Content Creation: Don’t pursue happiness – create it.

When you don’t expect to be called out about content creation by a fortune cookie… I am being slightly better in 2024, I’m keeping the rings closed, I’m making my standard at-home meals easy and healthy… but every now and then, I indulge a little bit.

After some dumplings and sushi for an easy dinner the night I had to do a watch party, I eventually got around to opening the fortune cookie. I almost never have these the same night as my delivered food. Usually it’s the next morning with coffee because, as a dessert, they aren’t really… good. It’s more about the fun of the printed message and “lucky” numbers inside anyway, right?

So as I’m bleary-eyed, pouring my coffee, opening the cookie and reaching for my reading glasses to see what it is, I focus and read, “Don’t pursue happiness – create it.” and I was shooketh. I mean, I know these are printed in a factory from some database that I hope started with human writers and is probably now generated by some LLM/ChatGPT nonsense, but still.

It’s definitely the human impulse to tie random elements of happenstance together and come up with meaning, but like… I have been having conversations with myself and others in recent months about content creation, and mostly asking myself why, what and who I do it for. The answer almost always comes back: for myself, first and foremost.

https://twitter.com/urbanbohemian/status/1706285016429281398

So why am I not focusing on that more? Why am I stressed over analytics? Why do I see online trends and worry that I should hop on the bandwagon? Why do I worry so much about the fact that I really don’t know how to use TikTok well? None of that is making me happy, so why am I not examining these thoughts, the way I might tidy a room, and think “Nah, those can go. Don’t need ’em.”

These aren’t new thoughts, from me or anyone else, by any stretch of the imagination. But again, it’s a new year, time to work on turning choices into habits, and perhaps focus on content [kən-ˈtent] over content [ˈkän-ˌtent].

There was a sort of murmuring for a while about what we call ourselves, and “content creator” won out over a lot of things: streamer and/or artist most importantly. And no one likes to think of the art they make as just content to be consumed, regardless of what capitalism says. (I realize that I get to say this from a place of privilege because I don’t rely on my art for my income… yet.)

Writing, taking photos, streaming, TTRPG actual play, posting random pop culture thoughts on social media… if I don’t love it, why should I do it? And if other people like the vibes and want to hang out, watch, follow, maybe even pay me once in a while for it, all the better, but I have to remember that my primary audience for all of these things…?

Is me. 💖