I’ve noticed something somewhat troubling on social media of late. Now that Facebook has monetized accounts, there is a whole lot of manufactured controversy popping up. Why? Because it sells. Or rather, garners clicks. Everybody can get paid for clicks.
Suddenly, everybody has to have an opinion. They can get paid for it! And the more obnoxious the opinion, the better. If there is a flurry of angry activity in the comment section, that’s engagement. Engagement pays.
This is digital evolution, and the related growing pains, and it’s okay. Everybody has to make a living, and as Scott Adams used to say, “Never leave free money on the table.”
Social media money is relatively easy money. But it’s lazy money. (Not always! Don’t come at me! It’s just that…often, it’s lazy. Lazy is saying the last, best triggering thing, and then jumping on every comment in the comment section. It is picking fights just to pick fights, to grow your page. Unfortunately, it works. It’s making the world an uglier place.)
The trouble with creating controversy for controversy’s sake just to provoke engagement is, it feeds further into our already broken social system. Pits people with the same interests against one another. Fractures people into smaller and smaller groups. Makes the real world less and less pleasant. Start calling it a job, and you can justify anything.
I’m not talking about politics (at least not the State and Federal kind), although the left vs. right divide has made a whole lot of folks a whole lot more comfortable aggressively taking sides and loudly setting hard boundaries in all walks of life…oftentimes to the detriment of all involved. I’m talking about mom-and-pop farms and hobby farms and rescue farms and horse breeders and goat breeders and so on and so forth.
There are a whole lot of bloviating, neatly ChatGPT-edited, posts circulating on every topic under the sun. Some farm pages are posting 10 and 12 times a day. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but it is a noticeable shift.
I suppose in time, the cream will rise to the top, and we’ll all gravitate to the few farm and livestock pages delivering the best content. It’s too much to hope for, but maybe instead we’ll all get so overwhelmed and bored with scrolling that we’ll set down our phones and go outside. But we’re evolving, and this how we feed our brains now.
I’ve resisted every opportunity to monetize anything on-line. I have a TikTok, but just to share Frank the cat videos. I don’t get paid for views. I encourage other people wholeheartedly to take advantage of the opportunities TikTok provides…don’t leave free money on the table. I just happen to have a face made for radio, and a personality that probably needs to be institutionalized. I don’t think my brand would sell anyway.
The appeal of a blog is, it feels a little old school, and I feel like very few people still have the bandwidth to read one. Our brains have been broken, and only 30-second video clips can really provide what they want. So in theory, I’m safe here, thinking my thoughts “out loud.” Nobody’s listening anyway.
Quit Mansplaining Raising Dairy Goats To Me: A Blog 