than what they actually are: needs, luxuries, art, etc.
My Vagina is Haunted@Nezchan I have a youtube channel about crochet that is 100% about giving off the feel of your favorite stitch and bitch. It's one of the things I have the most fun doing.
This is what I'd love to see more of. People doing stuff that doesn't slavishly follow the algorithm's dictates (usually for "beginner tutorial" content when it comes to arts and crafts) and just noodle around and talk about whatever the hell they want.
I've found a couple of channels like that, but they can be hard to find.
cymen@Nezchan Oh, excellent! This new usage of content has been gnawing at the back of my mind somewhere. Thanks for getting it to the front!
Leon@Nezchan 1000%. The word content means fungible filler. Itās a dangerous dehumanising exonym calculated to commodify culture because commodities are the only thing these undead execs can comprehend.
I appreciate artists may feel like impostors claiming they are artists but let me say there have been some truly awful artists that were still artists. The title is no guarantee of quality, just humanity, and you are entitled and allowed and required to use it.
Morgan ā§ļøTaste is certainly the most subjective! But Iāve come to understand and appreciate art as a communication and expressive medium for the otherwise inexpressible. From that perspective we can certainly judge art at how well it communicates, as much as we can judge other transmitters!
So when I say bad art Iām not talking about unpopular or unpleasant but *unaffecting*. When I make art that doesnāt say anything, even to me, thatās bad art, in the same way that if I canāt hear a voice on a call thatās a bad connection.
Itās totally possible to make art thatās pleasant, popular, skilful, crafty, cultural, intelligent, valuable, beautiful and still not say anything, still not good art.
But thatās just how I think about it, I think every artist has their own definition for what is insufficient which is valid and crucial.
Which is what I was getting at here, if one feels one makes ābad artā, by whatever definition you use, they are most assuredly still an artist making art.
Reinder Dijkhuis Does Art@Nezchan To help out, the following terms were not in the screenshot but should be at the tip of people's tongue:
For YouTube and other video platforms: "Video maker"; "documentarist"; "journalist";
For Instagram-type platforms: "photographer"; "model", "short video performer/maker" (but not "influencer" unless you actually influence people to make decisions in their lives);
"music producer", "blogger", "vlogger". "Vtuber". "Cartoonist". And so on.
Everyone add more!
For YouTube and other video platforms: "Video maker"; "documentarist"; "journalist";
For Instagram-type platforms: "photographer"; "model", "short video performer/maker" (but not "influencer" unless you actually influence people to make decisions in their lives);
"music producer", "blogger", "vlogger". "Vtuber". "Cartoonist". And so on.
Everyone add more!
"Commentator" is one that springs to mind.
Niklas@Nezchan Totally agree. "Content" is term coined from the perspective of the user. It is the amorphous stuff that fills the <content> place holder in the business model, the stuff that goes between the ads so that Google recommends the site. You create works. They might be used as content, but that is not what defines them.
I think of it as less the perspective of the user and more of the people who profit from the traffic. Which itself is generally not the creator of the work.
Klaus Stein@Nezchan You are creating content if your intent/goal is to produce the lorem ipsum needed to sell adds or subscriptions.
If you have a different goal (like producing art) follow the advise :-)
Miia Mustang
Andrew@Nezchan I feel you'll appreciate this from @pluralistic "the real ai was the corporations that we fought along the way"
Dark Sheep Arts Has MovedI agree with this one -- for a while I dismissed it, thinking that I was just being middle aged and language was changing, but there has been a real shift towards artists of various types just being servants of the algorhythm.
And here's the thing: artists of all types have always had patrons, but da Vinci wasn't a Content Creator for the Medicis, he was Leonardo da Vinci.
We need to take back the definition of what we do.
Well, it is language changing, but in a way designed to benefit corporations.
That's true, to be fair!
pancakesšBed@Nezchan Art is the process of giving form to feeling, it is not a tool for generating capital. Art is useless in the utilitarian sense, but allows for a transcendence outside of the machine. When art becomes content it no long does this, instead art ceases to be and our experience of what it is to be human goes with it.
Snapai 
Don't make content, because you aren't.
Make discontent.
Make malcontent!
Raise some hell with your art!
Caitlin Rozakis@Nezchan I am a corporate marketer, and I am also a writer. The stuff I do for my day job is content. The stuff I write at night is art. (Although I'll probably also produce some content to market the art, to be honest.)
chuls@Nezchan I'm really happy to see how much resonance your post is getting. You put something into words that I've been feeling so long but never put into words myself. At least not out loud to anybody else. I felt weird and a little pedantic thinking it, but you just made me stick to it loud and clear.
Well, my words are only expanding on what the person on Tumblr said. But it's a sentiment that's been running around in my head for quite a while now.
Morgenmuffel@Nezchan @wrenegade I fucking hate the word content so much. It makes everything sound like grey slurry poured in to fill gaps.
That's what the corporations and tech bros actually think it is, far as I can see. The "AI" art and writing generation programs are designed with that assumption at their heart, that "content" is just generic raw material to be processed.
Sean Hall@Nezchan Saw this at the store and I wanted to buy it just to keep it away from some poor child. I would have ritually destroyed it of course.
That is just so transparently awful, it becomes a work of art in itself.
sanfierro@seanfhall @Nezchan I just laughed at this. Perhaps, that was nervous laughing. The three pictograms symbolize the pipeline or conveyor or something.
By the way, what do you think about the word YouTuber? The first intuitive thought of mine is that it's the same and even worse than content creator, because it's tied to a particular platform, which is kind of a monopoly.
By the way, what do you think about the word YouTuber? The first intuitive thought of mine is that it's the same and even worse than content creator, because it's tied to a particular platform, which is kind of a monopoly.
Sunflower Bjƶrnskalle š»@Nezchan I've always found the trend disturbing and I'm shocked that people do it willingly... so weird.
Akseli 
@Nezchan im trying to snap out of it. I feel like its even easier for us that are not native english speakers to get stuck calling things "content" since thats what we see others doing. Idk. Just musing
But anyhow im a gamedev code slinger and i like it
Thomas Michael Semmler@Nezchan that is such a good point!
DaniĆ«l Franke š³ļøāš@Nezchan I once spoke out against the term "content creator" and I got so much shit for it...
You won't get that here. Speak loud and proud!
Andrew Lewis Workshop@Nezchan It took me 20 years to finally accept that my job title is, in fact, 'artist'.
āļøFaerieāļø@Nezchan Feel this very strongly at the minute as I've been job searching and all of it is in content/strategy/language that doesn't allow for a lot of humanity. It's such a small feeling.
Niall OāSullivan@Nezchan always felt that the use of ācreativeā as a noun was very corporate too.
It's-a me! I'm-a creative!
Hmā¦ Iām skeptical@Nezchan related to my recommendation to never use āSubmitā as button text.
Martijn van Dijk@Nezchan I always disliked the phrase ācontent creatorā. This explains it way better than I ever could.
Jake in the desert@Nezchan AGREE. So THAT'S why that term has always made me want to puke. All makes sense now.
Kerta 
@Nezchan We should be obtuse about it too. Call art an apple one week and call it a metal bar the next. Break any attempt to feed our data to an algorithm with tons of bad data.
Howlinā Hobbit@Nezchan Iām a musician. I mostly play ukulele and bill myself as a āUkulele Ace.ā but that leaves out the songwriting (so Iām a writer too), the drumming and washboard playing (Iām also a percussionist) and... well, you get the idea. what drives me mad is that the ācontent creatorsā get a bazillion followers, with the accompanying massive remuneration, and I canāt make ends meet. hell, I canāt get āem to wave to each other. wish I could be a āselloutā but thatās not in the cards.
Joana de Castro Arnaud@Nezchan Boosting, both for the post and the illuminating thread above.
I didn't notice, until now, how naming art works "content" is demeaning to art works.
Greensleeves.website@Nezchan Thereās a certain soulless quality to the way the word ācontentā thrown around, isnāt there? Just stuff, production things.
Bo Burnam illustrates it pretty well in this song - the ironic push for upbeat creative output, even when feeling down: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQvrap19Eng
"Content" - Bo Burnham Song Video, from "Inside," New Special on Netflix
I suspect that's part of the point. It's certainly a handy way to think about the output of people's souls when you want to use them as input for an "AI" generated slurry.
Trolli Schmittlauch š¦„@Nezchan Iām a professional contempt creator though.