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On Content and Creators and Consumption
Sep. 29th, 2019 10:06 am This is a grump that can't help but come across as a bit whiny and self-serving, which is why I'm writing it here and not on my professional blog.
One of the things I do to monitor my authorial presence online is something that people will say an author should never do: I routinely do a name-search for recent mentions, as well as searching on my book titles. I know all the reasons why authors aren't supposed to do this, but since I don't have a personal assistant to do things like keep track of glowing reviews I might want to quote, or to find out who's linking to my blog and podcast, and what, I have to do it myself. I don't tend to have the problem of stumbling across conversations that might tempt me to be That Author and wade in when I should walk away. (Honestly, I"m really good at walking away.)
In addition to keeping track of things like evidence for how my books are doing, regular name-searches are also a way to stumble across the rare piece of evidence that people other than close personal friends find my online content useful and entertaining. It's also a good way to stumble across evidence that random strangers are using my content for their own profit. And that's what I'm grumping and whining about today.
I'm not talking here about simple book piracy. We'll take that as a given, like periodic ant invasions of one's kitchen. I'm talking here about the increasing presence of automated click-sites that go around scraping content (or sometimes just keywords & links) to divert searchers who might be looking for my content to go instead to their income-generating site instead. In some cases, the sites have lifted entire articles. In other cases, they've hot-linked material. In many cases, they've scraped fragments that turn into utter gibberish because even the idea of providing borrowed value to their "customers" is beside the point. The point is to disrupt the value of search engines by turning search results into income.
One of the psychological failures of online content culture--and I've whined about this many times before--is that the practice of "free content and I'll try to find a way to monetize it that the readers won't notice" has created a consumer culture that is encouraged to be oblivious to the notion that actual human beings create that free content, and that those human beings have goals and desires of their own in creating it that, if not fulfilled, may eventually result in the content drying up.
And, of course, this dynamic reaches its apotheosis in gibberish, keyword-scraped, click-farms that have entirely eliminated the step where actual human beings create content. The heat-death stage of that process is when the internet consists only of click-farming scrape-sites busily scraping each other's gibberish and feeding it back to each other. There are two group that process leaves out entirely in the cold: actual human beings who create content, and actual human beings who want to consume meaningful content.
It is, alas, a feature of human psychology that the easier it is to obtain something, the less we tend to value it. The ease of access to information that the internet provides can be immensely valuable. I can sit at home and locate scanned copies of unique historic documents for my research that I could never afford to have access to if I needed to see the actual object. And for the most part, the only thing I'm expected to "pay" for that information is an acknowledgement of the source and a link to direct other people to it. The "free content" movement embraces a certain amount of hostility to anything that impedes that access, whether by requiring subscription, or even just account registration.
The "free content" culture also encourages people to treat any online source of information as having a moral obligation to provide any additional data and interpretation that the user wants. I receive a fair amount of requests from people who want me to do personal research for them (even types of research that my web contact page explicitly says I won't do). You know what the major reason I cut way back on answering such requests (even answering to decline)? Because even when people are corresponding one-on-one with a real human being, they treat the content they receive as not even being worthy of a thank you. If I'm feeling particularly passive-agressive, I'll follow up with an email to say that I just wanted to make sure they received my response since I hadn't heard anything. But mostly, I just ignore the requests now. If I'm not going to get even a brief thank-you for personally tailored work, I'll stick to doing the content creation that gives me personal joy on its own.
But you know? It hurts. It hurts that if I break down and beg people to throw me a scrap of a bone to say that they find what I do valuable, I can get some responses. But I can't get the sort of ongoing, casual engagement that makes it a public joy to share my knowledge, my resources, my time, and my hard work. I don't want "likes", I want human interaction. I want dynamic engagement. I want people to just bleeping talk to me without me having to hold up a dog biscuit and say, "Speak!"
You know what people say when I point this out? "Oooooh, Heather, but you're too scary to talk to! You're so intimidating I wouldn't have any thing interesting to say!"
So I go out with a search engine and look for evidence that someone, somewhere, is talking about my work with other people (because they're scared to talk to me about it). And why I try to do that, I get drowned in content-scraping click-farms. The rob me of even any vicarious feedback.
If someone out there is creating original online content that makes your day a bit brighter and more interesting, if they're giving you something that you would miss if it weren't there, don't assume that they have any other reason to continue than the direct, one-on-one human contact that you have been trained not to consider necessary. Don't assume that everyone else is giving them that contact and that you'll be meaningless noise. Don't assume that they have somehow monetized your eyeballs and get their feedback in financial remuneration.That ship has long since sailed.
There's no rousing finish to this. No trumpet call. No simple and easy one-time solution. Just one little real live human being hoping that if only I'm interesting enough, if I'm eloquent enough, if I provide enough value to others, that maybe someone will want to talk to me.
One of the things I do to monitor my authorial presence online is something that people will say an author should never do: I routinely do a name-search for recent mentions, as well as searching on my book titles. I know all the reasons why authors aren't supposed to do this, but since I don't have a personal assistant to do things like keep track of glowing reviews I might want to quote, or to find out who's linking to my blog and podcast, and what, I have to do it myself. I don't tend to have the problem of stumbling across conversations that might tempt me to be That Author and wade in when I should walk away. (Honestly, I"m really good at walking away.)
In addition to keeping track of things like evidence for how my books are doing, regular name-searches are also a way to stumble across the rare piece of evidence that people other than close personal friends find my online content useful and entertaining. It's also a good way to stumble across evidence that random strangers are using my content for their own profit. And that's what I'm grumping and whining about today.
I'm not talking here about simple book piracy. We'll take that as a given, like periodic ant invasions of one's kitchen. I'm talking here about the increasing presence of automated click-sites that go around scraping content (or sometimes just keywords & links) to divert searchers who might be looking for my content to go instead to their income-generating site instead. In some cases, the sites have lifted entire articles. In other cases, they've hot-linked material. In many cases, they've scraped fragments that turn into utter gibberish because even the idea of providing borrowed value to their "customers" is beside the point. The point is to disrupt the value of search engines by turning search results into income.
One of the psychological failures of online content culture--and I've whined about this many times before--is that the practice of "free content and I'll try to find a way to monetize it that the readers won't notice" has created a consumer culture that is encouraged to be oblivious to the notion that actual human beings create that free content, and that those human beings have goals and desires of their own in creating it that, if not fulfilled, may eventually result in the content drying up.
And, of course, this dynamic reaches its apotheosis in gibberish, keyword-scraped, click-farms that have entirely eliminated the step where actual human beings create content. The heat-death stage of that process is when the internet consists only of click-farming scrape-sites busily scraping each other's gibberish and feeding it back to each other. There are two group that process leaves out entirely in the cold: actual human beings who create content, and actual human beings who want to consume meaningful content.
It is, alas, a feature of human psychology that the easier it is to obtain something, the less we tend to value it. The ease of access to information that the internet provides can be immensely valuable. I can sit at home and locate scanned copies of unique historic documents for my research that I could never afford to have access to if I needed to see the actual object. And for the most part, the only thing I'm expected to "pay" for that information is an acknowledgement of the source and a link to direct other people to it. The "free content" movement embraces a certain amount of hostility to anything that impedes that access, whether by requiring subscription, or even just account registration.
The "free content" culture also encourages people to treat any online source of information as having a moral obligation to provide any additional data and interpretation that the user wants. I receive a fair amount of requests from people who want me to do personal research for them (even types of research that my web contact page explicitly says I won't do). You know what the major reason I cut way back on answering such requests (even answering to decline)? Because even when people are corresponding one-on-one with a real human being, they treat the content they receive as not even being worthy of a thank you. If I'm feeling particularly passive-agressive, I'll follow up with an email to say that I just wanted to make sure they received my response since I hadn't heard anything. But mostly, I just ignore the requests now. If I'm not going to get even a brief thank-you for personally tailored work, I'll stick to doing the content creation that gives me personal joy on its own.
But you know? It hurts. It hurts that if I break down and beg people to throw me a scrap of a bone to say that they find what I do valuable, I can get some responses. But I can't get the sort of ongoing, casual engagement that makes it a public joy to share my knowledge, my resources, my time, and my hard work. I don't want "likes", I want human interaction. I want dynamic engagement. I want people to just bleeping talk to me without me having to hold up a dog biscuit and say, "Speak!"
You know what people say when I point this out? "Oooooh, Heather, but you're too scary to talk to! You're so intimidating I wouldn't have any thing interesting to say!"
So I go out with a search engine and look for evidence that someone, somewhere, is talking about my work with other people (because they're scared to talk to me about it). And why I try to do that, I get drowned in content-scraping click-farms. The rob me of even any vicarious feedback.
If someone out there is creating original online content that makes your day a bit brighter and more interesting, if they're giving you something that you would miss if it weren't there, don't assume that they have any other reason to continue than the direct, one-on-one human contact that you have been trained not to consider necessary. Don't assume that everyone else is giving them that contact and that you'll be meaningless noise. Don't assume that they have somehow monetized your eyeballs and get their feedback in financial remuneration.That ship has long since sailed.
There's no rousing finish to this. No trumpet call. No simple and easy one-time solution. Just one little real live human being hoping that if only I'm interesting enough, if I'm eloquent enough, if I provide enough value to others, that maybe someone will want to talk to me.
