Person or Content?
Do you know a person or do you know content?
First let’s dissect the difference.
A person says, “hi,” or “good morning,” when you see them.
A content says, *GIF illustrated, three paragraph hot take for politics, popular IP, DIY, interpretive communal dance*
… you see the difference. More examples:
A person stands in front of or behind you in the grocery store aisle. You may or may not acknowledge they’re there.
A content is the 400th unnecessary and exhausting three-hour video/audio essay on why “The Last Jedi” was a poor exercise in subversion. There is a large red arrow in the thumbnail.
A person can squeeze your hand while waiting with you in the urgent care lobby.
A content is simultaneously more complex and more arbitrary. It offers pictures of a new back porch grill or lawn furniture, featuring a family pet (on the couch, not the grill).
Focus.
… come over to camera two, let’s touch on parasocial relationships. More specifically, let’s witness a whole new sub-genre of French rap.
Hip-hop recording artist and entertainer, Laylow, released his album, Trinity, in 2020. This artistic endeavor is an immersive, outstanding display of atmospheric cyberpunk fiction – an album-deep exploration of what it means to be infatuated with (essentially) content, content over person. The “person” in question is the protagonist’s romantic interest, Trinity, who (spoiler), in a mid-album twist, is revealed to be a software program … a program that has, to this point, engulfed Laylow’s life (and ours, as secondary witness) in a fire of debauchery and obsession.
Laylow, laying low - on artificial grass.
This destructive relationship parallels something many social media users are experiencing, in an exponentially sponsored and corruptive “feed,” they consume different content, then ingest and digest it right over the chest of their real, existing lives.
Recently, I opened a new social media account on Bluesky – a social media app that started as a Twitter research project and became an independent company in 2021, then, opened to everyone in 2024. It arguably aims for a decentralized structure that is more user friendly than Twitter (giving users more control over the content they receive in their feed. Even though one of the co-founders, ex-Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey left the project, stating it was making all the same mistakes as Twitter – take that as you will).
This is all to say that on my own journey through social media, scrolling through everyone’s content, everyone’s takes, re-takes, advertisements and memes what I miss most about it is—just saying “hi.”
What I find myself craving most in today’s town hall, is the boring, taboo, anti-content that is a simple salutation.
Hello.