Repetitive and mindless content always wins
Illustration by Chloe Latour.
I love repetition. I love my schedule. I love being able to do the same thing every day, watch the same Youtubers and eat the same lunch. Are you bored? No, for me it’s reliable and more importantly it gives me peace of mind.
I believe this love of familiarity is what makes social media addiction for so many people. Not only do we have algorithms that can provide us with personally appealing content at any given time, but there is also a physical aspect to repetition. Swipe, scroll, double tap. Combined, these create an insatiable desire to consume constantly.
This is addictive for consumers and great for the billionaires running social media platforms, but what does it mean for content creators?
If you’re looking for advice on how to grow your following on social media, you’ll see the word “consistency” everywhere you look. This algorithm rewards creators who upload consistent content at a consistent pace.
To me, this need for consistency is nothing more than a creative constraint. To be successful, you need to have a consistent identity. If you fail, you will no longer be supported by the algorithm and your opinion will drop.
This pressure to create homogeneous content results in a digital monoculture.
Let’s go back to 2005. At that time, the concept of “content creator” did not even exist. The internet was just starting to take off, and YouTube had just arrived. For the first time, anyone can easily create and share video content. This was also the time when Apple computers began to include built-in webcams and video editing software, making it possible to perform the entire video creation process using just a laptop.
Now it’s even easier to create content. Most people walk around with a high-resolution camera in their pocket that can instantly upload content to the web. How do you stand out in a world where anyone can create content? By being the same.
Create the same video over and over again. If you’re a chef, every recipe you share should be photographed and edited exactly the same way every time. Even if you’re an artist working in a completely different genre or medium, your videos should follow a repetitive format. While everyone starts creating, the creativity behind it is lost.
If you want to try something new, you risk losing the traction you’ve built and potentially saying goodbye to all the followers you’ve worked so hard for.
As someone who enjoys being creative, the thought of being shoehorned into one narrow niche is scary. But for many people who want to make a living from their creative work, growing a following on social media is almost essential.
Journalist Taylor Lorenz recently created a video about the outrage prevalent in Instagram videos. There’s a video genre out there featuring creators who are frustrated by having to make videos just to stay relevant in an algorithm.
And it’s similar to what I’ve seen online – people are tired of having to adapt. In the early days of YouTube, I fell in love with the internet because it felt like everyone was just making interesting content. Nowadays, social media has become so competitive that there is no fun or creativity left on these platforms.
I’m not exactly a content creator, but I enjoy creating content. I spent the summer creating videos for companies’ Instagram accounts and trying to become an amateur food critic. Naturally, neither of these attracted any real attention. But as an experiment, I created the lowest quality content possible, including clips stolen from comedy TV shows. Within days, he had 1,000 times more views than any of my other videos.
I realized that people didn’t want to see what I wanted to create. The lowest common denominator, the one that is easy to understand and appealing to everyone, always wins.
So what’s the solution? Maybe just turn off your phone or at least support creators who create interesting and original content. But at the end of the day, one person’s support doesn’t help an algorithm that thrives on unoriginal, repetitive content.
The best way to bring about change in yourself is to make art for art’s sake. Forget about views, interactions, and followers and focus on the creativity you’re doing. I know that I will be happier if I don’t care what other people think of me.
