“I recently published a content,” an Australian spammer announced in my inbox the other day. This didn’t strike me as correct usage of “content,” which is never singular, because it comes in an eternal stream.
I’m not totally sure what content means, though — even though I say it at work and it’s a kind of one-word pseudo-joke on media Twitter. I smile knowingly at this type of joke literally every day:
A two-part version of the joke (actual lol @ Part 1):
I don’t totally know why this is funny, though. So, because there’s literally nothing else to do and I’m a fun person, I looked up “content” in the Oxford English Dictionary.
Like me, the OED hasn’t really caught up with the nuances of 2020 usage. Its most relevant definitions of “content” are “the substance or matter (of cognition, or art, etc.) as opposed to the form” and “that which is contained in anything.”
Urban Dictionary gets closer:
“The shit that people post online for maximum views”
“[C]heap and mass produced reading/viewing material… soulless factory-made filler words”
“A wide variety of information that makes facebook pages fun”
I think this adds up to a mostly-accurate picture. Content is definitely “shit that people post online” — digital media. It’s usually judged on some kind of numerical metric, like views or click-through or time spent on the site. It’s sometimes cheaply-made, and it’s “soulless” in that it’s more likely to be a how-to-guide than anything expressive or character-driven. Often ~that which contains it~, as the OED would say, is some kind of platform, like Facebook or Netflix or a corporate blog.
“Content” stems, I’m pretty sure?, from content marketing, which I already wisely called “a whole thing.” This is a type of marketing where brands create their own digital media outlets, like MEL Magazine (funded by Dollar Shave Club) or the podcast Going Through It (funded by Mailchimp). It’s an alternative to paying for ad space, and it’s first and foremost a business strategy.
“Content,” though, is something bigger. To me, it’s an umbrella term for almost all digital media that makes business sense. You could say it’s media that’s inspired by a business need instead of the ~human experience~, but that’s too simple. I mean, yes, SEO optimization clearly came before aesthetics for whoever wrote these tips for cleaning bird poop off your car. (Useful! I got the poop off.) But sometimes, content is art, too — Parasite, for example, is currently on Hulu, but it’s obviously more than Hulu content.
Really, I think “content” says more about the person saying it than the media it’s referencing. When someone says “content,” it means, “I’m not artsy and I look at the whole world as a business opportunity. I’m a potential herb.”
This is why, I think, media people will jokingly refer to beautiful writing as “content”; they’re sort of poking fun at their careers and literary aspirations, but they’re also mocking the business bros who control their fates, and their impoverished creative vocabularies. The bros don’t know the difference between a profile and a feature and a personal essay; to them, it’s all content, a pretext for banner ads. Writers saying “content” is funny the same way caveman-speak can be funny. At least, that’s my working theory.
Please note! I would normally feel bad that this newsletter is elaborately explaining a joke, but I believe I get a pass for the following reasons: a) the joke has been beaten to death for years, b) it’s a business joke (not a primo joke type), and c) it’s less funny than it is an expression of powerlessness. Writers don’t even have the power to name what they do. Instead of the business bros learning our words for writing, we learn their word and use it ironically amongst ourselves. Until the irony wears off and we’re just… saying it too.
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Fun related reading:
Molly Young on “garbage language.” She doesn’t mention content, but it fits right in with “parallel-path” as a verb.
Charlie Warzel on the Longform podcast. He talks about metrics, unoriginal ideas and not being into “style.” Content is never mentioned, but it’s the center of gravity for the whole (surprisingly fraught!) interview: Is the NYT op-ed section a content mill? Seems like yes!
This piece of content ABOUT content. One of my favorite things ever; I literally remember where I was sitting when I read it for the first time. Pull quote that doesn’t do it justice: “I only have one personal tradition, and it’s watching a four-minute-and-23-second musical YouTube montage of the romantic odyssey of two characters I don’t know on a TV series I’ve never watched.”
Glorious housekeeping announcement: Mark has new art by Becca Fenn!