GoKawiilWhy I Stopped “Creating Content”
The first time I saw Michelangelo’s David in person, I wept. Never in my life have I witnessed a more beautiful piece of content.
I wasn’t the only one who felt that way. Museum patrons all around me were looking up from their phones to admire David as well. Despite it being legacy content, David was so scrollstoppingly captivating that it generated stronger engagement than TikTok and Instagram combined, despite those platforms offering fresher, more personally relevant content.
My awe only grew when I noticed the museum gift shop converting 60% of its traffic, numbers that would make any content creator salivate.
Hopefully that sounded absurd🔗
If you read the first few paragraphs of this post and found yourself nodding in agreement, I regret to inform you that you’re a LinkedIn spambot.
We’re not quite at the point where we call Michelangelo a “content creator,” but we’re getting closer every year.
The term “content” started when business owners needed a term to describe every kind of creative work they’d enthusiastically commercialize. 30 years ago, while still chairman of Microsoft, Bill Gates wrote an influential essay called “Content is King,” that correctly predicted the degree to which the Internet would commoditize creative work (with Gates’ help):
Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting. […] When it comes to an interactive network such as the Internet, the definition of ‘content’ becomes very wide. —Bill Gates, “Content is King,” 1996
The term “content” stuck. Over the last few decades, the business school folks have been so successful at influencing language that “content” has become the catchall sludge term to encompass everything from blog posts to songs to Netflix films. It’s now common to hear authors, comedians, and filmmakers refer to themselves as “content creators.”
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