Why Do You Dislike the Words "Content" and "Content Creator"?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - All right, so here we go.

00:00:07.080 | The next question we have,

00:00:08.580 | question about your dislike of the words

00:00:14.600 | content and content creator.

00:00:16.880 | She explains more.

00:00:18.080 | - Hi Cal, my name is Tina and I'm in academic medicine.

00:00:22.160 | You've mentioned on the show several times

00:00:24.520 | about how you hate the word content and content creator.

00:00:29.140 | I find that I don't like these terms either,

00:00:32.200 | but I can't quite articulate why.

00:00:34.680 | Can you explain further as to why these words

00:00:38.680 | just don't sound right,

00:00:40.000 | considering your deep life and deep work philosophies?

00:00:43.360 | Thank you very much.

00:00:44.280 | I'm a huge fan of the show.

00:00:45.640 | - All right, I'll be quick on this answer.

00:00:50.240 | I think the content and content creator terminology,

00:00:54.300 | the context in which it is often used

00:00:57.480 | is in a very sterile business technique

00:01:02.200 | optimization type context, right?

00:01:04.560 | So when you hear content creator,

00:01:06.920 | you're imagining that you're gonna be watching

00:01:08.880 | a YouTube video about optimizing your subscription numbers

00:01:13.880 | for your YouTube channel or something like this.

00:01:15.720 | When you think of content or content creator,

00:01:17.360 | you think of people saying,

00:01:19.280 | "I want you to smash that subscribe button,

00:01:22.080 | and hit the bell."

00:01:23.440 | And so anyways, it's sterile and business focused,

00:01:27.440 | where I tend to focus more on the craft itself,

00:01:31.880 | the Steve Martin advice of be so good they can't ignore you.

00:01:35.480 | That you're not a content creator

00:01:38.240 | who's trying to meet a content schedule.

00:01:40.320 | You're trying to instead craft a book

00:01:43.960 | that hundreds of thousands of people

00:01:47.240 | are gonna feel like changed their life.

00:01:49.280 | You're not trying to optimize readership numbers.

00:01:52.200 | You're trying to write an article

00:01:54.320 | that is gonna change the way a whole segment

00:01:56.200 | of the population understands an important issue.

00:01:58.440 | So I like to put the focus concretely

00:02:00.520 | on the actual artistic thing you're trying to create,

00:02:04.680 | and put as much energy as possible

00:02:06.160 | into making that as good as possible.

00:02:09.680 | And then all the other stuff,

00:02:12.600 | it comes along, but it's kind of on the side.

00:02:14.960 | I don't know.

00:02:15.800 | I mean, yeah, there's some stuff you have to do,

00:02:16.740 | but that's not the focus.

00:02:17.780 | The focus is producing the good stuff.

00:02:20.300 | Now, Jesse, you've been teaching me

00:02:22.200 | about some of this stuff, right?

00:02:24.200 | So you're helping me get videos online.

00:02:26.520 | You will admit to the audience

00:02:28.200 | that I know very little about YouTube or videos,

00:02:33.200 | and I practice what I preach.

00:02:36.400 | I do not know any content creator information.

00:02:38.960 | - I'm not, I'm okay with YouTube and stuff.

00:02:43.800 | I have a channel in another field that's decent.

00:02:48.800 | But all in all, yeah, I mean, I can attest to that.

00:02:54.220 | See, I guess that, okay, one other,

00:02:56.020 | I don't wanna go long, because I promised to be short,

00:02:57.660 | so I'll be short here.

00:02:58.680 | But I think there's also a,

00:03:00.440 | there but for the grace of God go I type fear I have,

00:03:05.980 | which is there's a very specific job

00:03:09.140 | in the world of people who work in written

00:03:11.340 | or visual mediums, which is being a YouTube personality.

00:03:15.660 | And they are really beholden to these algorithms.

00:03:19.740 | I guess if you make money off of YouTube advertisements,

00:03:24.740 | it really matters if your videos get recommended, right?

00:03:28.820 | I guess that's where a lot of views come from.

00:03:30.500 | And there's all of these little things that matter

00:03:32.860 | for the algorithm to get your video shown more.

00:03:36.220 | And obsessing about these things

00:03:37.700 | really probably makes a very practical difference

00:03:39.540 | to how much money you make.

00:03:40.900 | And so to me, when I see my son watching

00:03:45.900 | like Minecraft YouTubers,

00:03:49.420 | I'm like, what a hard job, man, this is a smart guy.

00:03:52.700 | Like, I'm wondering if he should go to med school.

00:03:55.100 | (laughs)

00:03:55.940 | I mean, because like, they have to do this all day long

00:03:57.700 | and get subscribers and this and this bell.

00:04:00.060 | I don't know what the bell does,

00:04:01.080 | but if they don't do this,

00:04:02.300 | it's not gonna get recommended.

00:04:03.700 | If it doesn't get recommended,

00:04:04.760 | they're not gonna be able to pay their heating bill

00:04:06.220 | and they have to like render videos all night long.

00:04:08.580 | And like, I don't wanna do any of that.

00:04:10.740 | So for me, I'm also, I think,

00:04:12.060 | just in a self-protective way,

00:04:13.220 | saying like, I don't want anything to do with that world.

00:04:15.820 | I care about my books.

00:04:17.540 | Like when it comes to metrics of success,

00:04:20.580 | how many copies my books sell and podcast listeners.

00:04:24.180 | I think downloads of the podcast is very important.

00:04:26.580 | I like this medium, it's distributed, we control it.

00:04:28.980 | I think it's given us a great relationship

00:04:30.620 | with the audience.

00:04:31.740 | And if YouTube videos help those things, that's great.

00:04:34.680 | But I really, I think once you go down that line

00:04:38.380 | of trying to serve the YouTube algorithm,

00:04:41.080 | it's a Faustian bargain.

00:04:44.740 | - A hundred percent.

00:04:45.580 | I think the gamers, they have a tough lifestyle.

00:04:48.940 | I mean, they probably don't have the best diet in the world.

00:04:50.740 | They're probably not exercising that much.

00:04:52.060 | Their backs probably hurt all the time.

00:04:53.740 | But some of them make bank.

00:04:55.500 | So I mean, as long as they're not blowing all the money,

00:04:58.780 | maybe they're okay, but who knows?

00:05:00.780 | I completely agree with you though.

00:05:01.860 | - Here's my counterfactual though.

00:05:02.960 | Let's say we take, let's say everyone

00:05:06.620 | who in the last five years made a serious run

00:05:10.020 | and let's just focus on one game

00:05:11.980 | at a Minecraft YouTube video, right?

00:05:14.660 | Like where they're doing it almost full-time.

00:05:18.100 | Now, if we took all those people

00:05:19.140 | and said almost anything else, like try writing books,

00:05:22.300 | try starting a software company,

00:05:24.180 | like just get your college degree

00:05:26.020 | and try to go into banking,

00:05:27.700 | I bet we'd have the same income distribution.

00:05:29.460 | There'd be like a small number of people

00:05:30.540 | who made a lot of money and like some other people,

00:05:32.560 | most other people, actually it would probably

00:05:34.540 | be a better distribution.

00:05:35.580 | You'd have a few people that made a lot of money,

00:05:37.140 | but a lot of money would be more

00:05:38.820 | than the best YouTubers make.

00:05:40.580 | And then almost everyone else would have

00:05:42.140 | at least a stable middle-class lifestyle

00:05:43.860 | where with the YouTubers, probably the curve

00:05:46.020 | is much more brutal that like 80% can't even

00:05:48.780 | pay their bills with it.

00:05:50.220 | But it would be the time demands of,

00:05:52.260 | I don't know, I ran a software company

00:05:53.780 | or a banker would probably be better than the worker.

00:05:56.660 | I guess my counterfactual is like,

00:05:58.340 | is this actually opening up,

00:05:59.860 | 'cause I don't think it's a better lifestyle.

00:06:01.500 | It's a really hard job.

00:06:03.240 | Is it really opening up like more

00:06:06.500 | income-making opportunities than,

00:06:08.160 | these are smart kids, than other stuff they could do.

00:06:10.460 | - That's probably more rational thinking

00:06:12.180 | than they went into, they probably first started

00:06:15.740 | doing it and then realized they might be able

00:06:17.580 | to make some money with it.

00:06:18.620 | And then all of a sudden it was like a snowball effect.

00:06:22.020 | So like people were doing it.

00:06:23.380 | - And there's a tension.

00:06:25.300 | - And I don't think that they would ever

00:06:28.940 | even wanna begin starting an accounting firm

00:06:32.100 | or doing some sort of thing like that

00:06:33.660 | where they have to report to work and do whatever.

00:06:36.060 | - Yeah, but you could be, they're all tech savvy.

00:06:41.220 | Most of these guys, I bet could build up

00:06:44.180 | pretty good computer programming skills

00:06:46.500 | and work, I don't know, half the year on contract

00:06:51.500 | and have the other half the year completely free

00:06:54.160 | and probably have as, maybe it's just not as much fun.

00:06:56.160 | Maybe I'm not a romantic.

00:06:57.260 | - Some of them might be, I think a lot of them might be.

00:06:59.180 | Like my good buddy who has like an online business

00:07:01.340 | plays games all the time.

00:07:02.260 | He doesn't do videos, but I mean.

00:07:05.340 | (upbeat music)

00:07:07.920 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

Why Do You Dislike the Words "Content" and "Content Creator"? | Deep Questions Podcast

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