The word ‘content’ has become ubiquitous online. In referring – in the most general sense – to substance of any kind, it conveys instead the idea of substancelessness.
It is a commercial abstraction for people wanting to make money on the internet by providing a stream of new words/images/videos, to be – tellingly – consumed.
I have mainly encountered the word filtered through the irony machine; I avoid earnest business types since they make me sad. I assumed then that a search for ‘#content’ would produce only jokes but I was disappointed with a great many cringe-worthy infographics by self-described social media experts on the necessity of hashtag content. To put this forward as, somehow, an insight shows the poverty of this way of thinking; marketing as coming up with something to sell, rather than making something of value, and finding a way to sell it.
I will strive to make this blog contentless.