Maria Popova: That Horrific Word “Content” To Describe Cultural Material Today
How I Write’s David Perell recently interviewed Maria Popova, founder of The Marginalian, a blog she has been running since 2006 and to talk about the secret behind 20 years of daily writing.
Maria Popova shares her thoughts on researching archives in libraries, writings found in diaries, the importance of reading.
She made a very valid point that the internet ‘is not all there is’ when it comes to research:
“There are so many kinds of archives. First, I love the radical reminder that the internet is not all there is. The internet is a surface level of the ocean, a common record of human thought, wisdom, and knowledge. We often believe that if something cannot be found on the internet, it doesn’t exist.
It’s insane to think this, because so much has been thought, felt, written, created, and drawn that still dwells in university basements and libraries.”
But the part that resonated with me the most was about reducing arts and culture to “content”. Especially since it appears more and more arts and cultural institutions in the UAE and elsewhere have reduced it to that - by exhibiting/communicating/promoting events that are ‘Instgrammable’ - “Advertising carries the modern internet, and we’re making everything creative subservient to that.”
Below is the transcribed extract of what she said which is from the 53rd minute of the interview.
You can watch the complete interview or read the complete transcribed version here.
David: I have one more quote, from Susan Sontag. She wrote: “Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art. Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all.”
Maria: I love that because she wrote it long before we started using that horrific word, “content”, to describe cultural material today. This was long before the social web and the internet as we know it.
Yet, we have reduced creative work and cultural matter to what we call “content,” which presumes a container. In a way, it’s an accurate description because the container is advertising. Advertising carries the modern internet, and we’re making everything creative subservient to that.
It’s the “content” of the package that is being sold. I hate that; I’m allergic to the word “content.”
David: So the thing that bothers you most about it is that it’s units of information created to drive attention to...
Maria: To the container, to the ads. The “content” is used to sell the container, which is your attention within the advertising space.
Obviously, I’m at an extreme because I’ve never had advertising on my site, a radical choice on the internet for 20 years. Unfortunately, the web’s course has been toward reducing human beings to eyeballs and writing to “content.”
David: Is this part of the reason that you’ve moved towards books?
Maria: I think it’s a vicious cycle. I don’t want to end on a cynical note.
As an old lady who’s been online for 20 years, I believe content is rewarded in specific ways. Clickbait, for instance, works because it sells pages, and they sell pages to sell ads.
This has led to an increasing shallowing of cultural material as the internet has shifted towards clickbait, listicles, and “10 ways to...” content. I find it unsatisfying.
I’m not moving away from it on moral grounds, though I disagree with many of Silicon Valley’s business choices. I’m simply moving away from it as a human being who no longer finds it compelling.
Every artist’s art is a coping mechanism for whatever they are living through. Thoreau has written beautifully about the love of nature. Anna Eastman has written beautifully about erotic love. Alan Lightman writes beautifully about our love of knowledge, of illumination, and of the universe.
I write a lot about love because I haven’t figured it out. I’ve had and continue to have wonderful relationships, but I still feel that love is the great mystery: how to love each other better. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?