"Take your meaningless drivel and go away!"
A sentence like that might constitute "fightin' words" for one person, and a reason to feel shame and crawl away whimpering, for another.
But that's not really my point here.
The question at hand is who gets to be the arbiter, judge and jury in the case of determining what IS and what is NOT meaningless drivel?
Case in point: A lot of People Who Take Themselves Very Seriously™ would probably describe someone's enthusiastic posts about their cats or their pugs or their guinea pigs as meaningless drivel.
There are millions of cat videos on YouTube, and they have been watched something like 50 BILLION times, meaning that by that yardstick, there's an awful lot of "meaningless drivel" in the world.
A similar case could be made for a large number of different topics.
Meanwhile, those same people posting the cat videos would probably insist that your insistence on the only "worthy" content being the finer nuances of Austrian Economics or the latest scientific studies of neuroscience is... wait for it... meaningless drivel.
In a sense, this post arose out of my suddenly remembering an old friend who is also a bit of a local "character" around these parts who would come into our now defunct local gallery/gift shop and "hang out." While there, he would quite openly share nuggets of "wisdom" such as anyone with an IQ under 130 should be euthanized... as a favor to THEM and other ideas of a seemingly similar but always "radical" nature that would shock most people within earshot.
In retrospect, I probably disappointed him by not reacting to many of his somewhat esoteric views on life... and by instead responding to something like the above with a statement such as "that would make the world a very stinky place since the leftover brainiacs would most likely lack the muscle power AND willingness to dispose of the bodies of 97.5% of the world's population."
Most great thinkers and visionaries (at least that I've met) rarely think in functional and applied terms... ostensible "think tanks" and "real life" are typically separated by vast chasms.
But lets get back to meaningless drivel for a bit. Specifically to the question of the moment, which is who gets to decide what constitutes meaningless and what does not?
Which brings me to the broader issue of "problems without obvious solutions."
When I had my art gallery back in Austin, Texas... a gig I did for 13 years... one of the things we always used to say was "There's no accounting for taste," particularly after someone pretty much dropped their teeth and plopped down $2,500 for something we'd previously determined to be "pretty hideous."
Which is cryptic art speak for the broader idea that you can't generalize what people like and don't like, when it comes to art. And probably not overall web content, either... if you consider what can be found on YouTube or Facebook.
Point here: It's easy to be high and mighty and superior about what should and should not be considered worthy content... but attempting to do so is little more than an exercise in intellectual masturbation that can't be functionally applied. Much like those ideas they kick around in "think tanks" at institutions of higher learning.
Thanks for reading my meaningless drivel, and have a great weekend!
How about YOU? What is "quality content," to you? Or does "quality" not matter? Is it "valuable" content? Does anyone care, anyway? What constitutes "meaningless drivel?" And WHO gets to be the arbiter? Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!
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Created at 20210326 15:08 PDT
0224/1467