More (mediocre) content is not better than no content: A rant

Once in a while you’ve got to let off some steam (Bennett). For most, that means punching a heavy bag, screaming into a pillow, maybe going crazy and tearing the tag off a mattress.

For me, it’s … angry blogging! Friday rant incoming.

What’s gotten under my skin?

The incessant need for “more content.”

I’m hearing this in the cries of Rings of Power defenders, many of whom admit that while the show is mediocre at best, and plays fast and loose with Tolkien lore in nonsensical ways, they nevertheless continue to watch. Because “its more Tolkien content, and I need more Middle-Earth. I need more content.” 

Actual quotes.

This chaps my ass.

No one needs “more content.” Not of this sort.

To me it sounds like infantile and babylike cries of, “more food, mama!”

How about, more art, please.

Stop consuming cheap and disposable shit, and begging for more. Find the good stuff that already exists, and enjoy that instead. 

There’s more content right now than anyone can consume in a lifetime.

If everyone stopped producing content tomorrow—if somehow we implemented a worldwide ban, and you could only consume content that’s already been made—you’d have enough for 50 lifetimes.

You’ve got way more than enough. I’m not advocating this, BTW, just making a point.

I hate the need for more, at any cost. I also strongly dislike the word “content” when it comes to media. “Content” is the stuff we expel from our bowels. Probably not what we should be feeding our minds with.

We do need good art. But corporations don’t make art. Corporations make content, on an industrial scale, for undifferentiated masses, in order to make loads of cash. As we see with Star Wars and now (unfortunately) The Lord of the Rings “franchises.” Corporations buy franchises and expect massive ROI on their investments. In Amazon’s case, it’s all about getting more Amazon Prime subscribers, converting to product consumers. The Lord of the Rings becomes a means to an end, a power grab, which is the opposite message of the book.

When you consume poorly made “content” produced by corporations it encourages more of the same behavior. Instead:

Support independent artists and small businesses producing new material. Discuss thoughtful and well-made art. Appreciate it. Encourage creation of more of that sort of art. Or, explore the good, old, time-tested stuff. 

If you adopt these practices worry not, you still have near infinite options.

More “content” comes with a cost.

It devalues the historical wealth of riches we already have. I have a bias here; I’m a historian. I do wonder: Who talks about Fritz Leiber anymore? Clark Ashton Smith, Leigh Brackett, Poul Anderson? Very few, in comparison to the new and shiny content of the moment. Hell even Ursula LeGuin, once a household name, is starting to slip into the past. 

I worry these men and women will be lost to time under an avalanche of new “content.”

“More content” chokes out the magic of what makes old properties special in the first place. The avaricious need for more content causes every timeline, every side character, every magic item or scroll, every byway, to be fully filled in. Until the magic is gone. 

We no longer need to wonder how the force operates. We no longer need to speculate about the Blue Wizards and what they were doing.

They’ve all been spelled out, like an adult paint by numbers, in the pursuit of feeding the content machine.

We need dark places in the woods, unexplored realms beneath the seas. 

And we need white space on the page. 

Obviously, I enjoy modern adaptations. Obviously, I consume some of them. Perhaps that makes me a hypocrite. But I’m definitely more judicious these days with what I watch and read, because I know that you are what you eat. And I’m not a big fan of eating shit.

I’m not advocating closing off possibilities. What I do advocate is, mindful consumption. Read or watch deeply instead of broadly. Then share that out. Celebrate the good. And stop giving your time and attention to the mediocre.