OK, first I guess I should apologize for the title, but it’s what came to mind.
I’ll be the first to acknowledge that most social media content on the web is not created to be “great art,” meant to delight and inspire the generations to follow. Whether we are talking about tweets, Youtube videos of kids lip-syncing to popular music, etc. this content is meant to be ephemeral, and that’s OK. Most of what humanity has created over the centuries has been ephemeral.
At the same time though, in the midst of centuries full of forgotten scrawls, there was always respect for and the valuation of work that stood apart, in scope, vision, and the effort required to create them. In addition, many of these great works require an effort to truly experience and understand them. (Try reading Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce sometime). So when I saw this as part of a comment in response to Chris Brogan’s “Content Is Not King” post, I nearly choked.
“If you can easily write 3 blog posts a day and not break a sweat then you have your voice. If it takes you a week to research and write a post then you are not writing about something that you are passionate about.”
Sorry, but if you are writing three posts a day without breaking a sweat, then you are sitting on your laurels and mailing it in. Sweat is part of the creative process, effort, indeed struggle is part of the creative process, pushing beyond your boundaries is part of the creative process, for content that matters. It’s the difference between art and craftsmanship. Offhand utterances are ephemeral by their very nature, and I am concerned when I see ephemerality (if that’s a word) implicitly praised in this fashion.
Many people don’t like PowerPoint because it tends to force the content, and even the thought process behind the content into a confined and limited space. Bullet points don’t allow a lot of space for reflection or detail, let alone subtlety. I fear that in a similar manner the quick and offhand way of creating content that is intrinsic to the Social Media space is getting trumpeted as a virtue; it’s OK for everything to be slapdash, sloppy and instant, as long as you’re plugged in now.
If as a result of embracing Social Media we get hung up on “now”, refuse to read longer blog posts (let alone books), get addicted to speedy content creation and consumption, then all that Social Media is doing is turning a demand for instant gratification into a virtue, and creating a cyberspace equivalent of Attention Deficit Disorder.
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