Every day, my mom gets on AOL and looks through the trending articles. She then proceeds to update me on the celebrities with botched face-lifts, the children that have died in tragic house fires, and the foods that may prevent hypertension. After reading Heffernan's article I realized that for the past nineteen years I have been listening to content farm article headlines.
Content farm pieces add an interesting variable to the debate: "what is writing?" These articles are written by robotic, "unpaid freelancers" with limited knowledge of their subject matter and "deadlines are frequently as every 25 minutes." The question is: does writing have to be good? Or do any words strung together constitute writing? And who decided how or why writing is good?
In addition to this point, are content farms a new movement in the writing world? We are all aware of how writing is shifting because of online formats (heck! We have this class now which is specifically focused on writing for digital formats). Fast-paced, multitasking, and utilitarian writing is not uncommon online. These content farm articles seem to fit perfectly into the 140 character world that we have begun to create. Is this something that should bother us, or should we merely prepare ourselves for the future of online writing?
Google is very interested in making sure that it is involved in your life and that you listen to what it wants you to hear. It's rather terrifying really. That being said, why were they so concerned with making sure that advertisement infested articles were filtered out while in the meantime Google was actively infiltrating every single aspect of the internet. Hypocrisy at its finest.
I will write another post tomorrow about the other articles
The content farm piece made me think about my own writing for some classes... *stands up and addresses the circle* Hello, my name is Dave, and I am a content farmer.
ReplyDeleteHaha, Dave, I Carsons as having experienced a displaced filter. But I have to address the circle, "Hello, my name is Jesse, and I am a content generator."
ReplyDeleteI thing any words strung together do constitute writing. That is why, if I chose to, I could call myself a writer and keep a straight face. I happen to have greater respect for the art form than to try to foist myself upon it, but based on the definition of writing, I could.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of the content farm is hardly unique to this art form - most art forms have an equivalent. The visual arts have studio assistants, music has studio musicians, writing has content farmers...