Splash No. 222 - Content
Content
I was reading another David Cain post and was left dumbstruck after reading the following passage referencing the ideas of theorist Jean Baudrillard:
Basically, culture is the stuff we make that depicts reality — film, books, blog posts, photos, paintings, songs, video clips, tweets — content, in other words. People make stuff that depicts reality because they find reality meaningful, especially when it’s sad, funny, just, unjust, beautiful, or awe-inspiring. People write poems about nature, direct films about unrequited love, and build temples decorated with sun emblems.
But what happens in an age when cultural content is generated and consumed in such great amounts that most of a person’s reality consists of consuming content? And what happens when much of that content isn’t even depicting reality anymore, but other content made in the past?
Later in the piece, Cain expresses his concern for the younger generation that can lose sense of what’s real in their content and what is fake, leading to a shrinking reality. Perhaps what can keep them (and us) safe from such a fate is the ability to see the seams where content ends and our lives begin. The seams are the haziest in the most emotional moments — tears shed over a beautiful film, the jubilation from an energetic record, fullness from finishing a perfect novel. Can we really tell what reality is when culture has felt realer than our own lives in these moments?
Cain finds himself concerned with our lives are increasingly filled with content, but I feel like my life has always been inextricably linked to culture and content in general. I reacted strongly to reading this passage because I found myself questioning how much of my life has consisted of consuming content — not just in the last couple of years with the explosion of internet, especially during the pandemic, but for years and years before that, covering most of my life. Even as a young child I was watching TV shows and films. After that, I was reading voraciously, before my later dive into internet content on YouTube and beyond.
Lately, I’ve been struggling with the largeness of the content world. Every day I face the Sisyphean task of looking at my inbox, trying hopelessly to empty its contents as more and more newsletters, articles, content come flying in from cyberspace. I used to pride my ability to reach inbox zero, to read everything I was subscribed to and expand my brain endlessly. Now I watch it grow, reminded of invasive species, a kudzu of words that I brought over from somewhere else. With podcasts, I subscribe to dozens to only listen to the same three or four. With music, I attempt to listen to new albums or old albums, rejecting them based on a single song or ugly album art.
As I trudge through all of this, it feels more difficult to find those hazy seams. My reality seems to fill with more and more content, leaving less of my own reality in which I can let myself be astounded, moved, shocked by what beauty the content could hold. I’m unafraid of losing sense of what’s real, as long as I don’t let it numb the feeling of what I do experience, content or not.
Drops of the Week
ALBUM - Chromatic by AIR APPARENT - new AIR APPARENT album????
ARTICLE - "Not knowing what’s impossible" by Austin Kleon - interesting piece about how knowing the limits can be limiting in its own way and vice versa
POEM - "One Way or Another" by Maya C. Popa - I plead / with time, adamant, remorseless. / Hands suddenly alive. I love you; / then what?
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Hmm,
Nikhil